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Compared to its peer schools, UVA has a pretty significant percentage of its grads going into these type of law firm jobs (50-100+ attorneys). I found this interesting and was wondering if anyone could shed some light on this 'anomaly(?)'. Do more of these firms come to UVA? Are these jobs considered biglaw?

I ask because I'm trying to decide between a number of similarly ranked law schools and am looking for anything to push me one way or another.

Kurst wrote:

I'd imagine it's smaller southern firms. Does Duke have a large number too? There is no consistent definition of big law. But I'm guessing most of these aren't paying 6 figs.

A better question would be, what schools are you looking at and what is the cost of attendance at each?

Also, do you have any geographic preferences?

How did you draw that conclusion from the chart? If you're taking the red bar on the chart to represent the segment you're talking about, UVA is only 1-2 percentage points higher than B and about 15 percentage points lower than P so the only "peer" it really outperforms is M. Based on that chart it looks like UVA does about average in that area.

6.1% of UVA grads go to firms of 51-100 attorneys, 0.3% of Berkeley grads go to firms that size, 1.6% of Michigan grads go to firms of that size. Obviously UVA sends quite a few more (especially since its class is as big or bigger than those two) but I'm not sure how you could figure out why. My guess is what someone else already mentioned -- Southern firms just tend to be smaller and UVA places more in the South.

I wish I had ties to the South....

What are your other options? People often treat the lower T14 like one big peer group, but there are differences in placement that should be taken into account regardless of what USNews says. Basically Penn and Northwestern place better than their "peer" groups, MVPB and DCNG, respectively. A combination of a huge class and DC as a target market have weakened Georgetown's placement to the point that it really should not be clustered with Duke, Cornell, or Northwestern. Mich and UVA have been struggling in this market. I don't think UVa placing more people into 50ish-people firms, if true, is relevant to deciding which school to attend.

Isn't UVAs peer schools UMich, Penn, Duke and NW ? If so, Penn and NW are beating UVA by a mile.

Yukos wrote:6.1% of UVA grads go to firms of 51-100 attorneys, 0.3% of Berkeley grads go to firms that size, 1.6% of Michigan grads go to firms of that size. Obviously UVA sends quite a few more (especially since its class is as big or bigger than those two) but I'm not sure how you could figure out why. My guess is what someone else already mentioned -- Southern firms just tend to be smaller and UVA places more in the South.

OP said 50-100+, not just 51-100.

InGoodFaith wrote:

Yukos wrote:6.1% of UVA grads go to firms of 51-100 attorneys, 0.3% of Berkeley grads go to firms that size, 1.6% of Michigan grads go to firms of that size. Obviously UVA sends quite a few more (especially since its class is as big or bigger than those two) but I'm not sure how you could figure out why. My guess is what someone else already mentioned -- Southern firms just tend to be smaller and UVA places more in the South.

OP said 50-100+, not just 51-100.

Yeah, but what he actually said made no sense, so Yukos' interpretation seems about right.

Elston Gunn wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:

Yukos wrote:6.1% of UVA grads go to firms of 51-100 attorneys, 0.3% of Berkeley grads go to firms that size, 1.6% of Michigan grads go to firms of that size. Obviously UVA sends quite a few more (especially since its class is as big or bigger than those two) but I'm not sure how you could figure out why. My guess is what someone else already mentioned -- Southern firms just tend to be smaller and UVA places more in the South.

OP said 50-100+, not just 51-100.

Yeah, but what he actually said made no sense, so Yukos' interpretation seems about right.

I just assumed OP was mentally handicapped.

I meant 51-100. My mistake

If UVA has a larger class than its peer schools, this could be out of necessity. I'm not familiar with placement at MVPB but assuming they each place a certain number of students in biglaw, UVA would have a surplus of students in let's say top 50% who can't get biglaw jobs and would have to dip lower. Just a thought.

One thing that I will definitely defend UVA on in regards to it's placement relative to it's peers: we have FAR less people here gunning for NYC. I don't think people at schools like Penn or NYU really understand just how different it is in terms of student's desires. Thinking back, I really don't know many people who come to UVA looking for NYC biglaw. That really changes our employment stats in comparison to a school like Penn where apparently almost everyone comes in thinking giant NYC vault firm. Even the people at the top of our class who could go to say Skadden or Davis Polk are instead thinking Covington DC, Williams and Connolly, or whatever is the most elite firm in their desired secondary market. What a lot of 0Ls don't realize is that those jobs are actually significantly more selective/difficult to attain. What this means is that from day one, unrelated to the prestige of UVA, our stats just aren't going to be as good as a smaller school that has a ton of students all focused on getting a biglaw job in the least selective and biggest market in the country. If you pick a random sample of 5 1Ls from UVA they're likely to come out something like this for market choice: DC, DC, NY, Atlanta, Chicago. Whereas a sample of 5 Penn 1L probably looks like this: NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC. The latter is just a lot easier to place in a biglaw job all things equal.

