Top Article III placement: U of San Diego Forum

[arvcondor]

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... s-rankings

If they can't even get things like this right, I question the accuracy of the rest of their data.

(Sorry if this has already been posted)

[Aberzombie1892]

Well....they were top in terms of the percentage of their clerks went to Art. 3 judges. It's nothing special, considering they only sent 2.9% of their class to clerkships of any kind

[RPK34]

Well....they were top in terms of the percentage of their clerks went to Art. 3 judges. It's nothing special, considering they only sent 2.9% of their class to clerkships of any kind

Either way you read that second column, it doesn't make sense. If you read it as 63% of graduates at U of SD are Article III, that clearly is BS. If you read it as the percentage of total clerks that are article III (ie: Article III clerks/Total clerks of graduating class) it doesn't really make sense that only 1/4 of Yale's clerks make Article III, that 1/5 of Harvard's clerks make Article III, or that most top 20 schools only have 10% of their clerks make it into Article III courts.

I really have no idea what that column is saying.

[Aberzombie1892]

Well....they were top in terms of the percentage of their clerks went to Art. 3 judges. It's nothing special, considering they only sent 2.9% of their class to clerkships of any kind

Either way you read that second column, it doesn't make sense. If you read it as 63% of graduates at U of SD are Article III, that clearly is BS. If you read it as the percentage of total clerks that are article III (ie: Article III clerks/Total clerks of graduating class) it doesn't really make sense that only 1/4 of Yale's clerks make Article III, that 1/5 of Harvard's clerks make Article III, or that most top 20 schools only have 10% of their clerks make it into Article III courts.

I really have no idea what that column is saying.

It's basically saying that San Diego only sent 2.9% of its class to clerkships of any kind, and 63% of that 2.9% went to Article 3 clerkships So 1.8% of its class got Article 3 clerkships. The list is in order of the percentage of total clerks that received Article 3 clerkships. Thus, San Diego is number 1 because 63% of its clerks went to Article 3 clerkships.

[RPK34]

Well....they were top in terms of the percentage of their clerks went to Art. 3 judges. It's nothing special, considering they only sent 2.9% of their class to clerkships of any kind

Either way you read that second column, it doesn't make sense. If you read it as 63% of graduates at U of SD are Article III, that clearly is BS. If you read it as the percentage of total clerks that are article III (ie: Article III clerks/Total clerks of graduating class) it doesn't really make sense that only 1/4 of Yale's clerks make Article III, that 1/5 of Harvard's clerks make Article III, or that most top 20 schools only have 10% of their clerks make it into Article III courts.

I really have no idea what that column is saying.

It's basically saying that San Diego only sent 2.9% of its class to clerkships of any kind, and 63% of that 2.9% went to Article 3 clerkships So 1.8% of its class got Article 3 clerkships. The list is in order of the percentage of total clerks that received Article 3 clerkships. Thus, San Diego is number 1 because 63% of its clerks went to Article 3 clerkships.

Exactly, so it still doesn't really make sense. I have a hard time believing that 8% of Yale grads are doing Article III clerkships, and especially hard to believe that 3.6% of Harvard grads are doing Article III clerkships (which is what that chart implies if you read it the way you're saying it should be read).

[JusticeHarlan]

Well....they were top in terms of the percentage of their clerks went to Art. 3 judges. It's nothing special, considering they only sent 2.9% of their class to clerkships of any kind

Either way you read that second column, it doesn't make sense. If you read it as 63% of graduates at U of SD are Article III, that clearly is BS. If you read it as the percentage of total clerks that are article III (ie: Article III clerks/Total clerks of graduating class) it doesn't really make sense that only 1/4 of Yale's clerks make Article III, that 1/5 of Harvard's clerks make Article III, or that most top 20 schools only have 10% of their clerks make it into Article III courts.

I really have no idea what that column is saying.

It's basically saying that San Diego only sent 2.9% of its class to clerkships of any kind, and 63% of that 2.9% went to Article 3 clerkships So 1.8% of its class got Article 3 clerkships. The list is in order of the percentage of total clerks that received Article 3 clerkships. Thus, San Diego is number 1 because 63% of its clerks went to Article 3 clerkships.

