Law schools that make the most partners Forum

[quakeroats]

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.

A few thoughts:

1. The data was collected between June of 2010 and June of 2011 by RAs at Loyola LA. Anyone who graduated law school and made partner but left law-firm practice between 1986 and June of 2010 won't be counted.

2. The time period under consideration is extended (25 years), especially compared to studies of biglaw associates who join their initial firms for 18 months-3 years on average.

3. Associate hiring decisions are based on a combination of factors including school, grades, likability, and work experience. Firms overhire, and expect almost everyone they select not to make partner. Partnership decisions in big firms are made on a very different set of factors including billing a satisfactory number of hours, perceived ability to develop clients and client relationships, practice-area needs of the firm, expertise and ability, likability, and an overall will-making-this-person-a-member-of-the-firm-benefit-us calculation. Law-school related factors (where, when, what and how well one did) are tertiary concerns at the partnership level.

4. This data isn't particularly helpful to law students.

[Helmholtz]

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.

A few thoughts:

1. The data was collected between June of 2010 and June of 2011 by RAs at Loyola LA. Anyone who graduated law school and made partner but left law-firm practice between 1986 and June of 2010 won't be counted.

2. The time period under consideration is extended (25 years), especially compared to studies of biglaw associates who join their initial firms for 18 months-3 years on average.

3. Associate hiring decisions are based on a combination of factors including school, grades, likability, and work experience. Firms overhire, and expect almost everyone they select not to make partner. Partnership decisions in big firms are made on a very different set of factors including billing a satisfactory number of hours, perceived ability to develop clients and client relationships, practice-area needs of the firm, expertise and ability, likability, and an overall will-making-this-person-a-member-of-the-firm-benefit-us calculation. Law-school related factors (where, when, what and how well one did) are tertiary concerns at the partnership level.

4. This data isn't particularly helpful to law students.

somebody mad

oh, I do see where you pointed out that the unlikability of Duke grads is keeping them from being partner though, so kudos

[quakeroats]

somebody mad

Not at all. Did you read what I wrote?

[Humpty Dumpty]

nvm

[quakeroats]

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.

Perhaps Columbia suffers from placing mostly in NYC where people say there's more attrition on the way to partner?

The Study reports New York numbers too:

NYU: 364
Columbia: 286
Harvard: 259
Fordham: 244
Georgetown 140
Penn: 100
Brooklyn: 88
St. John's: 87
Boston University: 85
Yale: 82

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

A few thoughts:

1. The data was collected between June of 2010 and June of 2011 by RAs at Loyola LA. Anyone who graduated law school and made partner but left law-firm practice between 1986 and June of 2010 won't be counted.

2. The time period under consideration is extended (25 years), especially compared to studies of biglaw associates who join their initial firms for 18 months-3 years on average.

3. Associate hiring decisions are based on a combination of factors including school, grades, likability, and work experience. Firms overhire, and expect almost everyone they select not to make partner. Partnership decisions in big firms are made on a very different set of factors including billing a satisfactory number of hours, perceived ability to develop clients and client relationships, practice-area needs of the firm, expertise and ability, likability, and an overall will-making-this-person-a-member-of-the-firm-benefit-us calculation. Law-school related factors (where, when, what and how well one did) are tertiary concerns at the partnership level.

4. This data isn't particularly helpful to law students.

somebody mad

oh, I do see where you pointed out that the unlikability of Duke grads is keeping them from being partner though, so kudos

TBF this could be one of the more idiotic reasons in history to actually choose UVA over Duke.

[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.

A few thoughts:

1. The data was collected between June of 2010 and June of 2011 by RAs at Loyola LA. Anyone who graduated law school and made partner but left law-firm practice between 1986 and June of 2010 won't be counted.

2. The time period under consideration is extended (25 years), especially compared to studies of biglaw associates who join their initial firms for 18 months-3 years on average.

3. Associate hiring decisions are based on a combination of factors including school, grades, likability, and work experience. Firms overhire, and expect almost everyone they select not to make partner. Partnership decisions in big firms are made on a very different set of factors including billing a satisfactory number of hours, perceived ability to develop clients and client relationships, practice-area needs of the firm, expertise and ability, likability, and an overall will-making-this-person-a-member-of-the-firm-benefit-us calculation. Law-school related factors (where, when, what and how well one did) are tertiary concerns at the partnership level.

4. This data isn't particularly helpful to law students.

somebody mad

oh, I do see where you pointed out that the unlikability of Duke grads is keeping them from being partner though, so kudos

TBF this could be one of the more idiotic reasons in history to actually choose UVA over Duke.

