Top Law Schools

Hello all,

I am starting the application process soon and I'm trying to come up with my list of preferred schools. I am hoping to land a federal clerkship upon graduation and, therefore, Yale, Stanford and Harvard are the top 3 schools on my list. Beyond those three, however, I wanted to pose a hypothetical and get your thoughts. Next on my list would be either Columbia or NYU. Clearly, NYU has a longer history of placing students in federal clerkships and Columbia is known as a NYC big-law feeder school. Nevertheless, were I to attend Columbia as a student interested in public interest law/federal law, would I not have a greater opportunity for individualized attention? NYU will inevitably be filled with students who share my goals, whereas at Columbia I would be part of a small group of like-minded students who would have greater access to Columbia's professors who hope to promote public interest law.

What are your thoughts?

titusandronicus wrote:Hello all,

I am starting the application process soon and I'm trying to come up with my list of preferred schools. I am hoping to land a federal clerkship upon graduation and, therefore, Yale, Stanford and Harvard are the top 3 schools on my list. Beyond those three, however, I wanted to pose a hypothetical and get your thoughts. Next on my list would be either Columbia or NYU. Clearly, NYU has a longer history of placing students in federal clerkships and Columbia is known as a NYC big-law feeder school. Nevertheless, were I to attend Columbia as a student interested in public interest law/federal law, would I not have a greater opportunity for individualized attention? NYU will inevitably be filled with students who share my goals, whereas at Columbia I would be part of a small group of like-minded students who would have greater access to Columbia's professors who hope to promote public interest law.

What are your thoughts?

What do you want to do after you clerk?

it really doesn't matter that much after HYS because you'll have to be top of your class at any T14

Public interest and clerking aren't the same thing. Plenty of people clerk before going into biglaw, and plenty of PI people don't clerk.

If you want to do PI, NYU >>> Columbia. If you're looking to land a clerkship, Y>S>H>everyone else. Why do you want to clerk? What do you want to do after? Picking a school based on clerkships is probably a bad idea.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Public interest and clerking aren't the same thing. Plenty of people clerk before going into biglaw, and plenty of PI people don't clerk.

+1

malleus discentium wrote:If you want to do PI, NYU >>> Columbia. If you're looking to land a clerkship, Y>S>H>everyone else. Why do you want to clerk? What do you want to do after? Picking a school based on clerkships is probably a bad idea.

+1

titusandronicus wrote:Nevertheless, were I to attend Columbia as a student interested in public interest law/federal law, would I not have a greater opportunity for individualized attention? NYU will inevitably be filled with students who share my goals, whereas at Columbia I would be part of a small group of like-minded students who would have greater access to Columbia's professors who hope to promote public interest law.

No. NYU draws more people set on PI because NYU provides far better institutional support for PI-focused students than CLS.

malleus discentium wrote:Picking a school based on clerkships is probably a bad idea.

This seems correct, the chance of getting a federal clerkship is so small due to the unpredictability of law school grades.

By all means go for YHS and attend one if you get in to give yourself the best chance at a federal clerkship, but below those schools you should be focusing on other factors like COA and employment prospects for median students.

Yea All Right wrote:

malleus discentium wrote:Picking a school based on clerkships is probably a bad idea.

This seems correct, the chance of getting a federal clerkship is so small due to the unpredictability of law school grades.

That's one reason, but the main one is that it's not a career.

I think you should take the lsat

Picking a school for a 1 year temp job is stupid as hell.

Desert Fox wrote:Picking a school for a 1 year temp job is stupid as hell.

But the preftige lasts for a lifetime.

Desert Fox wrote:Picking a school for a 1 year temp job is stupid as hell.

But it could turn into TWO 1 year temp jobs if you play your cards right!

In all seriousness, where do you actually want to practice/what do you want to do after your clerkship? If your goal is to summer at a large firm and work there after a year of clerking, it just depends on how competitive you want to be in that market/position: lining up the clerkship is secondary.

I'll give an example. If you're offered a summer position at one of the firms where you are almost expected to clerk - Susman, WilmerHale DC, Munger Tolles, ect - it usually means you have the credentials to clerk anyway, regardless of school. This means near the top of the class at top schools, with more float at Yale, Stanford, Harvard (still competitive).

