Top Law Schools

Say I want to go into IP law. Should I shoot for the highest program rating I can get into? Or should I go for the best school that offers an IP education? For example university of Houston has a top 10 IP program but is not in the top 50 or Should I aim for a top 50 with a worse IP program?

hwaggone wrote:Say I want to go into IP law. Should I shoot for the highest program rating I can get into? Or should I go for the best school that offers an IP education? For example university of Houston has a top 10 IP program but is not in the top 50 or Should I aim for a top 50 with a worse IP program?

"Specialty" rankings are meaningless.

I think if ever a specialty ranking meant anything it would be an IP one, but it is not near as important as overall school quality. Choose a better school, if you are looking at peer schools within the region you want to practice in, perhaps then give some weight to IP rankings.

2014 wrote:I think if ever a specialty ranking meant anything it would be an IP one, but it is not near as important as overall school quality. Choose a better school, if you are looking at peer schools within the region you want to practice in, perhaps then give some weight to IP rankings.

Yep.

2014 wrote:I think if ever a specialty ranking meant anything it would be an IP one, but it is not near as important as overall school quality. Choose a better school, if you are looking at peer schools within the region you want to practice in, perhaps then give some weight to IP rankings.

This is the most optimistic view of specialty rankings one could reasonably take. Specialty rankings should be at best a tiebreaker between two otherwise appealing schools.

Any validity at all to environmental law rankings?

This is hardly different.

If you truly want environmental law (including public interest environmental law [EL]- bc that's what most of EL is), go to the highest ranked school that has a wide variety of environmental courses/journal/clinic.

I know there was an excel document floating around with schools quantitatively ranked on environmental law, but I'm not sure where it is. It will help you see which schools are the most desirable for (EL) at each US News ranking range.

"Specialty" rankings are meaningless.

This

What if you want to go into IP and doing a JD/PhD program, should you choose a combination with the better science program or the better law program?