Top Law Schools

The devolution of this thread is truly epic. Thanks guys.

miamiman wrote:The devolution of this thread is truly epic. Thanks guys.

Haha yesss where did this BruceWayne dude come from?? He's now my favorite new poster-incredibly entertaining.

NU_Jet55 wrote:

miamiman wrote:The devolution of this thread is truly epic. Thanks guys.

Haha yesss where did this BruceWayne dude come from?? He's now my favorite new poster-incredibly entertaining.

It's pretty sad actually. The level of immaturity exhibited in some of the posts is ridiculous.

BruceWayne wrote:
It's pretty sad actually. The level of immaturity exhibited in some of the posts is ridiculous.

Maybe so, but let's not pretend that this post:

I see. Well it doesn't get much more reliable than autoadmit; I guess that settles it. The national law journal really needs to get their facts straight before they come out with these bogus placement studies, they could have at least verified with autoadmit before they released the info. http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1.

...is particularly intelligent (or mature for that matter). You consulted old, out of date statistics in order to refute more recent (albeit suspect) statistics. Bringing out-of-date NLJ data into the discussion about the current job market is disengenous without the caveat that the data is out-of-date, and thus limited in its application to the current situation.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced that you realized that the data you were using was old as hell until DB brought it to your attention, but we'll leave that issue alone.

romothesavior wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:
It's pretty sad actually. The level of immaturity exhibited in some of the posts is ridiculous.

Maybe so, but let's not pretend that this post:

I see. Well it doesn't get much more reliable than autoadmit; I guess that settles it. The national law journal really needs to get their facts straight before they come out with these bogus placement studies, they could have at least verified with autoadmit before they released the info. http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1.

...is particularly intelligent (or mature for that matter). You consulted old, out of date statistics in order to refute more recent (albeit suspect) statistics. Bringing out-of-date NLJ data into the discussion about the current job market is disengenous without the caveat that the data is out-of-date, and thus limited in its application to the current situation.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced that you realized that the data you were using was old as hell until DB brought it to your attention, but we'll leave that issue alone.

Thank you for responding with a well thought out and mature response. We'll just have to agree to disagree with whether or not my post you quoted was "intelligent" or mature (although obviously it was sarcastic). In terms of using out of date stats to support my argument, obviously you are correct in stating that that isn't the best support for my argument. What I am arguing, is that it is much better support than the anecdotes of autoadmit.com (regardless as to how "up to date" it is) because literally nothing but anecdote. It isn't from a verified placement study, it isn't data released from the schools, it isn't even the very limited but verified employment percentages from US News: it's purely anonymously posted anecdote from a racist, misogynistic, and elitist online forum. Honestly, not only is it anecdote, but it's anecdote from a notoriously unregulated and highly controversial internet echo chamber.

Not providing this information about autoadmit.com and then somehow using the anecdotes pulled from the website as the only support for one's argument is not only disingenuous, it's borderline absurd. The completely unverified autoadmit "data' isn't just limited in its application to the current situation, it's extremely limited in it's application to essentially any situation because of it's anecdotal and unreliable nature. In essence, the only thing wrong with the nlj data is it's age.

Furthermore, why would the change in the economy lead to a school that was doing worse in nlj 250 placement before the crash, lead to it actually doing better after the crash (which is what this idea of the "top 6" hinges on, since people are suggesting that now NYU is safe while NU, UVA, and Michigan are a "bloodbath")? I'm open to this being a possibility but why is it that this highly counter intuitive (well counter intuitive if you aren't using US News rank as your primary placement source) presumption the credited one? So instead of relying on the most recent reliable placement stats we're going to rely on autoadmit and US News? Only on TLS would that line of reasoning be viewed as even remotely sensible.

And believe me I knew that the nlj numbers were not 100 percent up to date; in almost every thread where a poster is trying to reconcile the "top 6" notion with the placement data someone runs in and mentions how it's not up to date. It's akin to how everyone knows that the reason Harvard and Yale don't land in the top of the nlj chart is a result of their massive fed clerkship placement. I believe that the nlj even mentions this in their report of the data.

