Top Law Schools

I was reading through LST this morning (like a good little TLSer) when I spotted an interesting anomaly. A little known school from Tier 3-4 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida had better employment numbers than the University of Miami. Now I understand that Miami is certainly not a T14 or even a regional powerhouse, but the idea that a TTTT in the same neighborhood (40 minutes away) could place better than a school like Miami seems troubling (Nova also placed better than William & Mary, not a good regional comparison, but still interesting).
Now the knee-jerk response would be "Rankings don't matter, they both have bad employment prospects, move on", but this deserves a better response than that. I can not imagine any scenario where firms would be more interested in a Nova grad (no disrespect) over a Miami grad, with such frequency that it allows the numbers to play out as they do.
Again, my concern is not entirely with this comparison, as this raises questions about all schools involved (remember W&M?). However, with that being said, anything with any particular insight into the SW Florida legal market or any idea really what's going on here, I'd be most interested in hearing what you have to say.
Gracias.

Aroldis105 wrote:I was reading through LST this morning (like a good little TLSer) when I spotted an interesting anomaly. A little known school from Tier 3-4 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida had better employment numbers than the University of Miami. Now I understand that Miami is certainly not a T14 or even a regional powerhouse, but the idea that a TTTT in the same neighborhood (40 minutes away) could place better than a school like Miami seems troubling (Nova also placed better than William & Mary, not a good regional comparison, but still interesting).
Now the knee-jerk response would be "Rankings don't matter, they both have bad employment prospects, move on", but this deserves a better response than that. I can not imagine any scenario where firms would be more interested in a Nova grad (no disrespect) over a Miami grad, with such frequency that it allows the numbers to play out as they do.
Again, my concern is not entirely with this comparison, as this raises questions about all schools involved (remember W&M?). However, with that being said, anything with any particular insight into the SW Florida legal market or any idea really what's going on here, I'd be most interested in hearing what you have to say.
Gracias.

I'm curious about this as well. Just to understand the facts though, what exactly were the "employment placements" of these three schools? Did Nova have a higher overall employment rate, a greater number of people in JD required jobs, or just a greater number of alumni represented at big law firms? Interested to hear the responses.

Nova: 58.3% long-term, full-time, JD-required

Miami: 55.1% long-term, full-time, JD-required

that's a difference of like 20 people. not exactly earth-shattering news. both schools are terrible.

LST says 55.3 at Nova, 54.5 at Miami. Negligible difference.

The differences are in the types of jobs the grads are getting. Miami has higher mid/big law placement, while Nova has more people going solo or to firms with less than 25ppl.

And now, we have resolved the eternal question.

usfvictor wrote:The differences are in the types of jobs the grads are getting. Miami has higher mid/big law placement, while Nova has more people going solo or to firms with less than 25ppl.

This. The median student at both is still screwed with bigdebt and 40K job.

My guess is that UM attracts more out of state students who are then stuck looking for jobs outside of Miami. Nova attracts more local students that tend to stay in Miami and build a career here. In fact, from what I gather here in Miami, Nova is one of those schools that attracts people that are switching into law mid-career. You can go to Nova and be pretty much assured a job in the greater Miami region (Miami, West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale). Try to move to CA or NY with a Nova degree and you'd be screwed worse than the UM alums....

gatorgirl2012 wrote:My guess is that UM attracts more out of state students who are then stuck looking for jobs outside of Miami. Nova attracts more local students that tend to stay in Miami and build a career here. In fact, from what I gather here in Miami, Nova is one of those schools that attracts people that are switching into law mid-career. You can go to Nova and be pretty much assured a job in the greater Miami region (Miami, West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale). Try to move to CA or NY with a Nova degree and you'd be screwed worse than the UM alums....

lol you can't be assured of a law job from Nova. That is profoundly idiotic

My question was more concerned with the dynamics of the region and similar cases around the country. How could any Miami or UF grad be beaten by a Nova grad for a job where connections/alum status aren't involved. I'm sure Nova grads aren't grabbing 100k jobs on South Beach, but what lucid-minded Miami grad wouldn't settle for some of the jobs the Nova grads seem to be getting instead of unemployment, even if there are only 25-30 to speak of? The same holds true for NYU and St. Johns (on a different scale). Repeating the low nature of the employment numbers isn't answering the question. I'm more concerned with the overall accuracy of LST, especially when comparing markets.

NYU's employment score is 90% (probably more like 100% when you include JD-preferred and solid non-JD fields). SJU is 46%. I at least understand your question about the UM vs. Nova anomaly, but I don't even remotely understand what you're getting at with comparing NYU and St. John's.

