Elite Biglaw Forum

[hephaestus]

Okay, are people really saying that Penn > CLS and NYU now?

whatevs bros that's crazy talk, confirmed TLS data fail right here

To get you up to speed. ATL has Penn ranked at #5... ahead of CLS & NYU.

Wow! Above the Law! Seriously well respected peer reviewed publication there.

[jbagelboy]

Okay, are people really saying that Penn > CLS and NYU now?

whatevs bros that's crazy talk, confirmed TLS data fail right here

To get you up to speed. ATL has Penn ranked at #5... ahead of CLS & NYU.

Uhm, yes? and? my own private ranking system I invented last night after four whiskey sours places Cooley tied with Yale just about Florida Coastal, and Penn as #127 -- just to get you up to speed.

[dr123]

Okay, are people really saying that Penn > CLS and NYU now?

whatevs bros that's crazy talk, confirmed TLS data fail right here

To get you up to speed. ATL has Penn ranked at #5... ahead of CLS & NYU.

Wow! Above the Law! Seriously well respected peer reviewed publication there.

What makes USNEWS rankings more reputable than Above the law?

[jbagelboy]

Okay, are people really saying that Penn > CLS and NYU now?

whatevs bros that's crazy talk, confirmed TLS data fail right here

To get you up to speed. ATL has Penn ranked at #5... ahead of CLS & NYU.

Wow! Above the Law! Seriously well respected peer reviewed publication there.

What makes USNEWS rankings more reputable than Above the law?

not saying that. both are flawed

[hephaestus]

Okay, are people really saying that Penn > CLS and NYU now?

whatevs bros that's crazy talk, confirmed TLS data fail right here

To get you up to speed. ATL has Penn ranked at #5... ahead of CLS & NYU.

Wow! Above the Law! Seriously well respected peer reviewed publication there.

What makes USNEWS rankings more reputable than Above the law?

I don't think it's necessarily better. Every ranking system has its flaws. I just think its a bit premature to say that Penn is quantitatively better than CLS and NYU.

[dr123]

Yea, but none of the law school rankings are created by well respected peer reviewed publications.

[hephaestus]

Yea, but none of the law school rankings are created by well respected peer reviewed publications.

Yeah that's true. I shouldn't have exaggerated. I think that LST + ABA Data + NLJ250 data is a better indicator than either.

[jbagelboy]

Yea, but none of the law school rankings are created by well respected peer reviewed publications.

Isn't QS peer reviewed?

they have a penn bias (Quacquarelli went to Wharton..doh!) but still.

then again, their methodology is ridiculous at best.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Okay, are people really saying that Penn > CLS and NYU now?

whatevs bros that's crazy talk, confirmed TLS data fail right here

To get you up to speed. ATL has Penn ranked at #5... ahead of CLS & NYU.

Let it be known that this was the moment the Penn contigent officially stopped trying to make sense.

[Revolver066]

jklk

[timbs4339]

Okay, are people really saying that Penn > CLS and NYU now?

whatevs bros that's crazy talk, confirmed TLS data fail right here

To get you up to speed. ATL has Penn ranked at #5... ahead of CLS & NYU.

dat SCOTUS CLERK PLACEMENT and # of 75 year old federal judges FTW

[untar614]

Okay, are people really saying that Penn > CLS and NYU now?

whatevs bros that's crazy talk, confirmed TLS data fail right here

To get you up to speed. ATL has Penn ranked at #5... ahead of CLS & NYU.

dat SCOTUS CLERK PLACEMENT and # of 75 year old federal judges FTW

Please, everyone knows the quality of a school is determined by nuances in sticker COA.

[jingosaur]

I'm going to add my two cents here:

I have a very close connection who's in charge of recruiting at a V10. The gist of the conversation that I had was "we consider all T14 candidates as equals and outside of the T14, you either have a to be #1 in your class or editor of law review to get in".

