Is a Vanderbilt JD regional? Forum

[mst]

The alumni (very recent graduate) who I just sat down with specifically stated a lot of the Atlanta firms were taking Emory grads over Vandy because that's where their ties were and they couldn't screw them in this market without building a lot of bad relations. Hell, he could be biased, but he was trying to sell me on the school so I don't know why he would go out of his way to lie. Regardless, I'm still confident that Vandy doesn't have a stranglehold on any real southern market.

As for your number of grads that don't leave the area, I already admitted that it's in the eye of the beholder as to when the proportion is large enough to call it national. The fact that basically half are staying in the south, regardless of your speculation as to the reason, is enough for me to call it "super regional." Despite being kind of a sizable proportion, I don't think that when a school is sending only 50 people a YEAR to DC/NY/Chi, it can be compared to schools like the t14 who are sending 100's of grads a piece to the various major legal markets across the country. There's just too big of a distinction there, impression wise, for me to lump Vanderbilt with what most would undoubtedly agree are national schools.

That said, if you are going there, and you want to go national, I think you can (because I agree that a lot of people self-select out of the major markets). But from a "oh is that a national or regional school?" standpoint, and I had to choose one, I'd have a hard time saying either, but a much harder time saying national... and I think most people would agree.

[OperaAttorney]

Vandy is the oddball because their placement consistently outperforms their ranking. Vandy is kind of like that social butterfly with median grades who cleans the fuck up at OCI, and then smiles at all the cats with higher GPAs who didn't get V5 offers. Oh, and Vandy has the nicest looking law school in the T15-T20. Decent amount of lay prestige + well respected law school = wish I had considered Vandy more seriously

Traitor!

UT-Austin still rocks Vandy.

[Aberzombie1892]

Is a Vandy JD more regional or portable? If it is portable, where do Vanderbilt grads have a chance of ending up? Is there a good chance at NYC BigLaw for their graduates?

It does seem like the oddball in the 10-20's....

I didn't read any of the responses to your post, so forgive me if this has already been stated.

A Vanderbilt JD is as portable as where you have ties to. What makes the Vanderbilt JD desirable is because major employers will hire to the median.

Is there a good chance at NY Biglaw? Vanderbilt normally doesn't send that many people to NYC (usually about 10-12%). If you have your heart set on NYC biglaw, go to Cornell/Penn/NYU/Columbia. If you would be happy with a 50%ish shot at biglaw in general (most likely the South Atlantic and the East South Central regions), the Vanderbilt JD is a fine choice.

[icouldbuyu]

This thread is interesting. I haven't even considered Vandy up to this point. I want to do Big Law in the northeast and was hoping for Cornell or maybe MV or Duke. I'm also considering BU with substantial money. If I go to BU, I'd hope for a Boston job since I know BU dominates its market. Is Vandy something I should consider?

[Rawlsian]

Vandy has as broad a geographic disbursement as any law school in the country. I think this is why Vandy has been doing so well lately: a small class that spreads out relatively evenly across the U.S. In the last five years, Vandy has not sent more than 20% of its class to any one state, and not more than 50% to any one region. Each year, the states that end up with the highest number of grads are the usual suspects: TN, NY, CA, GA, TX, IL, FL; but it varies depending on the composition of that particular class. For example, last years class had a plurality of NY students; but this year's class has more CA students than NY and GA combined.

Is it easier for Vandy grads to find employment in the South East and Texas than NY, IL, or CA? I'm not sure, and the data I have doesn't lead me to think one way or the other. My opinion, based on talking to my fellow classmates, is that Vandy attracts a lot of people who want to practice in secondary markets (i.e., their home markets). OP, if you're curious to see what firms come to Vandy's OCI from a certain region, you can find that info athttp://www.nalp.org/.

[Blindmelon]

I personally call Vandy, WUSTL, UCLA, USC, & Texas (sorry GW) super regionals. I call Illinois, Minn, GW, Emory, BU, BC, etc all the way to around Wake Forest regionals (with Notre Dame maybe being something else because it seems to be a bit more natl). Everything after is basically a state/local region school.

Egregious WUSTL trolling. No way WUSTL or even USC is more national than GW/BC/BU. These schools are pretty much on-par, and no one should be choosing between these anyway (other than BC/BU) because they're all focused on totally different markets.