MrHairyLegs wrote:I meant 51-100. My mistake

Did you mean the plus at the end?

Desert Fox wrote:I'd imagine it's smaller southern firms. Does Duke have a large number too? There is no consistent definition of big law. But I'm guessing most of these aren't paying 6 figs.

I interviewed w a bunch of these type of firms and they tended to pay from 95k to 110k in secondary (let's be real, tertiary) markets

BruceWayne wrote:One thing that I will definitely defend UVA on in regards to it's placement relative to it's peers: we have FAR less people here gunning for NYC. I don't think people at schools like Penn or NYU really understand just how different it is in terms of student's desires. Thinking back, I really don't know many people who come to UVA looking for NYC biglaw. That really changes our employment stats in comparison to a school like Penn where apparently almost everyone comes in thinking giant NYC vault firm. Even the people at the top of our class who could go to say Skadden or Davis Polk are instead thinking Covington DC, Williams and Connolly, or whatever is the most elite firm in their desired secondary market. What a lot of 0Ls don't realize is that those jobs are actually significantly more selective/difficult to attain. What this means is that from day one, unrelated to the prestige of UVA, our stats just aren't going to be as good as a smaller school that has a ton of students all focused on getting a biglaw job in the least selective and biggest market in the country. If you pick a random sample of 5 1Ls from UVA they're likely to come out something like this for market choice: DC, DC, NY, Atlanta, Chicago. Whereas a sample of 5 Penn 1L probably looks like this: NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC. The latter is just a lot easier to place in a biglaw job all things equal.

That's an oddly non-doom and gloom post from you on the issue.

NoodleyOne wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:One thing that I will definitely defend UVA on in regards to it's placement relative to it's peers: we have FAR less people here gunning for NYC. I don't think people at schools like Penn or NYU really understand just how different it is in terms of student's desires. Thinking back, I really don't know many people who come to UVA looking for NYC biglaw. That really changes our employment stats in comparison to a school like Penn where apparently almost everyone comes in thinking giant NYC vault firm. Even the people at the top of our class who could go to say Skadden or Davis Polk are instead thinking Covington DC, Williams and Connolly, or whatever is the most elite firm in their desired secondary market. What a lot of 0Ls don't realize is that those jobs are actually significantly more selective/difficult to attain. What this means is that from day one, unrelated to the prestige of UVA, our stats just aren't going to be as good as a smaller school that has a ton of students all focused on getting a biglaw job in the least selective and biggest market in the country. If you pick a random sample of 5 1Ls from UVA they're likely to come out something like this for market choice: DC, DC, NY, Atlanta, Chicago. Whereas a sample of 5 Penn 1L probably looks like this: NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC. The latter is just a lot easier to place in a biglaw job all things equal.

That's an oddly non-doom and gloom post from you on the issue.

It's 100% true, though. It was so weird looking around and seeing just how few people wanted NYC.

5ky wrote:

NoodleyOne wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:One thing that I will definitely defend UVA on in regards to it's placement relative to it's peers: we have FAR less people here gunning for NYC. I don't think people at schools like Penn or NYU really understand just how different it is in terms of student's desires. Thinking back, I really don't know many people who come to UVA looking for NYC biglaw. That really changes our employment stats in comparison to a school like Penn where apparently almost everyone comes in thinking giant NYC vault firm. Even the people at the top of our class who could go to say Skadden or Davis Polk are instead thinking Covington DC, Williams and Connolly, or whatever is the most elite firm in their desired secondary market. What a lot of 0Ls don't realize is that those jobs are actually significantly more selective/difficult to attain. What this means is that from day one, unrelated to the prestige of UVA, our stats just aren't going to be as good as a smaller school that has a ton of students all focused on getting a biglaw job in the least selective and biggest market in the country. If you pick a random sample of 5 1Ls from UVA they're likely to come out something like this for market choice: DC, DC, NY, Atlanta, Chicago. Whereas a sample of 5 Penn 1L probably looks like this: NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC. The latter is just a lot easier to place in a biglaw job all things equal.

That's an oddly non-doom and gloom post from you on the issue.

It's 100% true, though. It was so weird looking around and seeing just how few people wanted NYC.

It's like that at most of the lower T14 that aren't NE schools. And it definitely hurts placement statistics.

And despite my lulzy attempt to create the T13, I'm fairly sure its the reason Gtown's placement is so bad.