Law schools that make the most partners Forum

[nosaj123]

Here is a ranking of the schools that have produced the most partners at NLJ schools since 1986:
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... where.html

Warning: extreme laziness follows
The above list doesn't take into account class sizes. Does anyone want to take a stab at adjusting for that? I would be fine just dividing by last years class size and make the rough assumption that class sizes have remained fairly constant over the past 25 years for the schools on the list.

[ndirish2010]

I'm gonna do it for the hell of it.

[dkt4]

this seems to align with how most partner's i have spoken to view school quality (although a huge bias here is that I've only talked to people at CA firms).

except GW, wtf?

[ndirish2010]

School Class Size Partners Weighted

Chicago 195 426 2.184615385
Harvard 577 946 1.639514731
Virginia 374 527 1.409090909
Stanford 173 240 1.387283237
Northwestern 284 365 1.285211268
Yale 198 253 1.277777778
Penn 272 329 1.209558824
Michigan 372 444 1.193548387
Columbia 433 516 1.191685912
Boston University 270 317 1.174074074
Georgetown 644 729 1.131987578
NYU 483 543 1.124223602
Cornell 192 204 1.0625
Duke 213 219 1.028169014
Texas 379 384 1.013192612
Berkeley 296 287 0.969594595
Illinois 195 183 0.938461538
Notre Dame 172 159 0.924418605
Vanderbilt 208 186 0.894230769
George Washington 513 447 0.871345029
Boston College 265 213 0.803773585
USC 195 151 0.774358974
UCLA 350 257 0.734285714
Fordham 479 306 0.638830898
Villanova 235 137 0.582978723
Emory 255 148 0.580392157
Loyola-Chicago 266 154 0.578947368
Hastings 419 233 0.556085919
WUSTL 269 149 0.553903346
Pittsburgh * 235 130 0.553191489
Temple 293 160 0.546075085
Houston 284 153 0.538732394
SMU 259 132 0.50965251
Tulane 252 125 0.496031746
Catholic* 274 135 0.49270073
William & Mary 214 104 0.485981308
Ohio State 198 96 0.484848485
Wisconsin 252 121 0.48015873
North Carolina 237 109 0.459915612
Minnesota 284 130 0.457746479
Georgia 218 99 0.45412844
Maryland 242 105 0.433884298
Florida* 368 154 0.418478261
St. John’s 291 121 0.41580756
American* 449 179 0.398663697
Miami* 402 160 0.39800995
DePaul* 350 134 0.382857143
Loyola LA* 432 162 0.375
Chicago-Kent* 310 111 0.358064516
Brooklyn* 486 119 0.244855967

This is only for the top 50 raw numbers wise- Asterisks usually mean I did some rounding or estimating as far as class size (total enrollment/3 or class of 2013 instead)

[whitman]

.

[Rock-N-Roll]

An interesting statistic but I don't think this super useful to us. Just interesting.

[2011Cycle]

The complete 17 page report has additional information of value such as the top feeder schools by market.

[thecilent]

Damn. I'm either deferring to Duke or UVA, and this was a huge plug for UVA...Duke doesn't look so good there.

I really, really hope this does not factor into your decision between duke and uva

[vanwinkle]

As a 0L these numbers really don't mean too much. You're telling about the difference between "extremely poor odds" and "still pretty damn poor odds".

To put this in perspective: Every 2 years, HLS and GULC will each graduate more lawyers than the number they each have on this list. HLS produces 500+ new attorneys each year, or more than 5,000 in the last decade alone. Yet there are only 900 HLS lawyers on this list. That should tell you how hard, even coming from a school like HLS, making BigLaw partner would be.

[yngblkgifted]

Damn. I'm either deferring to Duke or UVA, and this was a huge plug for UVA...Duke doesn't look so good there.

I really, really hope this does not factor into your decision between duke and uva

Regardless of this info, uva ftw! hth.

[Helmholtz]

School Class Size Partners Weighted

Chicago 195 426 2.184615385
Harvard 577 946 1.639514731

Surprisingly large gap. (Considering that the space between #1 and #2 is about the same as the gap between #2 Harvard and #13 Cornell.)

Columbia 433 516 1.191685912

This is interesting. Never would have pegged all of MVP as higher in partner numbers than Columbia.

[ndirish2010]

I was also shocked about Chicago's domination. Perhaps this is because they dominate a single city rather than H which is national?

[Bildungsroman]

Cornell holding strong in the T13

[Helmholtz]

I was also shocked about Chicago's domination. Perhaps this is because they dominate a single city rather than H which is national?

That might be the case, although even at some of the big NYC firms, Chicago has a decent partner presence considering its tiny class size and geographic placement. For example, I think around 5-7% of the partners at NYC-centered firms like STB, CSW, Paul Weiss, Cleary, and Debevoise are UChicago grads. Not bad when you take class size and geographic self-selection into account. But yeah, I believe that UChicago grads make up 20-25% of the partners at Sidley-Chicago and 10–15% of the partners at Kirland-Chicago, for example. So that certainly doesn't hurt.

[ndirish2010]

I was also shocked about Chicago's domination. Perhaps this is because they dominate a single city rather than H which is national?

That might be the case, although even at some of the big NYC firms, Chicago has a decent partner presence considering its tiny class size and geographic placement. For example, I think around 5-7% of the partners at NYC-centered firms like STB, CSW, Paul Weiss, Cleary, Debevoise are UChicago grads. Not bad when you take class size and geographic self-selection into account. But yeah, I believe that UChicago grads make up 20-25% of the partners at Sidley-Chicago and 10–15% of the partners at Kirland-Chicago. So that certainly doesn't hurt.