If you go by where graduates go, then the only national one on that list is Vandy. UCLA, TX, etc overwhelmingly stay at home. Judging how "national" a school is, is pretty useless. If you have ties + good grades at most of these you could hop anywhere. Vandy tends to spread out likely because its home market is nothing really (this isn't to say that Vandy isn't a monster employment-wise).

[rundoxierun]

Threads like this make me really wonder why ppl respond when they really dont know. Vandy is not at all regional, unless you consider the eastern half of the U.S. regional. Obviously they are great in TN and AR. TX was actually one of the keys to them being successful despite the recession. Ties are not the end all be all in TX like ppl make them out to be. You can get the large markets in TX without ties relatively easily(at least as easy as it is to get a high-end job period). Dominant player in Atl. Vandy is also great along the east coast(NY and usually DC). It definitely isnt nearly impossible to go out west but I doubt there is enough data to really get an indication of how many actually wanted to go west and got out there. I personally know only one person who wanted to go west and she got it but she was top 25%.

[BarbellDreams]

Vandy should really replace GULC in the t14. Just look at the placement. The CA market would be tough out of Vandy, but anything in the Midwest or East coast you should be fine.

[Grizz]

Judging how "national" a school is, is pretty useless. If you have ties + good grades at most of these you could hop anywhere.

This.

Regardless, I'm still confident that Vandy doesn't have a stranglehold on any real southern market.

It doesn't, but it doesn't really matter. If you wanted to stay in the South, it will make you more competitive than pretty much all of the Southern regional schools.

[JazzOne]

Vandy is the oddball because their placement consistently outperforms their ranking. Vandy is kind of like that social butterfly with median grades who cleans the fuck up at OCI, and then smiles at all the cats with higher GPAs who didn't get V5 offers. Oh, and Vandy has the nicest looking law school in the T15-T20. Decent amount of lay prestige + well respected law school = wish I had considered Vandy more seriously

The building itself isn't all that pretty, but everything around it is absolutely gorgeous.

The law building looks pretty cool. Then again, I'm biased because I attend the ugliest school in the T1. No joke, UT needs to really do something about the facilities. Our faculty is terrific, as is the student body, but the law library looks like the county jail of my hometown, and the classrooms leave much to be desired. Trust me, Vandy is beautiful compared to UT. UT is not a good looking campus at all even aside from the law school. It's like they put a university downtown and didn't bother to re-route the streets.

[skoobily doobily]

The alumni (very recent graduate) who I just sat down with specifically stated a lot of the Atlanta firms were taking Emory grads over Vandy because that's where their ties were and they couldn't screw them in this market without building a lot of bad relations. Hell, he could be biased, but he was trying to sell me on the school so I don't know why he would go out of his way to lie.

Whether or not that's true, Atlanta firms simply hire deeper into the class at Vandy than they do at Emory. That's just all there is to it.

[OperaAttorney]

Vandy is the oddball because their placement consistently outperforms their ranking. Vandy is kind of like that social butterfly with median grades who cleans the fuck up at OCI, and then smiles at all the cats with higher GPAs who didn't get V5 offers. Oh, and Vandy has the nicest looking law school in the T15-T20. Decent amount of lay prestige + well respected law school = wish I had considered Vandy more seriously

The building itself isn't all that pretty, but everything around it is absolutely gorgeous.

The law building looks pretty cool. Then again, I'm biased because I attend the ugliest school in the T1. No joke, UT needs to really do something about the facilities. Our faculty is terrific, as is the student body, but the law library looks like the county jail of my hometown, and the classrooms leave much to be desired. Trust me, Vandy is beautiful compared to UT. UT is not a good looking campus at all even aside from the law school. It's like they put a university downtown and didn't bother to re-route the streets.

Hey JazzOne,

You think my STUD-ent body is terrific??? THANK YOU!

By the way, UT isn't the ugliest school in the T1. You obviously haven't visited UCLA.

OA

[Blindmelon]

If by T1 you mean the US News version, then BU is the uggliest building ever... not even law school. It looks like an abandoned hospital. You get used to it after a while, but its pretty heinous.

[JazzOne]

Vandy is the oddball because their placement consistently outperforms their ranking. Vandy is kind of like that social butterfly with median grades who cleans the fuck up at OCI, and then smiles at all the cats with higher GPAs who didn't get V5 offers. Oh, and Vandy has the nicest looking law school in the T15-T20. Decent amount of lay prestige + well respected law school = wish I had considered Vandy more seriously

The building itself isn't all that pretty, but everything around it is absolutely gorgeous.

