Top Law Schools

-

Location preference and $ should be the deciding factors. Peer schools. GW is supposedly great for IP though.

DC is a bigger market, but it's more competitive. It really just depends on where you'd rather work (and to some extent how much $ you're giving up at Emory). DC is also a lot more expensive than Atlanta.

-

-

yes... I'm very interested in this also. I've heard some great things about Emory's ti:ger program... but is it comparable to GW's IP?

I am also deciding between these two schools. It seems like GW would be the more popular choice by TLS standards, but I am leaning towards Emory. The school's smaller class size and scholarship reward coupled with the fact that I am from the South make Emory the more attractive option I'm not totally sold on Atlanta, but its lower cost of living and seemingly less-competitive market is definitely a plus. I'll be visiting the two before making a final decision, though.

-

zeke18 wrote:I am also deciding between these two schools. It seems like GW would be the more popular choice by TLS standards, but I am leaning towards Emory. The school's smaller class size and scholarship reward coupled with the fact that I am from the South make Emory the more attractive option I'm not totally sold on Atlanta, but its lower cost of living and seemingly less-competitive market is definitely a plus. I'll be visiting the two before making a final decision, though.

I'm just concerned about the size of Atlanta's IP market. If you search on NALP you get about 15 firms, but several are too selective to really count on unless you're at the very top of Emory (Bryan Cave, Finnegan, Fish), and a lot of these firms don't even do OCI at Emory. In the DC area you're looking at 3-4x as many options, and almost all of them do OCI at GWU. Maybe they're just stopping by because they were in town for Georgetown anyway, but at least you get a chance at an interview. DC is a lot more competitive, but it's not like Emory grads have Atlanta on lockdown, either.

-

Southern firms no-offer the majority of their associates - literally more than 50% (See NALP).

From this, you could reasonably say that Emory may have placed 30-35% of the 2Ls from the class of 2010 into big lawish firms. They just were no-offered (all southern schools suffer from this).

That being said, even after the no offering, Emory did well enough to be considered a peer of GWU.

Therefore, if you would rather be in the south, Emory - and if you would rather be in the greater DC area (VA/MD/DC), GWU. Both schools place into NYC in equal numbers (proportionally; See ABA law school guide).

Any particular reason for the no-offer phenomenon?

-

Fisher33 wrote:Forgive my ignorance, but why such a high no-offer rate for firms in the south? How hard (competetive) is it to be one of the people who gets an offer and are you totally screwed if you get no offered in the southeast?

Northern, midwestern, and western firms use the philosophy that the competition is over once you receive the summer associate offer - if you become a summer associate, you will most likely receive a full time offer as long you 1) don't do illegal or derogatory things or 2) do adequate work.

Southern firms use the philosophy that the competition does not end until you have the full time offer in hand. Thus, you are competing during your summer associateship for an offer. So, you must not only stay in line and do adequate work, but you must outperform you fellow summer associates.

The southern firms do not project what their hiring needs are in the future - unlike all of the other firms. This means that the firms may hire say 10 summer associates and then decide not to hire any of them (this is rare) and not because any of them did bad work - there just was not a need for them.

The other firms project their hiring needs one year in advance and that data is incorporated into who and how many people they hire to be summer associates.

-

-

Aberzombie1892 wrote:

Fisher33 wrote:Forgive my ignorance, but why such a high no-offer rate for firms in the south? How hard (competetive) is it to be one of the people who gets an offer and are you totally screwed if you get no offered in the southeast?

Northern, midwestern, and western firms use the philosophy that the competition is over once you receive the summer associate offer - if you become a summer associate, you will most likely receive a full time offer as long you 1) don't do illegal or derogatory things or 2) do adequate work.

Southern firms use the philosophy that the competition does not end until you have the full time offer in hand. Thus, you are competing during your summer associateship for an offer. So, you must not only stay in line and do adequate work, but you must outperform you fellow summer associates.