Exactly, so it still doesn't really make sense. I have a hard time believing that 8% of Yale grads are doing Article III clerkships, and especially hard to believe that 3.6% of Harvard grads are doing Article III clerkships (which is what that chart implies if you read it the way you're saying it should be read).

I propose two alternative solutions:

1) San Diego filled out the form wrong (seeing as all this data is self-reported), putting the % of Article III clerks as a function of total clerks, not total graduates; other schools filled this out correctly.

2) US New's site is kinda screwy.

[RPK34]

Either way you read that second column, it doesn't make sense. If you read it as 63% of graduates at U of SD are Article III, that clearly is BS. If you read it as the percentage of total clerks that are article III (ie: Article III clerks/Total clerks of graduating class) it doesn't really make sense that only 1/4 of Yale's clerks make Article III, that 1/5 of Harvard's clerks make Article III, or that most top 20 schools only have 10% of their clerks make it into Article III courts.

I really have no idea what that column is saying.

It's basically saying that San Diego only sent 2.9% of its class to clerkships of any kind, and 63% of that 2.9% went to Article 3 clerkships So 1.8% of its class got Article 3 clerkships. The list is in order of the percentage of total clerks that received Article 3 clerkships. Thus, San Diego is number 1 because 63% of its clerks went to Article 3 clerkships.

Exactly, so it still doesn't really make sense. I have a hard time believing that 8% of Yale grads are doing Article III clerkships, and especially hard to believe that 3.6% of Harvard grads are doing Article III clerkships (which is what that chart implies if you read it the way you're saying it should be read).

I propose two alternative solutions:

1) San Diego filled out the form wrong (seeing as all this data is self-reported), putting the % of Article III clerks as a function of total clerks, not total graduates; other schools filled this out correctly.

2) US New's site is kinda screwy.

Yeah, I'm guessing schools were confused when filling it out. Because I'd bet that 30% of Yale kids do clerkships, and 27% do Article III (ie 3% of the class does non-Article III clerkships).

Howard, GMU, and USD all look like they read it as a percentage of total clerks. And then there are some such as Charleston school of law putting 27% of its grads in clerkships and 10% Article III that make absolutely no sense either way you read it.

[Aberzombie1892]

Exactly, so it still doesn't really make sense. I have a hard time believing that 8% of Yale grads are doing Article III clerkships, and especially hard to believe that 3.6% of Harvard grads are doing Article III clerkships (which is what that chart implies if you read it the way you're saying it should be read).

I propose two alternative solutions:

1) San Diego filled out the form wrong (seeing as all this data is self-reported), putting the % of Article III clerks as a function of total clerks, not total graduates; other schools filled this out correctly.

2) US New's site is kinda screwy.

Assuming there are no errors, maybe schools that traditionally placed a lot of graduates into Article 3 clerkships were disproportionately hurt. It's no secret that many Article 3 judges are starting to prefer clerks with post law school experience. If this catches on, then HYS will simply end up placing more students directly into big law. While that would be an interesting development, it really doesn't mean much to 99% of law school students.

[DeepSeaLaw]

Use some common sense here. It is incredibly obvious that for schools like USD, George Mason, and Howard, the schools either filled out the forms wrong or USNWR messed up. No, HYS have not been hurt so much that now three-quarters of their clerks are working for state judges, Article IV judges, etc. Judges may be hiring more clerks with experience, but those older clerks still mostly went to top schools, and (at least in the past) alumni hires have often been included in the numerator of the clerkship fraction. The numbers for HYS are very similar to previous years -- Yale at between 30-40% clerks, Stanford at around 25%, and Harvard around 20%, with the vast majority of those clerks working for federal judges. Nothing dramatic has happened to clerkship placement -- a handful of law schools and/or a magazine were just sloppy.

Edited to clarify the experienced clerk thing.

[Lawlcat]

Use some common sense here. It is incredibly obvious that for schools like USD, George Mason, and Howard, the schools either filled out the forms wrong or USNWR messed up. No, HYS have not been hurt so much that now three-quarters of their clerks are working for state judges, Article IV judges, etc. Judges may be hiring more clerks with experience, but those older clerks still mostly went to top schools, and (at least in the past) alumni hires have often been included in the numerator of the clerkship fraction. The numbers for HYS are very similar to previous years -- Yale at between 30-40% clerks, Stanford at around 25%, and Harvard around 20%, with the vast majority of those clerks working for federal judges. Nothing dramatic has happened to clerkship placement -- a handful of law schools and/or a magazine were just sloppy.

