Top Placing Classes (NLJ250 and Federal Clerkships) Forum

[Informative]

I agree. I think you need to exercise perspective and caution when looking at these rankings, but then again I think you need to do the same when looking at US News. If something doesn't feel right (Minnesota/WUSTL ranked higher than Fordham/GW/BC/BU in US News, for example), then the rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. Of course, they are the rankings so that doesn't necessarily make them wrong (it is what it is), but possibly inaccurate in the inferences you are supposed to draw.

[2011Law]

Anyone know how UF places? My guess from looking at the other schools listed is that its about 15%, though probably lower ITE, so maybe closer to 10% is more likely?

[tipler4213]

This is all very interesting, even the constant bickering. This question will get mocked, but what are people's perceptions (or is there data) for how well schools place in government, i.e. DoJ, GC at DHS, etc.

(yes, i understand most people who end up in these offices likely get clerkships first, and yes, I understand there are other less debt-ridden routes to government other than law, and yes, I know international law doesn't exist, and yes, I know that you cannot count on doing well enough in law school to get these extremely competitive positions)

[d34d9823]

This is all very interesting, even the constant bickering. This question will get mocked, but what are people's perceptions (or is there data) for how well schools place in government, i.e. DoJ, GC at DHS, etc.

(yes, i understand most people who end up in these offices likely get clerkships first, and yes, I understand there are other less debt-ridden routes to government other than law, and yes, I know international law doesn't exist, and yes, I know that you cannot count on doing well enough in law school to get these extremely competitive positions)

I haven't seen data, but given the enormous amount of career incest between legal fields, I would expect numbers to reflect BigLaw, with biases based on region.

[Informative]

Agreed. Not all clerkships are on the same playing field.

[Fark-o-vision]

Anyone else surprised that IU-B didn't place in the top 50 of this last? Of course, this isn't the end all be all, but for a fairly predictive data set you'd expect to see the 23rd (or whatever) ranked school on the list.

[d34d9823]

Anyone else surprised that IU-B didn't place in the top 50 of this last? Of course, this isn't the end all be all, but for a fairly predictive data set you'd expect to see the 23rd (or whatever) ranked school on the list.

Location matters more than rankings past T17 or so.

[Fark-o-vision]

Anyone else surprised that IU-B didn't place in the top 50 of this last? Of course, this isn't the end all be all, but for a fairly predictive data set you'd expect to see the 23rd (or whatever) ranked school on the list.

IU-B's ranking is more indicative of their willingness to bust ass to game the rankings than of their ability to place students.

I was aware of that, which is why somewhere in the thirties or forties would not have surprised, but yikes. Oh, well. Also, ND seemed to do alarmingly well, given how poorly their OCI process seemed to go this year.

[09042014]

Anyone else surprised that IU-B didn't place in the top 50 of this last? Of course, this isn't the end all be all, but for a fairly predictive data set you'd expect to see the 23rd (or whatever) ranked school on the list.

IU-B's ranking is more indicative of their willingness to bust ass to game the rankings than of their ability to place students.

I was aware of that, which is why somewhere in the thirties or forties would not have surprised, but yikes. Oh, well. Also, ND seemed to do alarmingly well, given how poorly their OCI process seemed to go this year.

C/O 2009 did OCI in 2007.

Schools that placed heavily into Chicago got owned. Chicago as a city went from around 809 Summer Associates for C/O 2009, to 581 for 2010, to 256 in 2011. That is less than a third of the spots from the peak til Class of 2011.

What makes matters worse is that Chicago firms, instead of reducing the numbers from each school by 2/3rd, just didn't go to OCI at UIUC, WUSTL, or ND. Many top chicago firms only went to Harvard, UChi, Michigan and Northwestern.

UIUC, WUSTL and ND will have atrocious data for class of 2011.

Schools like WUSTL and ND did send some people nationally, but firms from around the country weren't going to fly to the midwest to pick up an associate when ITE the top of their nearby schools are available.

[ATR]

Schools that placed heavily into Chicago got owned. Chicago as a city went from around 809 Summer Associates for C/O 2009, to 581 for 2010, to 256 in 2011. That is less than a third of the spots from the peak til Class of 2011.

Just curious, where do you access this kind of data? I'd like to be aware of this type of thing when deciding on schools in April.

[09042014]

Schools that placed heavily into Chicago got owned. Chicago as a city went from around 809 Summer Associates for C/O 2009, to 581 for 2010, to 256 in 2011. That is less than a third of the spots from the peak til Class of 2011.

Just curious, where do you access this kind of data? I'd like to be aware of this type of thing when deciding on schools in April.

Nalp directory.

[2011Law]

This may have been asked already here, but I didn't feel like looking through the whole thread. I realize that BU is only ranked slightly better than BC, but what gives? Why is BC out-placing both BU and GW?

[Helmholtz]

UIUC, WUSTL and ND will have atrocious data for class of 2011.

+1

RIP, T25 midwest Cs/O 2011.

[Blindmelon]

This may have been asked already here, but I didn't feel like looking through the whole thread. I realize that BU is only ranked slightly better than BC, but what gives? Why is BC out-placing both BU and GW?

For one thing, the BU number is wrong.

[2011Law]

This may have been asked already here, but I didn't feel like looking through the whole thread. I realize that BU is only ranked slightly better than BC, but what gives? Why is BC out-placing both BU and GW?

