Top Law Schools

Bump.... and please don't suggest other schools, as I've Ed'd VA

Ask the poster BruceWayne. I would imagine top 1/3ish, but I'm not an expert.

There has been some serious UVA trolling lately.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Ask the poster BruceWayne. I would imagine top 1/3ish, but I'm not an expert.

No need to ask disgruntled students. When adding biglaw with fed clerkships along with students who self-select to go into PI, gov, and state clerkships, you have roughly 65% of students being placed in desirable jobs.

Justin Genious wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Ask the poster BruceWayne. I would imagine top 1/3ish, but I'm not an expert.

No need to ask disgruntled students. When adding biglaw with fed clerkships along with students who self-select to go into PI, gov, and state clerkships, you have roughly 65% of students being placed in desirable jobs.

That's not what OP asked.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:

Justin Genious wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Ask the poster BruceWayne. I would imagine top 1/3ish, but I'm not an expert.

No need to ask disgruntled students. When adding biglaw with fed clerkships along with students who self-select to go into PI, gov, and state clerkships, you have roughly 65% of students being placed in desirable jobs.

That's not what OP asked.

Top 65% will likely get him/her NYC biglaw.

Justin Genious wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:

Justin Genious wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Ask the poster BruceWayne. I would imagine top 1/3ish, but I'm not an expert.

No need to ask disgruntled students. When adding biglaw with fed clerkships along with students who self-select to go into PI, gov, and state clerkships, you have roughly 65% of students being placed in desirable jobs.

That's not what OP asked.

Top 65% will likely get him/her NYC biglaw.

1. 65% placement does not mean everyone in the top 65% got what they wanted.
2. UVA doesn't place anywhere close to 65% of their class into biglaw.
3. Good fucking luck getting NYC biglaw if you're rounding out the 40% at UVA.

rickgrimes69 wrote:

Justin Genious wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:

Justin Genious wrote: No need to ask disgruntled students. When adding biglaw with fed clerkships along with students who self-select to go into PI, gov, and state clerkships, you have roughly 65% of students being placed in desirable jobs.

That's not what OP asked.

Top 65% will likely get him/her NYC biglaw.

1. 65% placement does not mean everyone in the top 65% got what they wanted.
2. UVA doesn't place anywhere close to 65% of their class into biglaw.
3. Good fucking luck getting NYC biglaw if you're rounding out the 40% at UVA.

2011 was the worst year for big law hiring ever.

Unless UVA places way worse than Northwestern (which I doubt) plenty of people below 40% will get NYC big law.

rickgrimes69 wrote: 1. 65% placement does not mean everyone in the top 65% got what they wanted.
2. UVA doesn't place anywhere close to 65% of their class into biglaw.
3. Good fucking luck getting NYC biglaw if you're rounding out the 40% at UVA.

Not sure if srs?

According to career services, about 55% of c/o 2012 had biglaw (100+ attorneys) at graduation. Maybe tack on another 10% or so (clerkships/genuine self-selection into PI) and you possibly have you UVA chances at biglaw. Call them and ask if youre curious for the exact numbers. And be skeptical I guess, until there's official numbers from the NALP/ABA you never know if you can trust them

Justin Genious wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Ask the poster BruceWayne. I would imagine top 1/3ish, but I'm not an expert.

No need to ask disgruntled students. When adding biglaw with fed clerkships along with students who self-select to go into PI, gov, and state clerkships, you have roughly 65% of students being placed in desirable jobs.

Not sure if you're saying this is a good statistic or bad.

Basically you're saying that 2/3rds got any kind of JD-related job worth getting - which is NOT the same as saying 2/3rds of UVA students got the job they might have wanted to get if you asked them in 2008: what job would you want coming out of law school...

That is not a good statistic. That is a terrible statistic. A f*** state clerkship? Come on now. These jobs would've been regarded as bottom of the barrel in 2007, as would many jobs classified as gov.

Desert Fox wrote:

rickgrimes69 wrote:
1. 65% placement does not mean everyone in the top 65% got what they wanted.
2. UVA doesn't place anywhere close to 65% of their class into biglaw.
3. Good fucking luck getting NYC biglaw if you're rounding out the 40% at UVA.

2011 was the worst year for big law hiring ever.

Unless UVA places way worse than Northwestern (which I doubt) plenty of people below 40% will get NYC big law.

BULLSHIT. Plenty of people? Top 20 percent is not plenty of people, and I wouldn't even put the number at THAT.

I think the individuals quoting large big law numbers are not understanding what the op is asking. The op is asking about NYC placement -only-.

