Top Law Schools

Honestly...I really doubt that the quality of education at a T-14 is better than a T-14+.
Am i really going to get a better education at Cornell when compared to Minnesota/Emory/Iowa/Illinois/WUSTL just
because some mag put a lower number next to it????

Really??? I doubt it.

The stupid USNEWS ranking should be abolished. Law Schools should decide not to participate.

You're arguing against a position that no one is taking. We go to top law schools for the jobs.

itsmytime10 wrote:Honestly...I really doubt that the quality of education at a T-14 is better than a T-14+.
Am i really going to get a better education at Cornell when compared to Minnesota/Emory/Iowa/Illinois/WUSTL just
because some mag put a lower number next to it????

Really??? I doubt it.

The stupid USNEWS ranking should be abolished. Law Schools should decide not to participate.

You might get a better quality of education because you'll have a higher quality of peers.

More importantly, odds are that you'll have a higher quality outcome from your education. Some of us care about that little detail called jobs.

Bronte wrote:You're arguing against a position that no one is taking. We go to top law schools for the jobs.

In that case why should someone at a T-14 have a better chance at landing a high paying job??

From my understanding, you learn three ways in law school:

1) From your professors, which makes up about 10% - 15% of law school learning.

2) From your classmates, which makes up like 20% - 30% of law school learning

3) On your own, which makes up like 55% - 70% of law school learning.

So, do you learn more in a t-14 school? Yes, because the quality of the student body is better.

itsmytime10 wrote:

Bronte wrote:You're arguing against a position that no one is taking. We go to top law schools for the jobs.

In that case why should someone at a T-14 have a better chance at landing a high paying job??

You're kidding, right?

itsmytime10 wrote:

Bronte wrote:You're arguing against a position that no one is taking. We go to top law schools for the jobs.

In that case why should someone at a T-14 have a better chance at landing a high paying job??

You can't be that naive. The T-14 have the best established alumni network and reputation of all of the law schools. If law firms are going to be following the "Cravath" business model then they are going to want the best students, from the best schools, with the best reputations. And this cycle repeats itself.

nycparalegal wrote:

itsmytime10 wrote:

Bronte wrote:You're arguing against a position that no one is taking. We go to top law schools for the jobs.

In that case why should someone at a T-14 have a better chance at landing a high paying job??

You can't be that naive. The T-14 have the best established alumni network and reputation of all of the law schools. If law firms are going to be following the "Cravath" business model then they are going to want the best students, from the best schools, with the best reputations. And this cycle repeats itself.

No i am not...I just dont think the best students are necessarily in the these schools.

I know I am feeding a troll/flame, but there are some legitimate points to be raised here:

You do get exposed to more prominent scholars at top schools.

For example, I am learning about the tax policy behind the alternative minimum tax by the guy who wrote the original AMT legislation. I learned admin law from a guy who was a supreme court clerk and helped write one of the seminal admin law cases. A friend of mine got to talk sovereign immunity with Justice Scalia, who taught his class for a day. Did I learn the law better because of that? I don't know, but I do know that there have been some incredible academic experiences I probably wouldn't have gotten at a local school.

But, as other posters have pointed out above, most people don't go to top schools for the education; they go for the post-graduation opportunities.

I would agree that people put too much faith in the US News, but the existence of "top" schools predates law school rankings. Harvard and Yale were considered to be top schools well before the rankings existed. Where US News goes astray is in misleading people to think that a school ranked #67 in region A is really better than a school ranked #87 in region B. Schools will not boycott them after the UC Hastings fiasco. They initially boycotted the rankings, and have never been ranked nearly as highly as they were regarded before the rankings started. Any boycott would have to start from the top down. Harvard could get away with it, but they have little incentive to.

itsmytime10 wrote:

nycparalegal wrote:

itsmytime10 wrote:

Bronte wrote:You're arguing against a position that no one is taking. We go to top law schools for the jobs.

In that case why should someone at a T-14 have a better chance at landing a high paying job??

You can't be that naive. The T-14 have the best established alumni network and reputation of all of the law schools. If law firms are going to be following the "Cravath" business model then they are going to want the best students, from the best schools, with the best reputations. And this cycle repeats itself.

No i am not...I just dont think the best students are necessarily in the these schools.

define "best students"

itsmytime10 wrote:

nycparalegal wrote:

itsmytime10 wrote:

Bronte wrote:You're arguing against a position that no one is taking. We go to top law schools for the jobs.

In that case why should someone at a T-14 have a better chance at landing a high paying job??

You can't be that naive. The T-14 have the best established alumni network and reputation of all of the law schools. If law firms are going to be following the "Cravath" business model then they are going to want the best students, from the best schools, with the best reputations. And this cycle repeats itself.

No i am not...I just dont think the best students are necessarily in the these schools.

Well, that's why law firms pick the top 1% to say 5% from lower ranked schools. However, if you want to give yourself a better chance of landing a top legal job, you go to a t-14 because firms dig deeper into the class.

The education is mostly the same. You take the same basic courses, read the same cases, and learn from professors who got grades at a top law school and had a prestigious clerkship before entering academia. However, the best law school applicants attend top 14 law schools. So, presumably, when they leave law school, they are still the "best" of all law school graduates. That explains why everyone wants to hire grads from top 14 schools (well, maybe not in this economy, but that's another story).

itsmytime10 wrote:
In that case why should someone at a T-14 have a better chance at landing a high paying job??