BruceWayne wrote:Furthermore, why would the change in the economy lead to a school that was doing worse in nlj 250 placement before the crash, lead to it actually doing better after the crash (which is what this idea of the "top 6" hinges on, since people are suggesting that now NYU is safe while NU, UVA, and Michigan are a "bloodbath")?

Sigh.

OK, here's how it went down:

In August, September, and October 2007 large law firms made 8,000,000,000 offers to any law student with a pulse. They probably made some offers to dead ones too, just to be safe. We're talking 160 fucking summer associates at Cravath. One hundred and sixty. It was incomprehensibly easy to get an SA position. 80-100% of the T14 were getting summer offers, grades were barely a barrier, rum was flowing in the streets. NY was perilously close to going to 190.

In August 2008, those summers enjoyed wrapping up their lavish experiences. Hooray! Everything was great! And the rising 2Ls of the class of 2010 readied their resumes and transcripts for another round of legal recruiting.

Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 15, 2008.

Everything changed. Recruiting got slashed. Deferrals were made. Offers to summers return for full time employment were revoked or never extended, and the world ended.

The NALP 2009 data reports the total number of graduates of the class of 2009 moving on to big firm work. The collapse disproportionately struck those who already had SA positions from some firms, which means that T6 schools that fed heavily into NYC saw bigger "hits" than other schools, because they had the most exposure.

In Fall '08, '09, and now in '10 summer class sizes are dramatically smaller. A direct consequence of that was the fundamental change in recruiting models. Skadden was hiring 300+ summers, and then it began to hire more like ~100 firm wide. Historical placement means shit in the new economy, because firms used to have to compete with one another just to fill their enormous classes. In the age of smaller classes, the T14 hierarchy means substantially more than it used to. Back in the day Harvard v. Columbia v. Michigan v. Georgetown really meant a slight difference in the kind of firm you could work for and nothing else. In the present recruiting climate, it makes an enormous difference in how deeply into the class any firm is willing to dig.

Executive summary: T6 schools had exposure to the NYC market that caused their numbers to look worse for class of '09 but likely be substantially better than other T14 schools for subsequent hiring.

BruceWayne wrote:I'm open to this being a possibility

That's big of you.

....

...

disco_barred wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:Furthermore, why would the change in the economy lead to a school that was doing worse in nlj 250 placement before the crash, lead to it actually doing better after the crash (which is what this idea of the "top 6" hinges on, since people are suggesting that now NYU is safe while NU, UVA, and Michigan are a "bloodbath")?

Sigh.

OK, here's how it went down:

In August, September, and October 2007 large law firms made 8,000,000,000 offers to any law student with a pulse. They probably made some offers to dead ones too, just to be safe. We're talking 160 fucking summer associates at Cravath. One hundred and sixty. It was incomprehensibly easy to get an SA position. 80-100% of the T14 were getting summer offers, grades were barely a barrier, rum was flowing in the streets. NY was perilously close to going to 190.

In August 2008, those summers enjoyed wrapping up their lavish experiences. Hooray! Everything was great! And the rising 2Ls of the class of 2010 readied their resumes and transcripts for another round of legal recruiting.

Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 15, 2008.

Everything changed. Recruiting got slashed. Deferrals were made. Offers to summers return for full time employment were revoked or never extended, and the world ended.

The NALP 2009 data reports the total number of graduates of the class of 2009 moving on to big firm work. The collapse disproportionately struck those who already had SA positions from some firms, which means that T6 schools that fed heavily into NYC saw bigger "hits" than other schools, because they had the most exposure.

In Fall '08, '09, and now in '10 summer class sizes are dramatically smaller. A direct consequence of that was the fundamental change in recruiting models. Skadden was hiring 300+ summers, and then it began to hire more like ~100 firm wide. Historical placement means shit in the new economy, because firms used to have to compete with one another just to fill their enormous classes. In the age of smaller classes, the T14 hierarchy means substantially more than it used to. Back in the day Harvard v. Columbia v. Michigan v. Georgetown really meant a slight difference in the kind of firm you could work for and nothing else. In the present recruiting climate, it makes an enormous difference in how deeply into the class any firm is willing to dig.