OP, I know you asked us not to, but I would recommend Cornell if you can retract the ED.

UVA's NYC placement is better than any non top 14. It's worse than Columbia, NYU, Penn and probably Cornell. If you pull a 3.4 you'll get it if you can interview and don't bid foolishly. If you pull a 3.3 you have a decent shot at NYC. Not great but decent. If you land below 3.3 you're going to be in serious trouble. If you get below a 3.2 you can basically forget about it.

FYI 3.4 is top 1/3 3.3 is median and below 3.2 is bottom 1/3

rickgrimes69 wrote: 1. 65% placement does not mean everyone in the top 65% got what they wanted.
2. UVA doesn't place anywhere close to 65% of their class into biglaw.
3. Good fucking luck getting NYC biglaw if you're rounding out the 40% at UVA.

Dude do you go to UVA? If not, you probably shouldn't talk about what you don't know (referring specifically to your second point)

OP. I go to UVA. I would say that a solid 65% have jobs they want (mainly big law, but some people do self-select out of OGI and into government work or smaller non-V100 firms)

As far as NY biglaw from UVA, Justin Genious is sort of correct. You can still get NY biglaw even if you're slightly below median (median is 3.33, you can probably still get NY biglaw all the way down to 3.25). The thing is, although it is possible to get NY biglaw from UVa with that GPA, it's certainly not guaranteed and it will be an uphill battle. I would say, if you have a 3.40 (roughly top 1/3) you are NY biglaw secure (barring no other major issues). Like I said, you can potentially get NY biglaw all the way down to probably 65%; however, the people I know that were able to do so had other very strong softs (military, i-banking) and/or they landed it through mass mailing and not OGI.

The most recent OGI stats are still being compiled, but having spoken to many of my classmates, the general outcome looks like this:

Top 1/3 (4.0-3.4): Going to DC, LA (a few), NY (a lot)
1/3-2/3 (3.4-3.20): Mainly going to a secondary market where the person has ties (ex: Cleveland, Tampa, Charlotte, Philly, Delaware)
Bottom 1/3 (below 3.20): mix match, but mainly don't have jobs lined up

People in the 3.33-3.20 range without any type of ties to a secondary market had trouble getting jobs, but most still landed something they are happy with.

^ You're DREAMING if you think 65% of UVA has jobs that they "want". And that's putting it lightly.

BruceWayne wrote:^ You're DREAMING if you think 65% of UVA has jobs that they "want". And that's putting it lightly.

The numbers career services gave for c/o 2012 seems to support the 2/3rds number. The uva 2016 thread has some info on that. I'm on my phone so I can't pull it up. That being said the numbers may be bogus or suspect.

BruceWayne wrote:^ You're DREAMING if you think 65% of UVA has jobs that they "want". And that's putting it lightly.

You seem like the most unhappy person on TLS Bruce. Whenever I walk around UVA and see someone that looks as if their dog just died I think for a moment, is that Bruce Wayne?

UVAIce wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:^ You're DREAMING if you think 65% of UVA has jobs that they "want". And that's putting it lightly.

You seem like the most unhappy person on TLS Bruce. Whenever I walk around UVA and see someone that looks as if their dog just died I think for a moment, is that Bruce Wayne?

People on here are always at extremes when it comes to schools. You have people who are out of hand and start talking about how UVA is a joke. But then you have people saying stuff like most of the class have the jobs they came to get. It's like no one just looks at the actual placement data and the GPA charts. Something like 39% of the class, based off of the nlj, have big firm jobs. The UVA GPA charts show the majority of big firms with average callback GPAs in the top 1/3 of the class or higher. That's not bad and it's better than the average law school. But it sure as hell isn't most of the class is in the position they want. Do people not realize we're currently in the worst economic period since the great depression?

BruceWayne wrote: People on here are always at extremes when it comes to schools. You have people who are out of hand and start talking about how UVA is a joke. But then you have people saying stuff like most of the class have the jobs they came to get. It's like no one just looks at the actual placement data and the GPA charts. Something like 39% of the class, based off of the nlj, have big firm jobs. The UVA GPA charts show the majority of big firms with average callback GPAs in the top 1/3 of the class or higher. That's not bad and it's better than the average law school. But it sure as hell isn't most of the class is in the position they want. Do people not realize we're currently in the worst economic period since the great depression?

So for those 10.6% who got federal clerkships at UVA, how many would have preferred Biglaw?

Same for the 25% that got PI?
How much of the 17% school funded jobs is really just an attempt at boosting employment statistics?


I understand your responses will be anecdotal but I am curious regardless.