That's the way the world works. People who do the hiring for big firms/Federal agencies/etc. are simply more likely to hire, for example, a Michigan grad over an Iowa grad. The reasons are pretty obvious: better reputation, more distinguished faculty, track record of producing quality lawyers.

You might as well be asking, "Why do attractive people marry each other?" or "Why does the President have more power than the local mayor?"

itsmytime10 wrote:
No i am not...I just dont think the best students are necessarily in the these schools.

You should start your own law school!

Your example is very misleading. You start by trying to compare the whole t-14(categorically) to the whole t-14+. You proceed by picking Cornell to represent the group... Will Cornell offer me a better education than Emory/Iowa/ect. is a very different question than, say, Will Stanford offer me a better education than Texas/WUSTL/ect.

If you really do doubt that there's a meaningful difference save yourself a lot of money and take the biggest scholarship.

itsmytime10 wrote:

nycparalegal wrote:

itsmytime10 wrote:

Bronte wrote:You're arguing against a position that no one is taking. We go to top law schools for the jobs.

In that case why should someone at a T-14 have a better chance at landing a high paying job??

You can't be that naive. The T-14 have the best established alumni network and reputation of all of the law schools. If law firms are going to be following the "Cravath" business model then they are going to want the best students, from the best schools, with the best reputations. And this cycle repeats itself.

No i am not...I just dont think the best students are necessarily in the these schools.

They have a higher percent of the best students than the lower schools. Law firm hiring reflects this too.

Such a flame post. T14 students > non-T14 students on average. To be fair about averages, compare schools in the mid-range of T14 and T14+. MVP versus WUSTL, Emory, etc. Seriously? No contest

As far as i am concerned all the schools ranked 1-10 in USNEWS should really all be ranked the same..and 10-20..being the same...and so on....they shd not be ranked from 1 to whatever..Put them in categories with all
schools in a certain category ranked equal...

Category1 - Harvard, NYU, Chicago, Boalt, Yale.........etc.........No numbers associated with them
Category2 -WUSTL, Vandy, Cornell, etc
Cat 3---UIUC, Minnesota, Emory, etc

The OP might have a valid point.

If you took the faculty from a 14 TTT's and switched it with the T-14 would the ranking of the T-14 go down? Would the rankings of the TTT schools improve?

If you answer yes to both of those questions, T-14 offer better quality of education.
If not, it's all in the name.

itsmytime10 wrote:
No i am not...I just dont think the best students are necessarily in the these schools.

Well, on average, yes they are.

I am sure there are some people at a T30 who are smarter and/or will make better lawyers than people at HLS. But the average HLS kid, who has higher performance metrics in basically every way and a better track record of achievement with outperform the average T30 kid, and make a better lawyer.

There are obviously exceptions. Which is why top employers take the top 5% or so from lower ranked schools. But 9 times out of 10 median at Harvard will be a better student and a better lawyer than median at a T30.

As for the education itself, I don't think there's a big difference, but I think there's something to be said from learning from top professors and top adjuncts, as well as being challenged by a really high caliber student body which really raises the bar in terms of classroom discussion. And, to borrow from Scalia, you can't make a sow's ear out of a silk purse."

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ ... _law_clerk

Note: I do not go to Harvard, before anyone rails on that.

I bet if all the faculty members at Yale were sent to Cooley and all of Cooley's faculty members sent to
Yale....Yale would still be 1 and Cooley would be #infinity

Mibalase wrote:The OP might have a valid point.

If you took the faculty from a 14 TTT's and switched it with the T-14 would the ranking of the T-14 go down? Would the rankings of the TTT schools improve?

If you answer yes to both of those questions, T-14 offer better quality of education.
If not, it's all in the name.

Not really. You don't learn just from professors. You learn from your classmates, group projects/extracurriculars, in-class discussion, etc.

If you swtiched the faculty and the student bodies, yes, I think the ranking of the T-14 would go down.

itsmytime10 wrote:As far as i am concerned all the schools ranked 1-10 in USNEWS should really all be ranked the same..and 10-20..being the same...and so on....they shd not be ranked from 1 to whatever..Put them in categories with all
schools in a certain category ranked equal...

Category1 - Harvard, NYU, Chicago, Boalt, Yale.........etc.........No numbers associated with them
Category2 -WUSTL, Vandy, Cornell, etc
Cat 3---UIUC, Minnesota, Emory, etc

This doesn't match hiring trends, or student quality ranking by numbers.

Cornell places about as well as Boalt does, and Wustl places nowhere near where Cornell does.

HYS > CCN > MVPBNDC > GV Tex LA > t17-T40ish >t2 >teverything else.

In terms of quality of student Gtown would be with MVPBDNC.

Nightrunner wrote:

itsmytime10 wrote:As far as i am concerned all the schools ranked 1-10 in USNEWS should really all be ranked the same..and 10-20..being the same...and so on....they shd not be ranked from 1 to whatever..Put them in categories with all
schools in a certain category ranked equal...

Category1 - Harvard, NYU, Chicago, Boalt, Yale.........etc.........No numbers associated with them
Category2 -WUSTL, Vandy, Cornell, etc
Cat 3---UIUC, Minnesota, Emory, etc

Tiers are credited; your particular delineations, however, are ridiculous.

The difference between Yale and UVA is greater than the difference between UVA and Vandy.

Really..and what exactly do you mean by "THE DIFFERENCE"