Pilloriedbrain wrote:
I think you are an intelligent contributor. But you use ad hominine. Or however you spell it. I shan't need to worry about how intelligent I look. Nor do I need to concern myself with the way my words fly eloquently or not. All that counts is whether the substance I use is good. Now I shall list a few bottom tiered people. John Grisham attended University of Mississippi, the law school, currently a tier 3. His net worth is 220 million dollars. Not a good example, I'm sure. Christina Perez, tv judge, from Whittier. Judge Jeanine Pirro, news anchor, from Albany law school, was chairwomen of New York State CDVF. A Westchester court judge--Started as a district attorney. Megyn Kelly also attended Albany law school. But, what am trying to prove? Is that the name of the school ONLY matters when reaching the first job. After that, it's weight diminishes. My intelligence is not relevant in the argument.
Actually, I've responded substantively to each post you've written. While I have called some of your ideas dumb, I have answered you substantively every time.
I would again encourage you to use words that you know how to spell and use correctly. I can assure you that actual lawyers care much more than any reasonable person should about grammar errors. I can further assure you that misspelling words and making errors is an excellent way to get a reputation for doing sloppy work.
It's great that the people you mentioned are successful (despite the fact that Megan Kelly and Judge Pirro's shows have serious problems re: logic and use of facts). However, you are cherry picking the data that supports your argument. Specifically, you named four people, all of whom graduated law school a long time ago, while ignoring the tens of thousands of unemployed TTT grads that have graduated over the past decade. Thus, you've picked four data points that make your argument appear correct, while the data strongly suggests otherwise.
Further, the people you picked don't support your argument that strongly because their primary success was had outside the legal profession. The debate we are having here is whether HLS/T14 schools are TTTs lead people to be more successful
as lawyers. Therefore, the fact that an author, two TV personalities, and someone that has a law-related show (I'm referring to Christina Perez - those small claims judge shows are really more like reality shows than actual court) doesn't really help your argument.
To be clear, I'm not arguing that you can't be successful as a grad of a TTT law school. Rather, I'm arguing that (i) HLS and T14 schools are better if one wants to be successful as a lawyer; (ii) that working in a large law firm acts as a rubber stamp for other legal jobs - allowing large firm alumni to get jobs that are functionally impossible to get without that experience; and (iii)that the name of your law school, while it does become less significant over time, is always significant to some extent. With points (ii) and (iii) in mind, I'll turn my attention to a subsequent post
Pilloriedbrain wrote:
Well, I would never discourage some to get into thè best school they can. The benefit is mainly with the first job, then school name becomes ancillary especially after fiver years in. Also, the most ambitious people go to Harvard and the like making the school great, not the other way around. Which makes them preferable for their first job. However, after five years or so, I'd imagine the name means less to employers. Like would you hire a first timer from Harvard or a tier four lawyer with five years of directly relevant experience under his belt. Logic says the experienced one. Even if they were both first timers, they both passed the bar, the only difference is that name, hls. So first job, hls gets picked.
While your school name is most strongly correlated to your first job, that first job can and does act as a rubber stamp for subsequent jobs. Put differently, there are many jobs which are functionally impossible to get without large firm experience. Specifically, I'm thinking of roles such as GC at a unicorn startup, a variety of in house gigs, prestigious BigFed positions and partner at a large law firm. These mid and late career jobs overwhelmingly go to people with previous big firm experience. And graduates of top law schools overwhelmingly start their career in big firms. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to get to a big firm without having previous experience at a big firm (as has been well documented on this site, biglaw firms typically hire laterals from other biglaw firms). Ergo, your school can help you get your first job, which helps you get a subsequent role.
To put the above differently, while quality of work product is more important five years out, having biglaw experience is often a necessary rubber stamp for certain positions. If you don't have that initial experience, you often are not able to move up. Thus, school is beneficial, as it makes individuals more likely to get the experience that allows them to move on to subsequent positions.
Your post also ignores the importance of the relationships one gains in law school. Having relationships with successful classmates can be important in moving one's career forward. I'm fairly certain that ATL ran a story last year showing that associates and partners at failing firms were more likely to get a job after their firm failed if they went to a highly ranked school. This is likely due to the fact that going to a top LS helps one build relationships with peers who are also successful as attorneys, and are able to provide assistance when needed. Not going to do a deep dive on this point though.
The other logical flaw in the post above is your assumption that the legal profession is a meritocracy. The legal profession is not a meritocracy in the same way that business or engineering are meritocracies - there, quality of work is paramount and, at least as far as business is concerned, the market cares primarily about talent. Legal work, in contrast is not especially difficult. In fact, I would posit that any reasonably intelligent person, having gone to law school, is capable of doing most average legal work. Since the work itself is, in general, not particularly complicated, things such as school name tend to correlate strongly with success in this profession. Personally, I think the focus on school name is misplaced. It is, however, a reality that the legal profession is obsessed with prestige, and that the name of one's law school is of some importance.
