Dear Bab,
Your focus upon constitutional law in law school and then becoming a professor at law school or a judge is an excellent route to consider. Constitutional law is one of the most exciting and certainly academic specialties of law and is excellent preparation for your chosen goals. Note that you will likely want to clerk for a judge
after law school, as this is the best route to becoming a law professor or judge.
Note that below is a ranking of the top law schools in constitutional law. The information is provided by Brian Leiter, a very informed law professor at the University of Texas. The best law schools in constitutional law reads very much like your typical law school rankings index and is as follows:
1. Yale University 4.8
2. Harvard University 4.6
3. University of Chicago 4.5
University of Texas, Austin 4.5
5. Georgetown University 4.4
New York University 4.4
Stanford University 4.4
8. Columbia University 4.3
University of California, Berkeley 4.3
10. University of Virginia 4.0
11. Northwestern University 3.9
University of California, Los Angeles 3.9
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 3.9
14. Duke University 3.8
University of Southern California 3.8
16. University of Pennsylvania 3.7
17. Boston University 3.6
Cornell University 3.6
George Washington University 3.6
University of San Diego 3.6
Vanderbilt University 3.6
I wanted to address another question you put forward, which is what are the best law schools for becoming a law school professor. Professor Leiter did a study to determine what the top law schools were for educating future law professors, and again this list reads pretty much as your typical law school rankings list and is as follows:
1. Yale University
2. Harvard University
Stanford University
4. University of Chicago
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
6. Columbia University
University of California, Berkeley
University of Virginia
9. New York University
10. Cornell University
Duke University
Georgetown University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Texas, Austin
Overall, it sounds like you have an excellent chance at getting into the best law schools around and I recommend that you apply to all of the top 10 law schools. Some public law schools are better than the US News Law School rankings, which are flawed. Thus, I would definitely put Boalt and Texas up there on your list as well for amongst academics they are top law schools, although the US News Law School Rankings only puts them amongst the top 15 law schools.
Bab, I wish you the best of luck, but you sound like you will do amazingly well with no luck needed. Please post again on your results or with other questions.