The law building looks pretty cool. Then again, I'm biased because I attend the ugliest school in the T1. No joke, UT needs to really do something about the facilities. Our faculty is terrific, as is the student body, but the law library looks like the county jail of my hometown, and the classrooms leave much to be desired. Trust me, Vandy is beautiful compared to UT. UT is not a good looking campus at all even aside from the law school. It's like they put a university downtown and didn't bother to re-route the streets.

Hey JazzOne,

You think my STUD-ent body is terrific??? THANK YOU!

By the way, UT isn't the ugliest school in the T1. You obviously haven't visited UCLA.

OA

lol

No, I've never been to the law school at UCLA. I just imagined everything was more pretentious in California.

[mst]

I thought UCLA's law school was amazing. I have no idea if you are being sarcastic...

[BruceWayne]

The alumni (very recent graduate) who I just sat down with specifically stated a lot of the Atlanta firms were taking Emory grads over Vandy because that's where their ties were and they couldn't screw them in this market without building a lot of bad relations. Hell, he could be biased, but he was trying to sell me on the school so I don't know why he would go out of his way to lie.

Whether or not that's true, Atlanta firms simply hire deeper into the class at Vandy than they do at Emory. That's just all there is to it.

Not only that, but the only southern schools that will outdo Vandy are UVA and Duke. Atlanta firms essentially rank the southern schools 1. UVA 2. Duke 3. Vandy 4. Emory/UGA

[JustE]

The alumni (very recent graduate) who I just sat down with specifically stated a lot of the Atlanta firms were taking Emory grads over Vandy because that's where their ties were and they couldn't screw them in this market without building a lot of bad relations. Hell, he could be biased, but he was trying to sell me on the school so I don't know why he would go out of his way to lie.

Whether or not that's true, Atlanta firms simply hire deeper into the class at Vandy than they do at Emory. That's just all there is to it.

Not only that, but the only southern schools that will outdo Vandy are UVA and Duke. Atlanta firms essentially rank the southern schools 1. UVA 2. Duke 3. Vandy 4. Emory/UGA

BruceWayne, I know you're up at UVA, so you obviously might have a better feel for this, but given the ties and the large number of grads that stay in GA vs. Emory, wouldn't UGA be a little higher up on that list? I was reading in another post that Duke didn't place all that well in Atlanta in the past few years. There's a huge loyalty to UGA down here that I don't see for any of the other schools mentioned.

[AreJay711]

The alumni (very recent graduate) who I just sat down with specifically stated a lot of the Atlanta firms were taking Emory grads over Vandy because that's where their ties were and they couldn't screw them in this market without building a lot of bad relations. Hell, he could be biased, but he was trying to sell me on the school so I don't know why he would go out of his way to lie.

Whether or not that's true, Atlanta firms simply hire deeper into the class at Vandy than they do at Emory. That's just all there is to it.

Not only that, but the only southern schools that will outdo Vandy are UVA and Duke. Atlanta firms essentially rank the southern schools 1. UVA 2. Duke 3. Vandy 4. Emory/UGA

I'm sure UVA has a stronger reputation but I wonder how many big Southern firms come to UVA. The vast majority of UVA graduates go to either D.C. or NYC so maybe not as many just because they don't send very many graduates that way. I guess with enough leg work it really doesn't matter though.

[Rawlsian]

The alumni (very recent graduate) who I just sat down with specifically stated a lot of the Atlanta firms were taking Emory grads over Vandy because that's where their ties were and they couldn't screw them in this market without building a lot of bad relations. Hell, he could be biased, but he was trying to sell me on the school so I don't know why he would go out of his way to lie.

Whether or not that's true, Atlanta firms simply hire deeper into the class at Vandy than they do at Emory. That's just all there is to it.

Not only that, but the only southern schools that will outdo Vandy are UVA and Duke. Atlanta firms essentially rank the southern schools 1. UVA 2. Duke 3. Vandy 4. Emory/UGA

I'm sure UVA has a stronger reputation but I wonder how many big Southern firms come to UVA. The vast majority of UVA graduates go to either D.C. or NYC so maybe not as many just because they don't send very many graduates that way. I guess with enough leg work it really doesn't matter though.