Agreed, and, even though no one cares, I just want to say that I am not that much of an idiot.

[rayiner]

The thing that this study does confirm is that Harvard absolutely pwns. It's in the top 5 in NY, DC, LA, Boston, Houston, SF, and SD, and is in the top 10 everywhere else.

[PNW Noob]

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.

Actually, he didn't do the math for the entire list. UW=61/180=0.33889* In other words, it'd rank just above Brooklyn in the weighted list.

[JCougar]

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.

Perhaps Columbia suffers from placing mostly in NYC where people say there's more attrition on the way to partner?

I was just going to say this. NYC biglaw is leveraged to the hilt. Chicago Biglaw actually hires with the hope of you staying with the firm. Perhaps that's why Chicago and Northwestern are relatively so high. Also, for NU, they have a much greater proportion of people with decent work experience, and that probably really helps. I'd bet it's a better predictor of firm success than grades...if you have high-level experience.

[shutterbug]

Surprised my TTT school (St. John's) is as high as it is.

[FlightoftheEarls]

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

Please, for the love of god, do not quote to Leiter studies to show that Chicago is on par with HS. The guy's proclivity to produce studies that favor whatever school he is currently at incentivizes him to produce terribly biased studies based on small subsections of available data favoring his school. When the data doesn't favor his argument, he simply doesn't do the study or changes the parameters. For example, check out his ridiculous 2006-only academia study where Chicago beat Stanford. Following this one year where Chicago appears to equal HYS-caliber placement, Leiter subsequently failed to do any similar studies within the past few years of academic hiring once Chicago's placement slipped, and he instead switch it to a 1995+ study. The only reason he has any credence whatsoever in this area is that he's a big name professor at a big name school. For a better look at recent academic hiring, check out:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... a#p4188514

[bjsesq]

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

I hope this doesn't factor into anyone's decision at all. Ever.

[d34d9823]

Please, for the love of god, do not quote to Leiter studies to show that Chicago is on par with HS. The guy's proclivity to produce studies that favor whatever school he is currently at incentivizes him to produce terribly biased studies based on small subsections of available data favoring his school.

As long as he correctly labels the data range, what's the problem? It's the reader's responsibility to draw conclusions.

[bjsesq]

Please, for the love of god, do not quote to Leiter studies to show that Chicago is on par with HS. The guy's proclivity to produce studies that favor whatever school he is currently at incentivizes him to produce terribly biased studies based on small subsections of available data favoring his school.

As long as he correctly labels the data range, what's the problem? It's the reader's responsibility to draw conclusions.

Because it tends to be misleading. Let's not just caveat emptor the obvious bias out of Leiter's studies.

[d34d9823]

Please, for the love of god, do not quote to Leiter studies to show that Chicago is on par with HS. The guy's proclivity to produce studies that favor whatever school he is currently at incentivizes him to produce terribly biased studies based on small subsections of available data favoring his school.

As long as he correctly labels the data range, what's the problem? It's the reader's responsibility to draw conclusions.

Because it tends to be misleading. Let's not just caveat emptor the obvious bias out of Leiter's studies.

It's only misleading if you think data analysis ought to be spoon-fed to people.

[bjsesq]

Please, for the love of god, do not quote to Leiter studies to show that Chicago is on par with HS. The guy's proclivity to produce studies that favor whatever school he is currently at incentivizes him to produce terribly biased studies based on small subsections of available data favoring his school.

As long as he correctly labels the data range, what's the problem? It's the reader's responsibility to draw conclusions.

Because it tends to be misleading. Let's not just caveat emptor the obvious bias out of Leiter's studies.

It's only misleading if you think data analysis ought to be spoon-fed to people.

LOLWUT? He didn't say shit about spoon feeding it, son, he called Leiter out on his bias. why u mad?

[d34d9823]

LOLWUT? He didn't say shit about spoon feeding it, son, he called Leiter out on his bias. why u mad?

A study that correctly labels and presents the data can't be biased, by definition, unless you introduce an external bias. Hence why I said people should stop expecting to be spoon-fed data.

And, yeah, my flat tone definitely says that I'm mad. I don't even know where you got that from.

[bjsesq]

LOLWUT? He didn't say shit about spoon feeding it, son, he called Leiter out on his bias. why u mad?

A study that correctly labels and presents the data can't be biased, by definition, unless you introduce an external bias. Hence why I said people should stop expecting to be spoon-fed data.

And, yeah, my flat tone definitely says that I'm mad. I don't even know where you got that from.

Yeah, you mad

[d34d9823]

Yeah, you mad

[bjsesq]

Yeah, you mad