Top Law Schools

So, here are the options.
What's the best choice for someone who wants biglaw, with no preference for location and ties to LA?

I'd think UCLA if you want California. Is Cornell still running the la job fair? If you want big law in general without a huge location preference I'd say Cornell with the money.

Just realized I forgot to add the poll.

Guess UCLA doesn't cut it huh?

Even though not many people have voted yet, it is interesting to see the same number of votes for Cornell and Duke, given no geographic preference for Biglaw and an extra $45K from Cornell. This makes it seem Duke would be the overwhelming choice barring financial decisions.

This is perplexing because the Biglaw employment numbers seem to be very close between Duke and Cornell. Any thoughts? Justifications?

Sticker price at Duke is around 5k cheaper than Cornell. So you're looking more at a 10k/year difference. I think 30k+interest is definitely worth it to take Cornell but arguably the price is pretty close and they are peer schools.

I voted for Cornell. According to the American Law Journal, Cornell placed 58% of its graduating class of 2010 into NLJ 250 firms, while Duke only placed 38% and UCLA 35%. If you want biglaw, Cornell seems most likely to get you there.

Should I be suspicious of the ALJ numbers? I was surprised to see Cornell ranked number 2...is that because fewer people clerk at Cornell? I understand a lot of the Yale class clerks/does something besides biglaw by choice, but I cannot imagine there are enough of those people at NYU to explain why it places so much lower than Cornell.

Brassica7 wrote:I voted for Cornell. According to the American Law Journal, Cornell placed 58% of its graduating class of 2010 into NLJ 250 firms, while Duke only placed 38% and UCLA 35%. If you want biglaw, Cornell seems most likely to get you there.

Should I be suspicious of the ALJ numbers? I was surprised to see Cornell ranked number 2...is that because fewer people clerk at Cornell? I understand a lot of the Yale class clerks/does something besides biglaw by choice, but I cannot imagine there are enough of those people at NYU to explain why it places so much lower than Cornell.

Few people clerk and few people do PI, which explains the difference between Cornell and, say, NYU. This is not as applicable to Duke and UCLA. They just place worse.

UCLA.

Cornell or Duke, with possibly the slight edge to Cornell. I don't really think that UCLA is in the running if you are really trying to give yourself the best shot at 160K/yr.

tl;dr UCLA
I'm facing a similar dilemma at the moment- 90k from UCLA vs 54k from Michigan, with ties to CA (SoCal in particular). ATM I'm leaning towards Michigan, but I think in your shoes I'd be leaning towards UCLA. OOS tuition at Cornell and UCLA is comparable; however, given your ties to LA I'm assuming IS tuition @ UCLA which is 10k cheaper/year. That's 30k+45k= 70k less to attend UCLA. Your scholly at Cornell doesn't even cover one full year of tuition; your UCLA scholarship covers 2 full years. I would go to UCLA and aim for the LA market.

COA for Duke and Cornell are roughly equal with that scholarship from Cornell.