For one thing, the BU number is wrong.

This was made in April 2008, but I think it shows what was up.

http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/composite.pdf

According to the chart, BC placed about 31% in the NLJ 250 while BU placed about 26%, but BU placed about 10% in grad school / academia while BC placed about 3%. Then again BC placed about 13% in clerkships to BU's 7%. These placement percentages are only for inside Massachusetts.

[Blindmelon]

This may have been asked already here, but I didn't feel like looking through the whole thread. I realize that BU is only ranked slightly better than BC, but what gives? Why is BC out-placing both BU and GW?

For one thing, the BU number is wrong.

This was made in April 2008, but I think it shows what was up.

http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/composite.pdf

According to the chart, BC placed about 31% in the NLJ 250 while BU placed about 26%, but BU placed about 10% in grad school / academia while BC placed about 3%. Then again BC placed about 13% in clerkships to BU's 7%. These placement percentages are only for inside Massachusetts.

Yea, thats not very helpful. BU sends a lot to firms in NYC. If you look at the actual NLJ data (not the summary chart, which is wrong), BU/BC are pretty much identical with firm placement, with BU having a not insignificant edge when it comes to vault ranking.

[RVP11]

This may have been asked already here, but I didn't feel like looking through the whole thread. I realize that BU is only ranked slightly better than BC, but what gives? Why is BC out-placing both BU and GW?

For one thing, the BU number is wrong.

This was made in April 2008, but I think it shows what was up.

http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/composite.pdf

According to the chart, BC placed about 31% in the NLJ 250 while BU placed about 26%, but BU placed about 10% in grad school / academia while BC placed about 3%. Then again BC placed about 13% in clerkships to BU's 7%. These placement percentages are only for inside Massachusetts.

No, those percentages are NOT just for inside Massachusetts. People misread that chart all the time.

[2011Law]

This may have been asked already here, but I didn't feel like looking through the whole thread. I realize that BU is only ranked slightly better than BC, but what gives? Why is BC out-placing both BU and GW?

For one thing, the BU number is wrong.

This was made in April 2008, but I think it shows what was up.

http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/composite.pdf

According to the chart, BC placed about 31% in the NLJ 250 while BU placed about 26%, but BU placed about 10% in grad school / academia while BC placed about 3%. Then again BC placed about 13% in clerkships to BU's 7%. These placement percentages are only for inside Massachusetts.

No, those percentages are NOT just for inside Massachusetts. People misread that chart all the time.

My bad.

[Informative]

Bumping due to discussion in another thread.

[Ialdabaoth]

Bumping due to discussion in another thread.

Informative, would you (or anyone else) be interested in updating these rankings to include the latest clerkship and NLJ250 data (when they are available)?

[soullesswonder]

Bumping due to discussion in another thread.

Informative, would you (or anyone else) be interested in updating these rankings to include the latest clerkship and NLJ250 data (when they are available)?

It'd be better just to start a new thread

[Ialdabaoth]

Bumping due to discussion in another thread.

Informative, would you (or anyone else) be interested in updating these rankings to include the latest clerkship and NLJ250 data (when they are available)?

It'd be better just to start a new thread

I agree. I just thought maybe I would find some people still following this thread who also wanted to work on this.

[Informative]

This may have been asked already here, but I didn't feel like looking through the whole thread. I realize that BU is only ranked slightly better than BC, but what gives? Why is BC out-placing both BU and GW?

Just demonstrates the willingness of top law firms in boston and New York to go deeper into the BC class, but if you think about the stats, this really only accounts for ten or so more students per year hired. Still, better than most schools. When you put the clerkship stats into account as the OP did, BC jumps ahead of BU and GW even more. Not surprising if you've ever worked in the Boston market, which has a heavy BC presence at the top firms.

But it should be noted that most students aren't going to see any significant difference if they attend BU. GW is just very different given that their students aren't feeding into NY and Boston, which are heavily dominated by NLJ250. DC is more of a government town and a lot of GW students go into Gov't instead.

[Informative]

Did they release updated info for 2011? Clerkshp stats probably didn't fluctuate much, but I'd be interested to see if the law firm hiring changed based on geographic variables. I'd imagine the california and chicago schools were hit pretty hard. Boston and DC firms probably remained or increased class sizes from local schools.

[Blindmelon]

Did they release updated info for 2011? Clerkshp stats probably didn't fluctuate much, but I'd be interested to see if the law firm hiring changed based on geographic variables. I'd imagine the california and chicago schools were hit pretty hard. Boston and DC firms probably remained or increased class sizes from local schools.

I know Boston increased a lot from last year. Just from what I learned at OCI, Choate Hall and Stewart didn't have a summer class last year, but this year are taking 15. WilmerHale went from 25 to 33 this summer, Ropes and Gray is taking a whopping 70 associates up from 35 last year, Goodwin Proctor went up by about 10 or so, so all in all, hiring is up.

Also, just looking at where BU people summered last year, its nothing close to the number of people at big firms in Boston this summer. This summer, I know a lot of people working in Boston, at least 4 at Ropes, 6 at Goodwin, 5 at Wilmer, a few at Choate, Foley and Lardner, Mintz Levin, Weil, foley hoag, etc. Also, it seems like NYC is bouncing back in a big way as I know of people working at places like S&C, Cleary, etc.