Edited to clarify the experienced clerk thing.

I think this is indeed the best explanation. The numbers seem entirely plausible outside of a few that are clearly nuts.

Incidentally, I spot-checked Georgia, and its website gives a number (not percentage) of graduates that, divided by a back-of-the-envelope third of their total attending numbers from Wikipedia, puts the 10% judicial clerkship numbers reported within the range of the reasonable. I had assumed it was a likely error, since it has a T14-esque fed clerkship percentage and I think has an even higher Article III to NLJ 250 ratio than YALE. Not to Georgia-bash, but I suspect they're mostly just cashing in on some alumni judges in-state. But hey, Article III is Article III.


EDIT: Disregard. I screwed up. (I think I did the spot check last night, while really drunk, then posted about it this morning.) I have been procrastinating on here and randomly commenting too long already, but will revise the charts soon. Maybe when I incorporate the Class of 2009 data.

[Robespierre]

Maybe 8 USD grads got clerkships (which would be 2.9% of a class of their full-time class of 275), and 5 of those were with Art. III judges, which is 62.5%, which got rounded up to 63%, and they reported it that way due to misunderstanding of the question?

No matter how you slice it, unbelievably sloppy by USNWR.

[Lawlcat]

Maybe 8 grads got clerkships (which would be 2.9% of a class of their full-time class of 275), and 5 of those were with Art. III judges, which is 62.5%, which got rounded up to 63%, and they reported it that way due to misunderstanding of the question?

No matter how you slice it, unbelievably sloppy by USNWR.

--LinkRemoved--

My apologies, I screwed up while tipsy. 27 state and federal. I think your explanation is probably correct.

[bdubs]

If you assume that the data posted above were reported correctly by schools and that the article III numbers are % of all clerks, then you would get the following rankings:

Rank | School | % of graduating students in Art. III Clerkships
1|Yale University|8.26200%
2|Stanford University|6.24000%
3|University of Washington|4.10400%
4|Harvard University|3.72860%
5|Howard University|3.68460%
6|George Mason University|3.60000%
7|Charleston School of Law|2.70000%
8|University of Arizona (Rogers)|2.58300%
9|Duke University|2.04000%
10|Seton Hall University|2.0000%

Doesn't seem right or consistent with last year's data. I would have to agree with everyone who said there is marked inconsistency between schools.

[tgir]

Use some common sense here. It is incredibly obvious that for schools like USD, George Mason, and Howard, the schools either filled out the forms wrong or USNWR messed up. No, HYS have not been hurt so much that now three-quarters of their clerks are working for state judges, Article IV judges, etc. Judges may be hiring more clerks with experience, but those older clerks still mostly went to top schools, and (at least in the past) alumni hires have often been included in the numerator of the clerkship fraction. The numbers for HYS are very similar to previous years -- Yale at between 30-40% clerks, Stanford at around 25%, and Harvard around 20%, with the vast majority of those clerks working for federal judges. Nothing dramatic has happened to clerkship placement -- a handful of law schools and/or a magazine were just sloppy.

Edited to clarify the experienced clerk thing.

Definitely TCR.

[FlightoftheEarls]

Use some common sense here. It is incredibly obvious that for schools like USD, George Mason, and Howard, the schools either filled out the forms wrong or USNWR messed up. No, HYS have not been hurt so much that now three-quarters of their clerks are working for state judges, Article IV judges, etc. Judges may be hiring more clerks with experience, but those older clerks still mostly went to top schools, and (at least in the past) alumni hires have often been included in the numerator of the clerkship fraction. The numbers for HYS are very similar to previous years -- Yale at between 30-40% clerks, Stanford at around 25%, and Harvard around 20%, with the vast majority of those clerks working for federal judges. Nothing dramatic has happened to clerkship placement -- a handful of law schools and/or a magazine were just sloppy.

Edited to clarify the experienced clerk thing.

Definitely TCR.

[JusticeHarlan]

Maybe when I incorporate the Class of 2009 data.

Where is the class of 2009 clerking data? Is it part of the data you get if you pay, or is available for free like the class of 2008 data was?