Top Law Schools

To calculate the score, for each outcome (firms, government, public interest), negative absolute value of the percent who anticipated achieving that outcome subtracted from the percent who actually achieved the outcome is added to 1 and the percent of graduates who obtained clerkships (under the assumption that these graduates could have obtained any of the outcomes listed if they so desired).

I excluded people who intended to go solo at graduation under the assumption that they’re delusional. Only Full Time, Long Term employment was included. Successful law firm outcomes only included big firms (101+).

Anticipated outcomes come from the AboveTheLaw school pages, which presumably comes from ABA data that I’m unable to locate.

Here are the ranks & scores:

1. Stanford – 1
2. Columbia - .9
3. Yale - .87
4. Harvard - .86
5. Chicago - .81
6. UPenn - .79
7. Cornell - .78
8. Northwestern - .73
9. NYU & Berkeley - .7
11. Duke - .69
12. UVA - .68
13. Michigan - .67
14. Goergetown - .66

And tiers, for funsies…

Stanford
CYH
CPC
N
NBDVMG


Here's the raw data: http://files.mylsn.info/files/anticipat ... ualt14.xls

Obviously there are caveats... I have no idea where these numbers come from, who knows where the full ABA data actually is? Some people will be double counted. But if you have any thoughts/comments/suggestions, I'd like I hear it

Could you give an example of this?

Eg __ out of 100 at Stanford wanted this, __ got it; ___ out of 100 at UVA wanted it, ___ got it?

Sure. So, at Stanford for example, 69% expected a firm job, 48% had one this year; 7% anticipated a government job, 2% had one; 0% anticipated a PI job, 4% had them. The differences are largely counteracted by Stanford's massive 29% clerkship rate (again, largely operating under the assumption these federal clerks could have held any of these jobs if they so desired).

At UVA, 84% anticipated firm jobs, 5% govt, 7% PI; 50% got firm jobs, 15% govt, and 6% PI (with 12% in fed clerkships).

(didn't read entire OP.)

Princetonlaw68 wrote:The fact that people getting firm jobs of 2-10 lawyers is being counted the same as people getting big law makes this study pretty useless imo.

He clearly stated in the OP that he only counted law firms outcomes as successful if they were in 101+ firms

Could someone clarify something for me? How are the anticipated outcomes calculated, are they based on the previous year's stats?

Robb wrote: I excluded people who intended to go solo at graduation under the assumption that they’re delusional.

Lololol

I'm surprised this post didn't get more attention. If this is more indicative of one's chances of a good outcome than big law + fed clerk for example, then the way people think should change.


I can think of a few flaws myself with this reasoning, but can anyone else come up with reasons why this may not be that useful? Or is this just the best post ever made, but is somehow being overlooked?

Princetonlaw68 wrote:I'm surprised this post didn't get more attention. If this is more indicative of one's chances of a good outcome than big law + fed clerk for example, then the way people think should change.


I can think of a few flaws myself with this reasoning, but can anyone else come up with reasons why this may not be that useful? Or is this just the best post ever made, but is somehow being overlooked?

Its being overlooked because what is "anticipated outcome" and how is that calculated? Is that just some survey you ask 0Ls with a 25% response rate, or is it actually something more scientific?

aboutmydaylight wrote:

Princetonlaw68 wrote:I'm surprised this post didn't get more attention. If this is more indicative of one's chances of a good outcome than big law + fed clerk for example, then the way people think should change.


I can think of a few flaws myself with this reasoning, but can anyone else come up with reasons why this may not be that useful? Or is this just the best post ever made, but is somehow being overlooked?

Its being overlooked because what is "anticipated outcome" and how is that calculated? Is that just some survey you ask 0Ls with a 25% response rate, or is it actually something more scientific?

Yeah, I thought of that too. Even if it is a 25% response rate, that's still a big enough sample size that these results could mean something. 10% or something would be different.

A whopping 13% of Penn students apparently wanted PI, compared to 4% at Berkeley. 6% at CLS, but 3% at NYU.

I would love to see the source of this info and actual numbers of people who responded etc, rather than just the spread sheet with the calculated percentages.

I wonder how they got this "anticipated" data. Do they survey the entering students? I don't remember filling one out...