Top Law Schools

Which does best in biglaw outside of the Midwest?

ND
WUSTL
Indiana
Illinois

Please explain your vote, thanks

Don't go to any of them if you don't want Midwest, but ND, but only because its comparing not good, to none at all.

Notre Dame by a long shot. But if Vault is any indication, emlpoyers may begin increasing their hiring from Indy soon enough.

Desert Fox wrote:Don't go to any of them if you don't want Midwest, but ND, but only because its comparing not good, to none at all.

...yup.

BruceBarr wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:Don't go to any of them if you don't want Midwest, but ND, but only because its comparing not good, to none at all.

...yup.

I voted for ND.

How would these schools play out in Chicago? My initial guess is ND-Illinois-WUSTL-Indy.

ArtVandelay wrote:How would these schools play out in Chicago? My initial guess is ND-Illinois-WUSTL-Indy.

UIUC> ND = WUSTL < Indy

ND for sure I think, very strong alumni network across the nation.

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rookhawk wrote:ND (in Chicago) is in a different league. It runs regionally with Chicago and Northwestern...sometimes higher because it is the Roman Catholic Ivy for all intents and purposes.

In Chicago, I'd argue that UofI is then in the circle with Loyola, Kent and WUSL.

Then in "also ran" category you have the Indiana/Bloomington and Indy.

You leave the region with any of these minus ND, Chicago and Northwestern....you have no credibility unless you're measuring how great a state school you went to. UofI is like a Wisconsin or a Minnesota or a Texas...fine state schools that get less respect than private schools in most instances.

ND runs nowhere near Chicago or NU. UIUC beats ND in Chicago (but ND beats UIUC everywhere in the country).

I'm still LOLing at ND beating NU or Chicago because its a Catholic Ivy.

ND can't place more than 15% of its class in big law in this economy.

ND, then WashU, with UIUC chasing the buttskirts IMO. idk about IUB.

ND & WashU have somewhat comparable placements outside the Midwest, with ND seemingly doing better on the West coast and WashU doing slightly better on the East coast, but neither UIUC or IUB seem to be anywhere in the same league as either school.

any attack on these findings on the basis of self-selection would probably succeed.

In conclusion, if given these four choices and you need to pick the more national school, I'd go with either ND or WashU

Desert Fox wrote:

rookhawk wrote:ND (in Chicago) is in a different league. It runs regionally with Chicago and Northwestern...sometimes higher because it is the Roman Catholic Ivy for all intents and purposes.

In Chicago, I'd argue that UofI is then in the circle with Loyola, Kent and WUSL.

Then in "also ran" category you have the Indiana/Bloomington and Indy.

You leave the region with any of these minus ND, Chicago and Northwestern....you have no credibility unless you're measuring how great a state school you went to. UofI is like a Wisconsin or a Minnesota or a Texas...fine state schools that get less respect than private schools in most instances.

ND runs nowhere near Chicago or NU. UIUC beats ND in Chicago (but ND beats UIUC everywhere in the country).

I'm still LOLing at ND beating NU or Chicago because its a Catholic Ivy.

ND can't place more than 15% of its class in big law in this economy.

do you think ND grads are in danger of not finding jobs ITE....like even valuable (career-wise) 50k/year legal jobs?

Lxw wrote:ND, then WashU, with UIUC chasing the buttskirts IMO. idk about IUB.

ND & WashU have somewhat comparable placements outside the Midwest, with ND seemingly doing better on the West coast and WashU doing slightly better on the East coast, but neither UIUC or IUB seem to be anywhere in the same league as either school.

i agree with the assessment. but i think the placement outside the midwest has more to do with the people attending the schools. i'm thinking since more people go to washu and nd from all over the country than iub and uiuc, more of their students place all over ( back to where they came from).

ArtVandelay wrote:Which does best in biglaw outside of the Midwest?

ND
WUSTL
Indiana
Illinois

Notre Dame by far - 10%+ in CA and 10%+ in NY

It's interesting what the other posters are taking about.

Only taking into account T50 midwest schools:

For the midwest, the strongest two public institutions (past T14) are the University of Iowa (used to consistently be ranked #19; it is the most portable public school in the midwest past the University of Michigan) and the University of Minnesota (consistently ranked around #20; not quite as portable as Iowa but still a strong midwest public school).

On the other hand, the two weakest public institutions are Indiana Bloomington (Only recently has reached prominence; it lacks a strong regional reputation) and the University of Illinois (Only because it only feeds into one saturated market in which it is probably school number 4 at best in the market - also all of the other public schools in the region have "secondary" markets that they have at least some access to).

Also the strongest two private institutions (past T14) are the University of Notre Dame (while it is strongest in IL, it is widely considered to be a "national" school) and Washington University (only recently has been ranked high; it is not particularly portable - yet it's IL placement is getting better).

*Side note: Case Western is severely underrated - it places more in Big Law than Ohio State (Case is in Ohio). Case would probably be one of the top 5 non-T14 law programs in the midwest for "Big Law." Yet no one cares about it because it's outside of the T50 while people simultaneously go crazy of IUB when IUB has nothing new to show for itself except for higher expenditures per student.

+1

rookhawk wrote:Well,

Here is the list of notable grads from ND:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Un ... ame_alumni

And here is the list of notable grads from UofI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Un ... ble_alumni

Interesting that the lists of people are somewhat similar in length, yet ND is dwarfed by UofI when it comes to the size of student body. Unquestionably, ND per capita puts out more top talent than UofI or the other state schools discussed.

That you think that comparing Wikipedia lists is a good way of determining which university is better should be fairly embarrassing to Notre Dame.

Notre Dame is a good school, but its nowhere near as good at NU or Chicago, and nobody but insane Notre Dame alumni think so.

ND law places a little more of its class into big law than UIUC, but it does so nationally. UIUC places pretty much all its big law inside chicago. ITE its pretty much top 10% for either school. There is no question ND law is better nationally than UIUC.

As far as which University is better a whole? For a generic BA ND is probably better, but UIUC has much better graduate programs. UIUC is an international research institution.