As for how "Any Miami or UF grad could be beaten by a Nova grad for a job where connections/alum status aren't involved," non-biglaw and midlaw firms generally will care less about school rank and all that. Maybe the Nova kid worked there during the school year, or had better grades. And it's not like Miami and UF are blowing anybody's socks off with their preftige.

This, to a large extent, would explain why USNWR rankings having little correlation to jobs once you get outside of this top schools

Sorry, my NYU comparison was made in haste, I was simply trying to expand the discussion so that we weren't hung up on the Miami market. That being said, I'm sure there are numerous other examples that fit the same mold.
While I understand that Miami or UF aren't prestigious names, they certainly carry more weight than Nova, regardless of the situation (given that people have actually heard of it). I guess the point I'm circling is that if people in TTT & TTTT are getting jobs then the market isn't completely dry and that more emphasis should be placed on graduating with a great class rank and networking your ass off.
Again, I'm not in the "Let's all go to law school" corner, but people are graduating and getting jobs out of almost all of these schools. The percentages are still bad, but if you can finish near the top of your class (good luck) then you have a good shot. The important thing is to reduce the risk by graduating with less than 50k of debt.

So, your point is that getting good grades and networking increases your odds of getting a job? Groundbreaking. And no one has ever said that people aren't getting jobs TTTTs. Of course some do, so that's not really novel information either.

But I do think you've got a point, and it's one that many people on TLS would endorse: if you can't get into a top school (a feeder school for fed/biglaw/clerkships/prestigious PI) and you really want to be a lawyer, then go to a cheap and reputable school in the market you most want to practice in. That's pretty much the consensus around here and has been for as long as I've been here.

Though again, I think the Miami people are getting better jobs on average than the Nova people, so if both are free, Miami wins.

rad lulz wrote:

gatorgirl2012 wrote:My guess is that UM attracts more out of state students who are then stuck looking for jobs outside of Miami. Nova attracts more local students that tend to stay in Miami and build a career here. In fact, from what I gather here in Miami, Nova is one of those schools that attracts people that are switching into law mid-career. You can go to Nova and be pretty much assured a job in the greater Miami region (Miami, West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale). Try to move to CA or NY with a Nova degree and you'd be screwed worse than the UM alums....

lol you can't be assured of a law job from Nova. That is profoundly idiotic

I.live.in.Miami.

Quite frankly it scares me how many lawyers there are in this city that live well and have graduated from Nova and St. Thomas--two schools that I think are jokes.

Will they save the world? No.
Are they starving? No.

romothesavior wrote:So, your point is that getting good grades and networking increases your odds of getting a job? Groundbreaking. And no one has ever said that people aren't getting jobs TTTTs. Of course some do, so that's not really novel information either.

But I do think you've got a point, and it's one that many people on TLS would endorse: if you can't get into a top school (a feeder school for fed/biglaw/clerkships/prestigious PI) and you really want to be a lawyer, then go to a cheap and reputable school in the market you most want to practice in. That's pretty much the consensus around here and has been for as long as I've been here.

Though again, I think the Miami people are getting better jobs on average than the Nova people, so if both are free, Miami wins.

retake? lol...

gatorgirl2012 wrote:

rad lulz wrote:

gatorgirl2012 wrote:My guess is that UM attracts more out of state students who are then stuck looking for jobs outside of Miami. Nova attracts more local students that tend to stay in Miami and build a career here. In fact, from what I gather here in Miami, Nova is one of those schools that attracts people that are switching into law mid-career. You can go to Nova and be pretty much assured a job in the greater Miami region (Miami, West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale). Try to move to CA or NY with a Nova degree and you'd be screwed worse than the UM alums....

lol you can't be assured of a law job from Nova. That is profoundly idiotic

I.live.in.Miami.

Quite frankly it scares me how many lawyers there are in this city that live well and have graduated from Nova and St. Thomas--two schools that I think are jokes.

Will they save the world? No.
Are they starving? No.

It is impossible to overstate how ignorant this line of thinking is

1) People who graduated pre 2010 graduated in an insanely better economy than the one today
2) The people who never get to become lawyers aren't gonna be trumpeting how proud they are they went to Nova.

Nova gives you about a 50/50 shot at any real legal job. That's atrocious.

gatorgirl2012 wrote:

rad lulz wrote:

gatorgirl2012 wrote:My guess is that UM attracts more out of state students who are then stuck looking for jobs outside of Miami. Nova attracts more local students that tend to stay in Miami and build a career here. In fact, from what I gather here in Miami, Nova is one of those schools that attracts people that are switching into law mid-career. You can go to Nova and be pretty much assured a job in the greater Miami region (Miami, West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale). Try to move to CA or NY with a Nova degree and you'd be screwed worse than the UM alums....

lol you can't be assured of a law job from Nova. That is profoundly idiotic

I.live.in.Miami.