I was in an Undergrad Business School which had its own OCI and I have my own personal experience at what top firms in any industry look for. From what I've learned and from what I've read on TLS, I've gathered that getting an ELITE law firm job requires being highly ranked at a good school AND having the interviewing skills, networking skills, and the luck to be given an offer at an "Elite Biglaw" firm (I agree that there are plenty of well-qualified no-offers out there). Yes, the top schools have better placement stats, but on the whole, whether you go to Penn with a little bit of money or whether you go to NYU or Columbia at sticker will generally have no bearing on where you ultimately end up as long as your approach is the same regardless of which school that you end up at.

I'm a 0L, so you can attack my credibility as much as you want, but I believe that the admissions process has tailored itself very well for top candidates for Law School and wherever you get in and however high the amount of scholarship money that you receive (as long as it's a T14 or a strong regional where you want to practice), your employment outcome will likely remain the same. If you're looking into T2 and beyond, it becomes a very different story. Those are some dangerous waters.

[Bronck]

I'm going to add my two cents here:

I have a very close connection who's in charge of recruiting at a V10. The gist of the conversation that I had was "we consider all T14 candidates as equals and outside of the T14, you either have a to be #1 in your class or editor of Law Review to get in".

I was in an Undergrad Business School which had its own OCI and I have my own personal experience at what top firms in any industry look for. From what I've learned and from what I've read on TLS, I've gathered that getting an ELITE law firm job requires being highly ranked at a good school AND having the interviewing skills, networking skills, and the luck to be given an offer at an "Elite Biglaw" firm (I agree that there are plenty of well-qualified no-offers out there). Yes, the top schools have better placement stats, but on the whole, whether you go to Penn with a little bit of money or whether you go to NYU or Columbia at sticker will generally have no bearing on where you ultimately end up as long as your approach is the same regardless of which school that you end up at.

I'm a 0L, so you can attack my credibility as much as you want, but I believe that the admissions process has tailored itself very well for top candidates for Law School and wherever you get in and however high the amount of scholarship money that you receive (as long as it's a T14 or a strong regional where you want to practice), your employment outcome will likely remain the same. If you're looking into T2 and beyond, it becomes a very different story. Those are some dangerous waters.

Lolno

[timbs4339]

I'm going to add my two cents here:

I have a very close connection who's in charge of recruiting at a V10. The gist of the conversation that I had was "we consider all T14 candidates as equals and outside of the T14, you either have a to be #1 in your class or editor of Law Review to get in".

I was in an Undergrad Business School which had its own OCI and I have my own personal experience at what top firms in any industry look for. From what I've learned and from what I've read on TLS, I've gathered that getting an ELITE law firm job requires being highly ranked at a good school AND having the interviewing skills, networking skills, and the luck to be given an offer at an "Elite Biglaw" firm (I agree that there are plenty of well-qualified no-offers out there). Yes, the top schools have better placement stats, but on the whole, whether you go to Penn with a little bit of money or whether you go to NYU or Columbia at sticker will generally have no bearing on where you ultimately end up as long as your approach is the same regardless of which school that you end up at.

I'm a 0L, so you can attack my credibility as much as you want, but I believe that the admissions process has tailored itself very well for top candidates for Law School and wherever you get in and however high the amount of scholarship money that you receive (as long as it's a T14 or a strong regional where you want to practice), your employment outcome will likely remain the same. If you're looking into T2 and beyond, it becomes a very different story. Those are some dangerous waters.

You're credibility isn't what's lacking. It's that almost every single sentence in the post is wrong.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Hiring can exist on a continuum from being purely reputation-based to being purely rank-based. Obviously every firm is somewhere in the middle, but the relative importance of each depends on the firm. For example, rumor has it that SullCrom is willing to go fairly deep into a class but hires mostly from just a few schools. On the other hand, DPW is rumored to hire from a lot of schools but have high grade cutoffs for most of them. It all depends on what exactly you're looking for.

