Top Law Schools

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The T-10 are probably your best shot at legal academia with a strong leaning toward Yale, UChicago, Harvard and then the rest.

And whats the point of the PhD?

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Sounds like you're pretty informed. Good luck.

Have you inquired about setting up your own JD/PhD at Chicago in lieu of a formal JD/PhD program?

YH
SCC

I'd go a step further and say the T6 are your best shot for entering legal academia

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spirals wrote:hmm, setting up my own program might not be a bad idea. i'll talk to the dean of grad. studies about it in the fall. it might be a good idea, particularly because chicago does seem like an ideal school for entering legal academia.

as for the above poster, i assume YH = Yale, Harvard, and SCC = Stanford, Chicago, Columbia?

I always thought Harvard was more corporate/big-law centered than Yale and Chicago. Is that true?

That is true, but it is still Harvard, and still tops for academia also. Harvard is much much larger.

Check out the Leiter rankings: (http://www.leiterrankings.com/jobs/index.shtml).

Yale is in its own world. Harvard, Stanford and Chicago are the other three that place a ton of teachers, and how much (if any) you separate within that tier depends on which criterion you're looking at (Leiter usually groups them together). Harvard places a lot more numerically, but it is also three times as big as Chicago and Stanford. When you adjust for class size, the three are pretty close.

After that there's a significant drop-off, but it's what you'd expect: Columbia and NYU, then the rest of the T14 and a few of the T20s...

Spending 9 or so years at Chicago is not ideal--given you are studying in a cognate discipline, you can already meet and study with the law faculty during your PhD--so I'd say you want to aim for the holy trinity: HYS (Yale is the obvious goal, though). But you'll also place better at law schools because of the UChi PhD, so don't get too hung up on it if you don't make it in the t3; a t10 JD + UChi PhD will get your application serious consideration at pretty well any law school. So a place like Michigan, which has both a strong law school and a strong Pol S department, could still place you well given your expected credentials. More important than where you get your JD will be your publishing record.

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yea they give you more time per section

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spirals wrote:Will I get any break, LSAT score-wise, since I will be applying with a PhD?

no

spirals wrote:of course it would be tough to turn down Yale.

let's cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?

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spirals wrote:Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think I will take all of this into consideration and also set up a few meetings with Chicago law faculty once I get there. I saw 1 or 2 people on faculty who had UChicago PhDs and UChicago JDs, so I'm not sure that spending my whole post-graduate career at Chicago would be too much of an issue, but of course it would be tough to turn down Yale.

Will I get any break, LSAT score-wise, since I will be applying with a PhD?

Maybe a little bit. Woudn't get your hopes up though. Yale is the only place that puts much weight on softs (Berkeley doesn't count for this) and people who get Yale have great softs in addition to great numbers.

d34dluk3 wrote:

spirals wrote:Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think I will take all of this into consideration and also set up a few meetings with Chicago law faculty once I get there. I saw 1 or 2 people on faculty who had UChicago PhDs and UChicago JDs, so I'm not sure that spending my whole post-graduate career at Chicago would be too much of an issue, but of course it would be tough to turn down Yale.

Will I get any break, LSAT score-wise, since I will be applying with a PhD?

Maybe a little bit. Woudn't get your hopes up though. Yale is the only place that puts much weight on softs (Berkeley doesn't count for this) and people who get Yale have great softs in addition to great numbers.

Er, the other Bay Area school?

DeepSeaLaw wrote:

d34dluk3 wrote:

spirals wrote:Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think I will take all of this into consideration and also set up a few meetings with Chicago law faculty once I get there. I saw 1 or 2 people on faculty who had UChicago PhDs and UChicago JDs, so I'm not sure that spending my whole post-graduate career at Chicago would be too much of an issue, but of course it would be tough to turn down Yale.

Will I get any break, LSAT score-wise, since I will be applying with a PhD?

Maybe a little bit. Woudn't get your hopes up though. Yale is the only place that puts much weight on softs (Berkeley doesn't count for this) and people who get Yale have great softs in addition to great numbers.

Er, the other Bay Area school?

Good point, although my impression is that the The Law School Which Must Not Be Named's approach is more about valuing GPA/well-roundedness over LSAT than a specific emphasis on softs. I wouldn't expect to get much of a boost even there.

spirals wrote:Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think I will take all of this into consideration and also set up a few meetings with Chicago law faculty once I get there. I saw 1 or 2 people on faculty who had UChicago PhDs and UChicago JDs, so I'm not sure that spending my whole post-graduate career at Chicago would be too much of an issue, but of course it would be tough to turn down Yale.

Will I get any break, LSAT score-wise, since I will be applying with a PhD?

Yah, didn't mean to suggest staying at UChi for all post-graduate years would be a concern of any type; my only point is that going to another school would allow you to build a much larger academic network.