Top Law Schools

Apart from Berkeley, which lower T-14 fares best when it comes to CA Big Law?

If CA Big Law is my aspiration, is there a difference between GULC and Vanderbilt?

Thank you!

Stanford! That wasn't an option... Sorry.

I think if I had lower T-14 numbers but not quite Berkeley numbers and wanted California, I'd probably take UCLA/USC over Georgetown or Cornell. Michigan or Northwestern might be viable, though.

Duke - 12%
NU - 10.5%
Cornell - 6.3%
GULC - 5.8%
Michigan - under 5%
Vandy - under 5%

At equal cost I'd take Duke but I'd also probably rather have a significant scholarship at UCLA/USC.


edit: obviously these aren't necessarily "biglaw" numbers but just the number of grads employed in the state.

Duke weirdly has a ton of CA bros, can't explain it but IIRC they're the second-most represented state after NY

rickgrimes69 wrote:Duke weirdly has a ton of CA bros, can't explain it but IIRC they're the second-most represented state after NY

Good thing or bad thing?

Assuming equal cost, might it be easier for a, say, CA Cornell bro to get employed over a CA Duke bro because the schools are basically seen as equals and the Cornell bro would be a rarer commodity?

Or do you think it's better to go to Duke because they have a stronger pipeline into the market?

Without really thinking about it too deeply, I would think all the lower T14 would be viewed the same. I would probably check NALP and see which CA firms are going to each school's OCI to confirm whether that might be true or not.

Might be a very marginal benefit bc of increased alumni presence but overall I don't think CA will see lower T14 schools any differently.

BigZuck wrote:

rickgrimes69 wrote:Duke weirdly has a ton of CA bros, can't explain it but IIRC they're the second-most represented state after NY

Assuming equal cost, might it be easier for a, say, CA Cornell bro to get employed over a CA Duke bro because the schools are basically seen as equals and the Cornell bro would be a rarer commodity?

I don't know the raw numbers for Duke, but CA is the second-most represented state after NY at Cornell too, with around 25 Californians in the 1L class. So that's about 12.5% of the class, and the numbers above indicate only 6.3% of the class ends up in CA. Some of that could be self-selection, but most of the Californians I know here would prefer to get back, although they're willing to work in NYC as a backup.

BigZuck wrote:Without really thinking about it too deeply, I would think all the lower T14 would be viewed the same. I would probably check NALP and see which CA firms are going to each school's OCI to confirm whether that might be true or not.

This sounds right. I don't think there's going to be a big difference, but more firms at OCI should make it easier to get back. I know Cornell also has a job fair in LA. Maybe also look at CA firms to see how many alumni from each school work there.

Thanks so much, everyone! Really appreciate your thoughts

Yeah, I don't think there's really going to be any difference. They're all well respected schools. Follow the $$.

TemporarySaint wrote:Yeah, I don't think there's really going to be any difference. They're all well respected schools. Follow the $$.

Agreed. Also, if you're a splitter and can't get the cash from UCLA/USC be prepared to bid on NYC during OCI. If that doesn't work for you, consider options other than law school. CA firm work that pays back six figure debt is really hard to get.