In doing my admissions research, I spoke to maybe a dozen people familiar with the process, including a few directly involved in it. The answers I got regarding the "reputation vs. rank" notion were generally in line with what I've read on here. The most generous lean toward rank I heard was that median at Harvard was roughly equivalent to top 10% at GULC (n.b. that this was in DC). Most emphasized strong rank over strong reputation (which would seem to fit into the whole "DC doesn't hire out of the non-HYS top third" idea), although a few were adamant reputation mattered more. Most were fairly dismissive of the non-T14.

[Peyton]

I have a very close connection who's in charge of recruiting at a V10. The gist of the conversation that I had was "we consider all T14 candidates as equals and outside of the T14, you either have a to be #1 in your class or editor of Law Review to get in".

If you're looking into T2 and beyond, it becomes a very different story. Those are some dangerous waters.

That is exactly the way it works. There is the T-14 world followed by “all others.”

[Bronck]

Hiring can exist on a continuum from being purely reputation-based to being purely rank-based. Obviously every firm is somewhere in the middle, but the relative importance of each depends on the firm. For example, rumor has it that SullCrom is willing to go fairly deep into a class but hires mostly from just a few schools. On the other hand, DPW is rumored to hire from a lot of schools but have high grade cutoffs for most of them. It all depends on what exactly you're looking for.

In doing my admissions research, I spoke to maybe a dozen people familiar with the process, including a few directly involved in it. The answers I got regarding the "reputation vs. rank" notion were generally in line with what I've read on here. The most generous lean toward rank I heard was that median at Harvard was roughly equivalent to top 10% at GULC (n.b. that this was in DC). Most emphasized strong rank over strong reputation (which would seem to fit into the whole "DC doesn't hire out of the non-HYS top third" idea), although a few were adamant reputation mattered more. Most were fairly dismissive of the non-T14.

Huh? No.

[guano]

I have a very close connection who's in charge of recruiting at a V10. The gist of the conversation that I had was "we consider all T14 candidates as equals and outside of the T14, you either have a to be #1 in your class or editor of Law Review to get in".

If you're looking into T2 and beyond, it becomes a very different story. Those are some dangerous waters.

That is exactly the way it works. There is the T-14 world followed by “all others.”

Statistics do not bear this out.
The two most notable parts are: HYS, which definitely have a clear advantage I we the rest if the T14, and schools like BU/BC/Fordham/GW, where those firms do OCI and at the very least the top 10% are capable of getting into just about any V10
(Note:I left out UT/USC/UCLA/Vandy because I don't know for a fact that NYC V10 firms attend OCI there, whereas I am sure about the east coast schools)

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Hiring can exist on a continuum from being purely reputation-based to being purely rank-based. Obviously every firm is somewhere in the middle, but the relative importance of each depends on the firm. For example, rumor has it that SullCrom is willing to go fairly deep into a class but hires mostly from just a few schools. On the other hand, DPW is rumored to hire from a lot of schools but have high grade cutoffs for most of them. It all depends on what exactly you're looking for.

In doing my admissions research, I spoke to maybe a dozen people familiar with the process, including a few directly involved in it. The answers I got regarding the "reputation vs. rank" notion were generally in line with what I've read on here. The most generous lean toward rank I heard was that median at Harvard was roughly equivalent to top 10% at GULC (n.b. that this was in DC). Most emphasized strong rank over strong reputation (which would seem to fit into the whole "DC doesn't hire out of the non-HYS top third" idea), although a few were adamant reputation mattered more. Most were fairly dismissive of the non-T14.

Huh? No.

Oops, sorry, I realized I have that backwards. My mistake. The rumor was that DPW goes deep into a limited number of schools, while S&C hires from more schools but with strict rank requirements. The point is meant to be illustrative nonetheless.

For posterity's sake, S&C is 211/350 (60.3%) NY associates from T6, whereas DPW is 228/350 (65.1%). Not a huge practical difference in my mind, so take that for what you will.