LS Rankings Based On 100+ Lawyer Firm Jobs & Fed Clerkship Forum

[Tiago Splitter]

How does boutique placement fit into this? If you consider placement into all boutiques (many/most by definition excluded from these lists) would that include enough students to meaningfully change these stats? For Yale at least it seems like boutique placement would be noticeable.

(I realize it would be impossible to capture students going to boutiques in a table like this, I'm just wondering if the very top schools are being a little undersold)

My personal view is that Harvard, Yale, and Stanford kick a ton of ass and grads of those schools will be just fine. For everyone else boutique placement is small enough to not be worth worrying about when deciding between schools.

Michigan is the only school I'm aware of that has provided an employer-by-employer breakdown of job placement. If people have particular boutiques in mind they may want to look at this for an idea of how a school in that range might place.

http://www.law.umich.edu/careers/classs ... stats.aspx

[dingbat]

Someone posted this in a UT thread how they get two or three students into Susman/Jenner/etc. every year, and they estimated would boost placement a few % points.

Thing is, it's really hard to quantify things like this. Generally, academia is discounted because at most schools its bullshit, whereas from HYS it's usually the real deal. Same thing with non JD-required jobs, which for Harvard could mean McKinsey, but for Cooley is more likely to be starbucks (not corporate). Use common sense. If biglaw + fed clerkship placement is 63.5%, then it's safe to say 65%+ have a desirable outcome, even without any further knowledge.
You can also use your brain and make some deductions, like, say, assume that Georgetown probably places some students into the political world, and guesstimate how to evaluate their placement stats accordingly. (be very careful to not throw in your own bias/hope and overcompensate; better to err on the side of caution)

[dingbat]

If you like older stats, great. Tune into the history channel.

Better than the syfy channel

[JO 14]

If you like older stats, great. Tune into the history channel.

Better than the syfy channel

Not on Saturday it's not! They have giant tornadoes and big killer alligators that fly!

[NinerFan]

Great stuff, thank you.

My question has to do with the threshold of law firms 100+.

Another blog (and the National Law Journal) seems to indicate that Big Law = firms of NLJ 250+. Any thoughts on the difference? Are those from 100-250 just as good for salary/work experience?

Yes, I realize that the Law Journal excludes clerkships, which are hugely valuable.)

The NLJ 250 is the 250 biggest firms, the smallest of which has about 160 attorneys. The ABA collects data based on placement into firms of 100-250, 250-500, and 501+. Given this, the data from the NLJ 250 and the ABA data are hard to match up. It's generally assumed that most firms of greater than 100 attorneys pay well and even if they don't quite make the NLJ 250 are as good as the typical firm in the bottom of that list. This isn't always true, of course, but including the non-NLJ 250 firms of greater than 100+ lawyers in the list of good outcomes is a safer assumption than not including them. Having said that most T-14 schools place a very small percentage into firms of 100-250, so whether you include them or not doesn't make a big difference.

How does boutique placement fit into this? If you consider placement into all boutiques (many/most by definition excluded from these lists) would that include enough students to meaningfully change these stats? For Yale at least it seems like boutique placement would be noticeable.

(I realize it would be impossible to capture students going to boutiques in a table like this, I'm just wondering if the very top schools are being a little undersold)

Someone posted this in a UT thread how they get two or three students into Susman/Jenner/etc. every year, and they estimated would boost placement a few % points.

Susman and whatnot require clerkships, don't they? They wouldn't improve anything because they'd be a part of the clerkship %, which is already factored in.

[JCougar]

LOL @ ASU

[Aroldis105]

Interesting thread and I personally appreciate the effort, but TLSers can be so vain. Getting on with a 100+ firm is like being signed to a Yankees minor team. Sure you can tell everyone you're on the Yankees, but that doesn't mean you'll make it to the top. Now getting on at a firm that big does put you in good position to make a lot of money and work on some interesting things, but you gotta earn your dues. There's something to be said about getting on with a medium sized firm where you're not some worthless peon and have the opportunity to advance yourself without working 65+ hours a week. Lots of people make lots of money outside of NYC, Chicago, LA and in firms with less than 100 people.

[JCougar]

Interesting thread and I personally appreciate the effort, but TLSers can be so vain. Getting on with a 100+ firm is like being signed to a Yankees minor team. Sure you can tell everyone you're on the Yankees, but that doesn't mean you'll make it to the top. Now getting on at a firm that big does put you in good position to make a lot of money and work on some interesting things, but you gotta earn your dues. There's something to be said about getting on with a medium sized firm where you're not some worthless peon and have the opportunity to advance yourself without working 65+ hours a week. Lots of people make lots of money outside of NYC, Chicago, LA and in firms with less than 100 people.

Most of what you said is true, except for the bolded. Midlaw firms that pay anything worth their salt still require tough hours. And there's not many that do hire fresh grads. However, TLS generally does overrate Biglaw. It's not a sustainable career for the vast majority of people who enter. And the exit options are more of a mixed bag than people let on. There's not a sweet in-house or midlaw position for every Biglaw cast-off. It's obviously a good option to pay off large chunks of debt quickly, which is all a lot of people want it for. But virtually no one thinks it's a high-quality job outside of the paycheck.

In order to pay off your debt by the time the average associate leaves/is kicked out of Biglaw, you have to live like you make a shitlaw salary for many years, and pay like $40-50K/year to your debt load, and $50K to taxes.