BruceWayne wrote:

UVAIce wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:^ You're DREAMING if you think 65% of UVA has jobs that they "want". And that's putting it lightly.

You seem like the most unhappy person on TLS Bruce. Whenever I walk around UVA and see someone that looks as if their dog just died I think for a moment, is that Bruce Wayne?

People on here are always at extremes when it comes to schools. You have people who are out of hand and start talking about how UVA is a joke. But then you have people saying stuff like most of the class have the jobs they came to get. It's like no one just looks at the actual placement data and the GPA charts. Something like 39% of the class, based off of the nlj, have big firm jobs. The UVA GPA charts show the majority of big firms with average callback GPAs in the top 1/3 of the class or higher. That's not bad and it's better than the average law school. But it sure as hell isn't most of the class is in the position they want. Do people not realize we're currently in the worst economic period since the great depression?

I actually completely agree with you. People are making a big a to do about the job placement numbers for 2012, especially UVA's school funded rate. Also, I'm pretty sure that more than half of the graduating class wants to work at a NLJ250 firm or receive a prestigious clerkship. 50%, or heck even 70%, really isn't all that successful. From what I can tell a median student at UVA has practically the same job possibilities as a median student at any other T-14 other than HYS.

I do believe UVA has a few large statistical strikes against it. One of the largest that I think people tend to overlook is the fact that UVA takes 40% in-state residents. Virginia has arguably 4 T1 law schools and not a single major legal market outside of DC, which of course has a few other big law schools. A lot of those people are going to be beating themselves up for legal jobs if they want to start in the state or general region. I would really love to know what the employment numbers are for non-residents versus residents.

Another "problem" that UVA has is that it has a larger student body. It seems to me that most of the schools that have been having large statistical spikes in their employment numbers tend to be T-14 schools with small student bodies. 5 More students getting (or selecting into) NLJ 250 firm jobs at Chicago or Cornell has a much larger impact on their percentage numbers then that same outcome at a larger school like UVA or even GULC for that matter. Also, I've noticed that a lot of firms like to keep some kind of law school diversity. Namely, when they have a group of equally qualified candidates they are more likely to extend offers equally amongst schools. This naturally will favor smaller schools when it comes to employment numbers.

I also agree with Bruce about UVA's weird approach to curving class grades. There are professors that will create a perfect bell curve with no C grades and then some that will build a compressed curve with no C grades (more than 50% of the class getting a B+) and then some crazy professors that will stack the B+'s and then still give out extra A's by handing a few C grades! For those of you that are thinking "what will a C do to my GPA" if you received the C in a 4 credit class for a semester and the rest of your grades were A's you would have slightly under a 3.5. Not a game killer - still going to get a job - but then chances are EXTREMELY unlikely you are going to be pulling all A's and then gettinga C. Heck, chances are not many people are pulling 3 A's period. But what that essentially means is that a professor who gives a student a C grade is killing their chances at a good outcome out of law school regardless of what they do afterwards. That sort of "bad luck" just doesn't really happen at other schools.

UVAIce wrote:That sort of "bad luck" just doesn't really happen at other schools.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=200557

BruceWayne wrote:

UVAIce wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:^ You're DREAMING if you think 65% of UVA has jobs that they "want". And that's putting it lightly.

You seem like the most unhappy person on TLS Bruce. Whenever I walk around UVA and see someone that looks as if their dog just died I think for a moment, is that Bruce Wayne?

People on here are always at extremes when it comes to schools. You have people who are out of hand and start talking about how UVA is a joke. But then you have people saying stuff like most of the class have the jobs they came to get. It's like no one just looks at the actual placement data and the GPA charts. Something like 39% of the class, based off of the nlj, have big firm jobs. The UVA GPA charts show the majority of big firms with average callback GPAs in the top 1/3 of the class or higher. That's not bad and it's better than the average law school. But it sure as hell isn't most of the class is in the position they want. Do people not realize we're currently in the worst economic period since the great depression?

The problem is that you're making the assumption that everyone only wants biglaw in large markets like NY/DC/LA. I said only the top 1/3 has those locked up, so yes you are right if you assume that everyone came in hoping to get those jobs (in those markets), and only those jobs are what they would be satisfied with. The problem is that, in my experience, a lot of people DO NOT want those markets, or they are perfectly fine with going to a secondary market. In which case, I think the 65% number is on target.

OP, the consensus appears to be that the top 1/3 that I quoted was fairly accurate. It's possible to get NY big law below that mark, but it would be unreasonable to count on it.

Justin Genious wrote:Top 65% will likely get him/her NYC biglaw.

it should be a bannable offense to dispense such dangerous advise.