Top Law Schools

I saw this article that shows loyola being tied for first in the amount of partners in the top 10 law firms in LA. here is a link to the article http://money-law.blogspot.com/2009/12/b ... geles.html So at first glance i would think that Loyola Should be the top choice, since i want to work in LA, but is the only reason why the numbers are like this because most loyola grads for the most part look for work in LA? The real question i am asking here is would it be a better idea to go to say a T14 school such as northwestern or cornell to find a job in big law in LA, or would loyola actually be better? thank you ♥

No. Go to the best ranked school possible to have a shot at LA big law.
However, if you don't have ties to Cali I would try to go to a Cali school.

So if you have ties go to the best ranked school possible.

Without ties I would look at the best ranked Cali school possible Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC.

Wow 51 partners in 25 years? With only 330 graduates a year?

Partnership numbers do not equal chance at big law.

You should be basing your decision off of the percentage of Loyola students who have gotten biglaw offers in L.A. in the past few years, not the raw number of Loyola grads who are current partners at large L.A. firms. This is about probability not raw numbers. You can't make partner before you get an associate position.

And why are you creating a false dichotomy between T14 and Loyola. No USC/UCLA with a scholarship or something?

Tiago Splitter wrote:Wow 51 partners in 25 years? With only 330 graduates a year?

Partnership numbers do not equal chance at big law.

lolwin

Yale is the best school for LA biglaw.

chimp wrote:You should be basing your decision off of the percentage of Loyola students who have gotten biglaw offers in L.A. in the past few years, not the raw number of Loyola grads who are current partners at large L.A. firms

And even that would be misleading. You might find, for example, that Loyola, when compared to Yale, places a higher percentage of its class into LA big law. But that wouldn't tell you that Loyola is better for LA big law; it would just be a reflection of the fact that a relatively small percentage of Yale grads are actually interested in applying to biglaw jobs in LA. If a Yale student—or a student of any top law school—decides to target the LA market, they're probably going to be in much better shape than a Loyola student.

shoeshine wrote:No. Go to the best ranked school possible to have a shot at LA big law.
However, if you don't have ties to Cali I would try to go to a Cali school.

So if you have ties go to the best ranked school possible.

Without ties I would look at the best ranked Cali school possible Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC.

Makes sense, thanks everyone. I live in California (1 hour away from LA) so i have ties to California ^_^

SarahKerrigan wrote:

shoeshine wrote:No. Go to the best ranked school possible to have a shot at LA big law.
However, if you don't have ties to Cali I would try to go to a Cali school.

So if you have ties go to the best ranked school possible.

Without ties I would look at the best ranked Cali school possible Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC.

Makes sense, thanks everyone. I live in California (1 hour away from LA) so i have ties to California ^_^

Echoing what Chimp said above: If you are in CA and want to work in LA biglaw, why would you pick Northwestern or Cornell over UCLA or USC (probably with at least a small scholarship if you have #s to get into T14)?

LA Big Law:
Stanford, USC, and UCLA dominate LA Biglaw. (Not blatant anti-Boalt trolling; just they tend to pwn the bay area). Loyola does well and is well represented relative to its rank, but not to that level. Harvard/Yale/Most of the T14 is very east coast centric....

Short version: No, LLS is not the best school for LA BigLaw.

Judge Philip Banks wrote:

SarahKerrigan wrote:

shoeshine wrote:No. Go to the best ranked school possible to have a shot at LA big law.
However, if you don't have ties to Cali I would try to go to a Cali school.

So if you have ties go to the best ranked school possible.

Without ties I would look at the best ranked Cali school possible Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC.

Makes sense, thanks everyone. I live in California (1 hour away from LA) so i have ties to California ^_^

Echoing what Chimp said above: If you are in CA and want to work in LA biglaw, why would you pick Northwestern or Cornell over UCLA or USC (probably with at least a small scholarship if you have #s to get into T14)?

I just figured I wont have a chance because USC/UCLA aren't splitter friendly. Would you say that going to Northwestern/Cornell would make it hard to find a job in LA or just not as easy? thanks again for all the info.

SarahKerrigan wrote:

Judge Philip Banks wrote:

SarahKerrigan wrote:

shoeshine wrote:No. Go to the best ranked school possible to have a shot at LA big law.
However, if you don't have ties to Cali I would try to go to a Cali school.

So if you have ties go to the best ranked school possible.

Without ties I would look at the best ranked Cali school possible Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC.

Makes sense, thanks everyone. I live in California (1 hour away from LA) so i have ties to California ^_^

Echoing what Chimp said above: If you are in CA and want to work in LA biglaw, why would you pick Northwestern or Cornell over UCLA or USC (probably with at least a small scholarship if you have #s to get into T14)?

I just figured I wont have a chance because USC/UCLA aren't splitter friendly. Would you say that going to Northwestern/Cornell would make it hard to find a job in LA or just not as easy? thanks again for all the info.

I honestly don't know enough to give you a good answer on that. I will say though that your ties to southern California would probably help, but coming from an out of state school (even highly ranked), you'd still probably have to put in more legwork to get a job in LA than if you were looking in Chicago or the East Coast. Wherever you end up, those are all great schools and you have a good shot at getting a great job from any of them.

shoeshine wrote:No. Go to the best ranked school possible to have a shot at LA big law.
However, if you don't have ties to Cali I would try to go to a Cali school.

So if you have ties go to the best ranked school possible.

Without ties I would look at the best ranked Cali school possible Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC.

Tie or no tie, it works like this:

L.A. is its own beast, especially if you're talking entertainment law as opposed to other forms of L.A. BigLaw. If you want Cali BigLaw or entertainment law, the L.A. schools actually hold their own market well either way.

The question is not whether you have "ties", but whether you will someday want to work outside of Cali. If you do, the prestige and portability of your JD matter a lot more.

Loyola does very well in LA but you need to be in the top of the class, if you were to check say Gibson, Irell, Latham for example for recent associates you'd find almost without exception they are Magna or more likely Summa...so yes it places well but only for the top of the class. Unless you are certain you can knock it out of the park, a safer bet would be to look for a higher ranked school.


Good luck