The southern firms do not project what their hiring needs are in the future - unlike all of the other firms. This means that the firms may hire say 10 summer associates and then decide not to hire any of them (this is rare) and not because any of them did bad work - there just was not a need for them.

The other firms project their hiring needs one year in advance and that data is incorporated into who and how many people they hire to be summer associates.

Never knew this, thanks.

IP GWU wins by a mile.

spets wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:

Fisher33 wrote:Forgive my ignorance, but why such a high no-offer rate for firms in the south? How hard (competetive) is it to be one of the people who gets an offer and are you totally screwed if you get no offered in the southeast?

Northern, midwestern, and western firms use the philosophy that the competition is over once you receive the summer associate offer - if you become a summer associate, you will most likely receive a full time offer as long you 1) don't do illegal or derogatory things or 2) do adequate work.

Southern firms use the philosophy that the competition does not end until you have the full time offer in hand. Thus, you are competing during your summer associateship for an offer. So, you must not only stay in line and do adequate work, but you must outperform you fellow summer associates.

The southern firms do not project what their hiring needs are in the future - unlike all of the other firms. This means that the firms may hire say 10 summer associates and then decide not to hire any of them (this is rare) and not because any of them did bad work - there just was not a need for them.

The other firms project their hiring needs one year in advance and that data is incorporated into who and how many people they hire to be summer associates.

Never knew this, thanks.

I think the reason many southern firms felt they could no-offer 2L SA's is the lack of competition in comparison to a DC or NYC biglaw market. Not because of some long-term structural difference between the two.

For instance, look at what has happened to Latham in NYC since they no-offered and laid off lots of attorneys. They have gone from one of the "it" firms to one that qualified law students avoid at all costs. The risk of that happening is not as large in a market like Atlanta, Charlotte, etc, where there are only a few major firms.

In other words, if you are a qualified law student who wants to work in NYC and you have offers from Latham, Debevoise, and Paul, Weiss, you are probably not going to take a job at Latham because of the rep they created for themselves.

On the other hand, if you are a qualified law student who wants to work in Atlanta, what are you going to do? Turn down K&S or Sutherland because they no-offered some of their 2009 SA class? Probably not. There just aren't enough peer firms to make "spiting" a big firm in the South worthwhile.

That said, I tend to think the massive no-offer rate from c/o 2010 (it was exactly 1/3 no offers for NALP firms in Atlanta, for instance) is something of an aberration, and won't really represent the long-term trend.

krillas wrote: That said, I tend to think the massive no-offer rate from c/o 2010 (it was exactly 1/3 no offers for NALP firms in Atlanta, for instance) is something of an aberration, and won't really represent the long-term trend.

Yes and no. Even before the recession hit, southern firms traditionally had <50% offer rates. The only ones that did significantly better than that were the high ranking Vault firms (who traditionally have higher than usually offer rates anyway). Other than that, you were looking at around 50% or less.

On the upside, the vast majority of southern firms allow you to split your summer - which is necessary. Many northern firms do not allow summer splits, and this is okay because odds are you will receive an offer (at least in normal economic times).

Aberzombie1892 wrote:

krillas wrote: That said, I tend to think the massive no-offer rate from c/o 2010 (it was exactly 1/3 no offers for NALP firms in Atlanta, for instance) is something of an aberration, and won't really represent the long-term trend.

Yes and no. Even before the recession hit, southern firms traditionally had <50% offer rates. The only ones that did significantly better than that were the high ranking Vault firms (who traditionally have higher than usually offer rates anyway). Other than that, you were looking at around 50% or less.

On the upside, the vast majority of southern firms allow you to split your summer - which is necessary. Many northern firms do not allow summer splits, and this is okay because odds are you will receive an offer (at least in normal economic times).

Maybe we're looking at different firms, but this is patently untrue.

Even for c/o 2010 (2L SA Summer 2009), which is universally considered the worst year for no offers, the average offer rate across all NALP firms in Atlanta was 67%.