Quite frankly it scares me how many lawyers there are in this city that live well and have graduated from Nova and St. Thomas--two schools that I think are jokes.

Will they save the world? No.
Are they starving? No.

Did you see the quoted employment figure above that just more than half of Nova grads have jobs? That leaves almost half the class starving. The fact that you have seen lots of employed grads does not prove that Nova grads are assured of jobs. It's a common cognitive bias: if you see hundreds of white sheep, you might conclude that all sheep are white, but all you need to conclude that not all sheep are white is to see one black sheep, but no one seeks the black sheep to disprove their conclusion. You've seen lots of employed Nova grads, so you think they're all employed. Well, guess what, they're not as the stats demonstrate. It's just that the unemployed grads aren't hanging out telling everyone about their failure to get a job.

rad lulz wrote:

gatorgirl2012 wrote:I.live.in.Miami.

Quite frankly it scares me how many lawyers there are in this city that live well and have graduated from Nova and St. Thomas--two schools that I think are jokes.

Will they save the world? No.
Are they starving? No.

It is impossible to overstate how ignorant this line of thinking is

1) People who graduated pre 2010 graduated in an insanely better economy than the one today
2) The people who never get to become lawyers aren't gonna be trumpeting how proud they are they went to Nova.

Nova gives you about a 50/50 shot at any real legal job. That's atrocious.

+1. Again, nobody is saying there aren't lots of successful Nova grads out there in Miami doing just fine. But for every one of those you see, there's another scraping by to pay the bills as a lawyer, and two more who aren't even working as lawyers. And like rad said, comparing pre-ITE to post-ITE is apples and oranges.

So.what.do.you.think.of.that.

I misspoke for dramatic effect. It comes down to the tired rant on this forum about your career goals and personal circumstances. If you meet any of the following characteristics--older (not fresh out of UG), from South Florida, have a network, want to minimize your debt--Nova is okay. If you get into Miami with a scholarship--GO! Nobody is arguing that Nova is a better school.

My conclusion wasn't based totally off of availability heuristic. I truly think my logic is sound on one thing... UM attracts many out of state students that might move back home and face stiff competition against newbie lawyers that are either grads from T1/T2 schools or studied at T3 or T4 schools in that same region. I think people who attend Nova, and maybe other T3 or T4 schools might be more conservative in their job search, possibly resulting in better employment stats for their schools. Is that too crazy a conclusion?

gatorgirl2012 wrote:I truly think my logic is sound on one thing... UM attracts many out of state students that might move back home and face stiff competition against newbie lawyers that are either grads from T1/T2 schools or studied at T3 or T4 schools in that same region. I think people who attend Nova, and maybe other T3 or T4 schools might be more conservative in their job search, possibly resulting in better employment stats for their schools. Is that too crazy a conclusion?

That's not a crazy conclusion at all, and is probably accurate.

This is a crazy conclusion, however:

You can go to Nova and be pretty much assured a job in the greater Miami region (Miami, West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale).

The legal market in south florida is huge, not that it isn't in other places. I just think people that aren't from south florida don't realize how huge "Miami" really is, both in territory (Miami, West Palm, Ft Lauderdale) and population too of course. There are tons of old people, immigrants, real estate activity, international business/trade in what is collectively known as "south florida," all of which require legal expertise.

Like I said, I misspoke--using absolutes is bad. But in all honesty, these employment stats don't surprise me too much.

Regardless, huge day for Nova on TLS.

Aroldis105 wrote:Regardless, huge day for Nova on TLS.

Every day is a huge day for Nova on TLS. Hate those Barry scum

romothesavior wrote:

Aroldis105 wrote:Regardless, huge day for Nova on TLS.

Every day is a huge day for Nova on TLS. Hate those Barry scum

I've had to write both + St. Thomas to stop spamming my inbox. I don't want to be un acidente abogado.

gatorgirl2012 wrote:

romothesavior wrote:

Aroldis105 wrote:Regardless, huge day for Nova on TLS.

Every day is a huge day for Nova on TLS. Hate those Barry scum

I've had to write both + St. Thomas to stop spamming my inbox. I don't want to be un acidente abogado.

This. In my local area, there is an attorney's commercial that goes like this: If you have been hurt in a car accident, call me. It is just that easy. I want to practice immigration law and would like to peak at like $80K. That would make me happy.