Check out http://www.nalpdirectory.com/dledir_sea ... anced.asp#. I ran a quick search, and it looks like UVA has just as many Atlanta firms for campus interviews as UGA.

[observationalist]

Just wanted to drop in and remind people that Vanderbilt is one of the few law schools that currently disclose employment lists for most of the graduating class, including the city and state for each graduate. LST started at Vanderbilt because we liked what the school was doing and thought it would be worth creating a uniform reporting standard under which all schools would do something similar. The main problem right now is that the most recent lists available are for the Class of 2009, which was pre-ITE. Anyone wanting to know about Class of 2010 data should contact career services and ask for what they currently have.

Anecdotally, the locations for 9 of us who have stayed in touch since graduating are below. You can check with the school to learn what percentage of our class took which bar exam.
Wilmington, Delaware
Nashville, Tennessee
Atlanta, Georgia
Washington, D.C (X 2)
LA, California
Chicago, Illinois
Sarasota, Florida
Santiago, Chile

[BruceWayne]

The alumni (very recent graduate) who I just sat down with specifically stated a lot of the Atlanta firms were taking Emory grads over Vandy because that's where their ties were and they couldn't screw them in this market without building a lot of bad relations. Hell, he could be biased, but he was trying to sell me on the school so I don't know why he would go out of his way to lie.

Whether or not that's true, Atlanta firms simply hire deeper into the class at Vandy than they do at Emory. That's just all there is to it.

Not only that, but the only southern schools that will outdo Vandy are UVA and Duke. Atlanta firms essentially rank the southern schools 1. UVA 2. Duke 3. Vandy 4. Emory/UGA

BruceWayne, I know you're up at UVA, so you obviously might have a better feel for this, but given the ties and the large number of grads that stay in GA vs. Emory, wouldn't UGA be a little higher up on that list? I was reading in another post that Duke didn't place all that well in Atlanta in the past few years. There's a huge loyalty to UGA down here that I don't see for any of the other schools mentioned.

I'm actually from Georgia and went to undergrad there as well. I'm also extremely familiar with UGA. This is the thing with UGA: Atlanta firms are filled with UGA alums and thus there is absolutely no bias against the school. In fact, there really isn't much difference between UGA and Emory for Atlanta jobs. However, the big time firms simply don't like hiring below the top of the class at those schools. So while you are pretty much guaranteed an Atlanta firm job if you are at the top of your class, you need to be at the top of your class. The other thing is that Atlanta firms love, and I mean love UVA. Frankly, unless you're talking about Harvard or Yale, there really isn't a school that Atlanta firms are more into hiring from. Essentially every major Atlanta firm interviews at UVA OGI (even the extremely selective and small litigation boutique Bondurant comes to UVA OGI; they don't go to any other non GA school for OCI). I went to an Atlanta firm reception and when the partners/associates found out I was going to UVA they were very impressed. One went so far as to say "well you definitely won't have a problem finding a job", and while that may have been a bit of hyperbole it does speak volumes as to how they feel about UVA. For the record UVA has a stronger reputation than Duke. Part of the reason I chose UVA was because I knew that if my first choice job doesn't work out, I'll have no problem going back to GA. UVA sends more grads to Atlanta than any other top 14 ( Atlanta is UVA's fourth most popular market after DC,NYC, and California).

In addition, I think you're confusing Duke not sending a lot of grads to Atlanta with them not being able to. Duke is small to begin with and most of their grads want to go to NYC and DC (or even California). Because of that, you're just not going to have many Duke grads ending up in Atlanta each year.

And again Atlanta firms love Vanderbilt as well.

[JustE]

That's the answer I was looking for. Liking UVA more and more every day.

[RVP11]

You can get a job at Alston & Bird or King & Spalding with medianish grades from UVA. I bet you could do the same from Duke.

No way is anyone getting those jobs with even close to equivalent grades from UGA/Emory/any non-T14.

[Grizz]

You can get a job at Alston & Bird or King & Spalding with medianish grades from UVA. I bet you could do the same from Duke.

No way is anyone getting those jobs with even close to equivalent grades from UGA/Emory/any non-T14.

It would be nice to see what grades people got these jobs with from Vandy. Might be something to go ask my career services person. Then again recently, the sample has been pretty small.

[NZA]

Not to seem silly, but...what if you have no ties? Like, anywhere? Will a degree from Vandy get you to the Least Coast? Or is it pretty much the South? Just curious, thanks!