Executive summary: T6 schools had exposure to the NYC market that caused their numbers to look worse for class of '09 but likely be substantially better than other T14 schools for subsequent hiring.

BruceWayne wrote:I'm open to this being a possibility

That's big of you.

The only part of your post I take issue with is the bolded. The bolded all rests on one assumption: that the exact overall U.S News rankings represent the real world top 14 hierarchy. This idea of the "top 6" being the schools that firms are willing to go deeper into means that firms are willing to hire deeper into the classes of Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, and NYU. Now all the data points towards firms going deeper into HYS and CC than they do at the rest of the top 14 (the nlj numbers, rep scores, and national firm placement all reflect this). Now the numbers do not do the same for NYU. The NLJ numbers don't reflect this, the rep scores don't reflect it, and nationwide placement doesn't reflect it. However, there is this pervasive idea on TLS that if you are at NYU you are "safe" while if you are at any top 14 ranked from 7-14 you are not. This idea is based on US News overall rank and conjecture; nothing more.

If people really are so obsessed with the need to make a demarcation in the rankings for job safety and placement, using "top 5" would at least be based on something other than conjecture and hypotheses. It should be "HYS" "top 5" "top 14" and "top 18".

Finally, your argument about the top 6 schools being more exposed to the NYC market being the reason for their "poor" showing only applies to NYU. HYS and Chicago did fine, and more telling Columbia (a school just as heavily "exposed' to the NY market as NYU) made a showing near the tip top of the nlj 250. Why is it that NYU is the only school in the supposed "top 6" that even requires your theory to explain it's placement? Could it be (especially since all the other factors point in that direction) that it really isn't above the other top 14 schools like HYS and CC?

BruceWayne wrote:

disco_barred wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:Furthermore, why would the change in the economy lead to a school that was doing worse in nlj 250 placement before the crash, lead to it actually doing better after the crash (which is what this idea of the "top 6" hinges on, since people are suggesting that now NYU is safe while NU, UVA, and Michigan are a "bloodbath")?

Sigh.

OK, here's how it went down:

In August, September, and October 2007 large law firms made 8,000,000,000 offers to any law student with a pulse. They probably made some offers to dead ones too, just to be safe. We're talking 160 fucking summer associates at Cravath. One hundred and sixty. It was incomprehensibly easy to get an SA position. 80-100% of the T14 were getting summer offers, grades were barely a barrier, rum was flowing in the streets. NY was perilously close to going to 190.

In August 2008, those summers enjoyed wrapping up their lavish experiences. Hooray! Everything was great! And the rising 2Ls of the class of 2010 readied their resumes and transcripts for another round of legal recruiting.

Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 15, 2008.

Everything changed. Recruiting got slashed. Deferrals were made. Offers to summers return for full time employment were revoked or never extended, and the world ended.

The NALP 2009 data reports the total number of graduates of the class of 2009 moving on to big firm work. The collapse disproportionately struck those who already had SA positions from some firms, which means that T6 schools that fed heavily into NYC saw bigger "hits" than other schools, because they had the most exposure.

In Fall '08, '09, and now in '10 summer class sizes are dramatically smaller. A direct consequence of that was the fundamental change in recruiting models. Skadden was hiring 300+ summers, and then it began to hire more like ~100 firm wide. Historical placement means shit in the new economy, because firms used to have to compete with one another just to fill their enormous classes. In the age of smaller classes, the T14 hierarchy means substantially more than it used to. Back in the day Harvard v. Columbia v. Michigan v. Georgetown really meant a slight difference in the kind of firm you could work for and nothing else. In the present recruiting climate, it makes an enormous difference in how deeply into the class any firm is willing to dig.

Executive summary: T6 schools had exposure to the NYC market that caused their numbers to look worse for class of '09 but likely be substantially better than other T14 schools for subsequent hiring.

BruceWayne wrote:I'm open to this being a possibility

That's big of you.