If you want a fellowship leading into legal academia, if you have the credentials to score one then you're already CoA clerkship material, regardless of school. However, only a small group at Yale and Harvard and a handful at the rest of the T14 will have these credentials.

If you want to do m&a at a Simpson or Cravath, you basically need similar credentials from any of the T6 (again probably a deeper pull from Yale ect but substantially similar) - here, a clerkship isn't very valuable, and you probably wouldn't pursue it regardless of school. Now, I can imagine for a V10 lit group where the Stanford grad does a 9th cir clerkship before they start and the NYU kid does not - or just does SDNY - but I don't really know how this pans out for their career anyway, someone else could speak to that.

Tl;dr you're thinking about this backwards and it won't matter b/t CLS and NYU

The idea that Columbia does not prepare students for or support students interested in public sector work is flat-out wrong. Columbia has a really active student public interest community, bolstered by faculty and staff support. There are also large student communities interested in specific social justice issues, and social justice in general. It is not very internally competitive, especially because so many students are committed to working on a particular issue or in a certain subset of the legal field. Columbia students generally want their classmates to be successful, get jobs, and practice law. And pretty much everyone does. Maybe it's because students are supportive of each other that we kick-ass in getting public interest fellowships and jobs for which we compete with graduates of all law schools.

ETA: I'm not sure the OP is right that CLS students have better access to PI faculty/educational opportunities BECAUSE of a smaller-sized community, but I can say that we have good access- and better than at many schools. E.g. students are usually able to participate in their first choice clinics, participate in multiple clinics over the course of their 3 years, do clinical externships, and do multiple pro bono projects

As others have said, HYS are the only schools that give you a sizable leg up on clerkships compared to the rest of the T14.

stop necroing threads

mls wrote:Columbia students generally want their classmates to be successful, get jobs, and practice law. And pretty much everyone does. Maybe it's because students are supportive of each other that we kick-ass in getting public interest fellowships and jobs for which we compete with graduates of all law schools.

k

Elston Gunn wrote:

Yea All Right wrote:

malleus discentium wrote:Picking a school based on clerkships is probably a bad idea.

This seems correct, the chance of getting a federal clerkship is so small due to the unpredictability of law school grades.

That's one reason, but the main one is that it's not a career.

Being a career clerk seems pretty sweet. Salary schedule tops out around $160K and the lifestyle is extremely chill.

I have no current aspirations for being a Federal Clerkship as a goal, but it is a key employment metric for schools. And that makes me look at it, and wonder how much weight to give it in my decision picking the best school I can get into. i wont be at a t14, which puts the Federal Clerkship Rate 35% at Yale as a metric for the t14 to compare as a top number, but not a comparable number.

2 Top 25 schools, Federal Clerkship Rate is 3.6% at one and 9% at another, is that a factor to keep in mind? If it isn't t14, does the Federal Clerkship Rate matter in making a personal decision?

storpappa wrote:I have no current aspirations for being a Federal Clerkship as a goal, but it is a key employment metric for schools. And that makes me look at it, and wonder how much weight to give it in my decision picking the best school I can get into. i wont be at a t14, which puts the Federal Clerkship Rate 35% at Yale as a metric for the t14 to compare as a top number, but not a comparable number.

2 Top 25 schools, Federal Clerkship Rate is 3.6% at one and 9% at another, is that a factor to keep in mind? If it isn't t14, does the Federal Clerkship Rate matter in making a personal decision?

I don't think so. When you're looking at such small percentages, the number of people getting clerkships is as much or more about what the individual student brings to the table and who decides to apply as it is about the school's placement power. Clerkship hiring is fairly idiosyncratic to begin with, so on the margins you can have a lot of variation year to year.

If the clerkship rate correlates with other employment rates, then sure, consider it. Or if all else really is equal. But I would weight the other employment metrics and how they fit your own goals much more heavily.

common wisdom is y>s>h>chi>everywhere else if you want to clerk. ccn are peer schools but each have specific things they are better at than the others: chi is better if you want to clerk, want legal academia, maybe if you want DC/chicago biglaw or government; NYU is better if you want prestigious public interest work (and it has legitimately great institutional support for public interest); columbia is better if you want vanilla NYC biglaw.

A. Nony Mouse wrote: I don't think so. When you're looking at such small percentages

Thanks