Top Law Schools

In response to ITE, law schools are finally posting very detailed employment statistics, often noting the exact number of people working in various types of jobs.[1]

With the recent comments by Columbia and NYU that the NLJ250 figures may be undercounting (http://www.law.nyu.edu/news/REBUTTAL), I thought I'd look at the data published by the law schools themselves for C/O 2010.

Note that C/O 2010 was somewhat unusual. Their OCI went okay, but the class was hit with tons of no-offers and rescinded offers. This impact was not uniform by market, nor by firm (and by extension school, since firms have their favorite schools).

The table below presents three numbers:
Biglaw % (an estimate based on the number of people definitely in firms of 100+, divided by total class size).
Clerkship % (an estimate based on the known federal clerkships[2] for graduating 3L's, divided by total class size)
Total (biglaw % + clerkship %)

I didn't go into government, business, etc, because frankly that's hard to compare.

Columbia: 69% (biglaw) + 10% (clerkship) = 79%
NYU: 57% (biglaw) + 10% (clerkship) = 67%
Chicago: 60% (biglaw) + 12% (clerkship) = 72%
Penn: 59% (biglaw) + 13% (clerkship)[3] = 72%
Berkeley: 52% (biglaw) + 8% (clerkship) = 60%
Michigan: 48% (biglaw) + 10% (clerkship)[4] = 58%
Virginia: 51% (biglaw) + 12% (clerkship)[3] = 63%
Duke: 45% (biglaw) + 13% (clerkship) = 58%
Northwestern: 52% (biglaw) + 8% (clerkship) = 60%
Cornell: 76% (biglaw) + 5% (clerkship)[4] = 81%
Georgetown: 43% (biglaw) + 7% (clerkship)[4] = 50%

[1] E.g: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/statistics/, which is particular good in giving the salary statistics in $20k/year increments instead of just reporting 25th/50th/75th.
[2] Counting bankruptcy, etc, as federal clerkships.
[3] Using an estimate, assuming distribution of federal/non-federal clerkships is same at graduation as it is overall.
[4] School doesn't break down federal/non-federal, so I assume 80% federal, which is typical for the T14.

So Cornell isn't TTT?

Where did you get the clerkship data? I know USNWR now publishes numbers for article III clerkships, but is there a compilation somewhere that includes bankruptcy and magistrate (besides individual school sites)?

ETA: I'mmm dumb. Read the OP in its entirety and realize now it's all pulled from individual school websites.

Bro its always been HYSCornell.

Why are we using 100+ lawyers as the cutoff for biglaw

Mr. Somebody wrote:Why are we using 100+ lawyers as the cutoff for biglaw

I'm not sure, but doing so makes UT look better (than if using NLJ250) when comparing them to T14 (probably b/c there are a ton of small to mid size firms in DFW and Houston (and Austin to a lesser extent)).

Texas*: 42.6% (biglaw) + 9.49% (clerkship**) = 52.09%


*I could only find an average of employment statistics for class 2007-10. I don't think that should taint things though b/c these were all "boom time" hiring years, just 2010 was awful b/c of the no offers. (If people know that a good chunk of firms had already started to cut back hiring in 2010 please correct me on this though.)

**Clerkship numbers for are Article III only.

Mr. Somebody wrote:Why are we using 100+ lawyers as the cutoff for biglaw

Because the info is being pulled from school websites, which only break down placement into firms of 100-249, 250-499, and 500+. Most of these schools place a fairly small number into the 100-249 group anyway, so it doesn't make a big difference if you include that group or not.

Tiago Splitter wrote:

Mr. Somebody wrote:Why are we using 100+ lawyers as the cutoff for biglaw

Because the info is being pulled from school websites, which only break down placement into firms of 100-249, 250-499, and 500+. Most of these schools place a fairly small number into the 100-249 group anyway, so it doesn't make a big difference if you include that group or not.

It may be the best we can do, but it's not very good. I can think of a few non-market paying firms off the top of my head in my area that have 3-4 offices of around 20-30 attorneys and would make this 100+ lawyer firm mark, but they are FAR from being biglaw or even midlaw. On the other hand, I can think of a few firms that do pay closer to market that are less than 100 in their sole office, and they are midlaw or borderline secondary biglaw.

This list is still very helpful for comparison purposes, but it still makes me pretty hesitant to say "X% are in biglaw" from any of these schools. It's a misleading term to use.

romothesavior wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:

Mr. Somebody wrote:Why are we using 100+ lawyers as the cutoff for biglaw

Because the info is being pulled from school websites, which only break down placement into firms of 100-249, 250-499, and 500+. Most of these schools place a fairly small number into the 100-249 group anyway, so it doesn't make a big difference if you include that group or not.

It may be the best we can do, but it's not very good. I can think of a few non-market paying firms off the top of my head in my area that have 3-4 offices of around 20-30 attorneys and would make this 100+ lawyer firm mark, but they are FAR from being biglaw or even midlaw. On the other hand, I can think of a few firms that do pay closer to market that are less than 100 in their sole office, and they are midlaw or borderline secondary biglaw.

This list is still very helpful for comparison purposes, but it still makes me pretty hesitant to say "X% are in biglaw" from any of these schools. It's a misleading term to use.

100 is a decent cut-off for big-(ish)-law, especially considering that for most schools the 100-250 category only has like 3-5%. The smallest NLJ250 firms are in this category (~160), as are all the major Delaware firms ($145k), several Atlanta firms that pay $125k, etc.