The only part of your post I take issue with is the bolded. The bolded all rests on one assumption: that the exact overall U.S News rankings represent the real world top 14 hierarchy. This idea of the "top 6" being the schools that firms are willing to go deeper into means that firms are willing to hire deeper into the classes of Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, and NYU. Now all the data points towards firms going deeper into HYS and CC than they do at the rest of the top 14 (the nlj numbers, rep scores, and national firm placement all reflect this). Now the numbers do not do the same for NYU. The NLJ numbers don't reflect this, the rep scores don't reflect it, and nationwide placement doesn't reflect it. However, there is this pervasive idea on TLS that if you are at NYU you are "safe" while if you are at any top 14 ranked from 7-14 you are not. This idea is based on US News overall rank and conjecture; nothing more.

If people really are so obsessed with the need to make a demarcation in the rankings for job safety and placement, using "top 5" would at least be based on something other than conjecture and hypotheses. It should be "HYS" "top 5" "top 14" and "top 18".

Finally, your argument about the top 6 schools being more exposed to the NYC market being the reason for their "poor" showing only applies to NYU. HYS and Chicago did fine, and more telling Columbia (a school just as heavily "exposed' to the NY market as NYU) made a showing near the tip top of the nlj 250. Why is it that NYU is the only school in the supposed "top 6" that even requires your theory to explain it's placement? Could it be (especially since all the other factors point in that direction) that it really isn't above the other top 14 schools like HYS and CC?

I really have no idea what you think I'm basing my data on, but it sure as hell isn't U.S. News scores. NYU places waaaaaaaay better into the enormous NYC based law firms than MVPB etc. That makes the T6 a convenient shorthand and is totally backed up by on the ground hiring data, GPA cutoffs, etc. I have been mired in over the course of my OCI process for the past few months.

I don't have any idea why you keep referencing the c/o 2009 NLJ placement data. It's just not relevant, at all, even a little bit.

And nobody is arguing about "safety" at any school. H kids are striking out. Welcome to ITE. But there is concrete data that the top 6 law schools, based on U.S. News scores, are currently placing more students into SA positions than the other schools. It includes NYU. And it isn't BECAUSE of UNWR, it's incidental to it.

.

In response to disco barred. Apparently we are talking about two different things. I was not talking about NYC placement; I was talking about the schools' placement into jobs period. If you're only talking about working in New York then using the "top6" moniker makes sense. I was talking about national placement. And while you were referencing the "top 6 for NYC" I believe other posters were talking about national placement.

kurama wrote:In response to the bolded your RC skills are atrocious. I stated multiple times that the data was obviously old, the point is that they are the most recent reliable data we have, and yet many are just completely throwing those away and guessing as to what current placement is with US News and internet rumor (read autoadmit) and treating it as fact. Worse yet, lets just say for arguments sake that I did think the data was the most recent, your argument is that since the autoadmit thread is current it's more reliable? Seriously, you really want your argument to rest on autoadmit.com? Suddenly quoting autoadmit is a trump card?

Bolded has some merit, as far as questioning the validity of internet rumors. But as many have pointed out, boom time data has zero applicability in ITE. In other words, both datasets are equally unreliable (Except for the Chicago and Columbia stats which were, in fact, based on comprehensive data provided by the schools and verifiable by any and all current students). I'm not fighting you here so you don't need to misdirect the conversation.

My point is that I don't see any post where you "stated multiple times that the data was obviously old" BEFORE you were called out. I mean obviously you dug yoursel a hole so deep that you will never admit it - but none of us believe that you weren't confused about the dates.

kurama wrote:I can't help you if you can't find the ad hominem it in this post. You may want to refrain from accusing someone of improperly using a term if you don't actually know what it means.

I hate to pull an EmmyD on you, but come on! you've been around long enough to know the difference between an ad hominem fallacy and plain insults.

"You are an idiot, so your claim about the employment data is wrong" is an ad hominem. "You are an idiot and your claim about the employment data is wrong," while insulting and independently a logical fallacy, is not an ad hominem.