Wow yeah, those are some impressive numbers in NYC. I didn't mean to imply that Chicago was relegated to that city only, just that they have relatively little competition of T30 type schools placing into that city, giving them an advantage. When you add in their sizable NYC presence, I can see that they could be ahead of H, but the margin still surprises me.

[d34d9823]

Chicago also places evenly with HS in Supreme Court clerkships and academia:

http://leiterrankings.com/new/2011_LawTeachers.shtml

http://www.leiterrankings.com/new/2010_ ... ment.shtml

[showNprove]

Damn. I'm either deferring to Duke or UVA, and this was a huge plug for UVA...Duke doesn't look so good there.

I really, really hope this does not factor into your decision between duke and uva

Maybe Duke can start a program where they pay law firms to give their alumni the "Partner" title? Then 100% of Duke students can be employed and make partner.

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

Weighted averages

Okay, now find total graduates from each school since 1986, that way you can weigh it even more accurately for fluctuating class sizes

[KibblesAndVick]

"The single most important determinant of how
schools perform on most outcome measures (bar passage, hiring, big-firm
partnership, etc.) is the quality of the students they attract.6 In significant
part, therefore, per capita outcome measures are merely proxies for student
quality. Unfortunately, applicants commonly misread such measures as
reflecting the value added by attending one school rather than another. (“I
am more likely to pass the bar if I go here rather than there, because the bar
passage rate here is higher.”) Unless a measure controls for student quality,
however, it says nothing about the value likely to be added to a particular
student by a particular school."

Footnote 6:
"In trial runs, the Pearson correlation coefficient between median entering
LSATs for a portion of the period studied and a preliminary partners-per-FTE
(full-time equivalent students) variable was 0.8462, suggesting that median
entering LSATs accounted for 72% of the variance in partners per FTE."

I thought this was the most interesting part of his article.

[ndirish2010]

Weighted averages

Okay, now find total graduates from each school since 1986, that way you can weigh it even more accurately for fluctuating class sizes

Yeah, yeah, I know. If only OCI wasn't coming up, maybe. Its true though. Does anyone know which schools have drastically changed their class sizes over the years?

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

Weighted averages

Okay, now find total graduates from each school since 1986, that way you can weigh it even more accurately for fluctuating class sizes

Yeah, yeah, I know. If only OCI wasn't coming up, maybe. Its true though. Does anyone know which schools have drastically changed their class sizes over the years?

Ha, off the top of my head I know Emory went from 200-215 to 255 this year, and UF dropped from ~450 to that 368.

[rayiner]

NU has gone up from ~235 to ~285 in the past 5 years.

[Bronte]

"The single most important determinant of how
schools perform on most outcome measures (bar passage, hiring, big-firm
partnership, etc.) is the quality of the students they attract.6 In significant
part, therefore, per capita outcome measures are merely proxies for student
quality. Unfortunately, applicants commonly misread such measures as
reflecting the value added by attending one school rather than another. (“I
am more likely to pass the bar if I go here rather than there, because the bar
passage rate here is higher.”) Unless a measure controls for student quality,
however, it says nothing about the value likely to be added to a particular
student by a particular school."

Footnote 6:
"In trial runs, the Pearson correlation coefficient between median entering
LSATs for a portion of the period studied and a preliminary partners-per-FTE
(full-time equivalent students) variable was 0.8462, suggesting that median
entering LSATs accounted for 72% of the variance in partners per FTE."

I thought this was the most interesting part of his article.

Actually I think the thesis of the quoted passage is wrong. If you put median incoming LSAT on one axis and per capita partnership rank on the other, obviously you're going to get a really high correlation coefficient. All this tells you is if you were to put the median LSAT next to each of those schools listed above, you'd mostly see the LSAT figures increasing as you moved up the ranking. We already know that.

Obviously, a major reason firms prefer to hire from top schools is because they know the students there were among the best and the brightest when they were admitted. However, it's a fallacy to think this means that, once you're admitted to two schools, you shouldn't choose the school with better employment prospects. Once you're at the school, the firms aren't going to know your incoming statistics; you're just a Chicago student, or whatever. The higher ranked your school, the better the firms think your incoming statistics were.

Thus, all else equal, it actually does make sense to choose a school based on its employment statistics (but not, necessarily, these employment statistics). Going to a school with better employment statistics does increase your chances of success.

[whitman]

Damn. I'm either deferring to Duke or UVA, and this was a huge plug for UVA...Duke doesn't look so good there.

I really, really hope this does not factor into your decision between duke and uva

Nope. I'm PI-focused. Just found it interesting.

I was also surprised at how low UWashington is. They're the best school in the Pacific Northwest and their class size is tiny. I guess this just reinforces the widely repeated mantra that the Seattle legal market is tiny.

[NC1]

Chicago also places evenly with HS in Supreme Court clerkships and academia:

http://leiterrankings.com/new/2011_LawTeachers.shtml

http://www.leiterrankings.com/new/2010_ ... ment.shtml

Chicago definitely has the most enthusiastic supporters of their school on this board.

With that said, I think what's more surprising are the numbers of schools with more partners than Columbia. Specifically, a lot of MV, etc. Those are great schools no doubt, but it's just really surprising. Unless of course those other schools spread out more within their regions, which they probably dominate. As opposed to CLS which mainly sticks in NYC where everyone else goes as well. But that's merely conjecture.