NYU Placement in DC Biglaw vs T14 that place primarily in DC Forum

[thatsnotmyname]

Thus, far my acceptances include NYU, UVA, Duke and Georgetown. No scholarship offers from any of them yet but for the purposes of this discussion lets ignore cost and talk solely about placement power. I am primarily interested in DC biglaw after graduation. I know that DC is a tougher market to crack than NYC, but does the advantage that NYU have over the lower half of the T14 greatly diminish if one is targeting the DC market. For instance, for DC biglaw would UVA and Duke be on more of an even playing field with NYU or even better than NYU for this purpose? How about Georgetown? In general, for someone targeting DC biglaw which would be the best school out of these four to attend?

Supplemental Employment Data from Schools Websites:

@LetsGoMets was nice enough to compile all of the career statistics websites for me that help illustrates why I'm asking this question.

http://www.law.nyu.edu/careerservices/e ... statistics - NYU unquestionably has the best placement into biglaw, but only 5% of the class of 2013 took up employment in DC. I'd imagine this is largely self-selection, students who go to NYU for the most part want to be in NYC I'm sure, but I have no indicator as to how many of them could've placed in DC if they had wanted to or if they would have an easier/harder time placing in DC than UVA, Duke, or GULC students.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/career/stats.htm - UVA shows not as high of a percentage that went into biglaw, but 19% of the class of 2013 placed in some sort of job in DC which was the most popular destination after graduation (followed closely by NYC at 17%). Close to 25% of the class of 2011 placed in DC. While this shows that UVA has relatively strong connections to DC, it doesn't tell me how many from students from UVA wanted DC but couldn't get it. Duke is also able to place a similar percentage in DC https://law.duke.edu/career/employmentdata/

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/careers/o ... y-Info.pdf - GULC data shows that half of their graduates place in DC which would be expected.

[starry eyed]

also interested in this.

[Law Sauce]

UVA < NYU for DC. NYU is a biglaw power because it has great connections at firms in NYC. Outside of NYC it is just another T14. Top DC firms are not as large as top NYC firms and this makes them tough to land, but most of them usually take more UVA kids than any other non-YHS school.

That being said, because of NYC is such a big market, NYU > UVA for biglaw in general, although it is not too tough for UVA kids to get NYC either. As mentioned above though, outside of NYC, NYU and UVA are probably seen as about equal (e.g., NYU may be stronger in Cali (but both do fairly well), UVA is better in TX and the South, etc.)

[Elston Gunn]

I really doubt that most DC firms value NYU over UVA or Duke. I'd of course wait for people with more specific knowledge of those schools to give you answers, though. Also, going to any non-YHS school as D.C. or bust (which, admittedly, you didn't say you are) is a very questionable choice.

[thatsnotmyname]

What about specifically, Georgetown's ability to place in DC? They do have the largest percentage of their class that obtains employment in DC by a very large margin. I've spoken to several practicing attorneys in DC at biglaw firms and they all held GULC in high regard (none of them actually went to GULC) and said that they view Georgetown as a peer school to UVA or Duke. One of them explicitly mentioned that he viewed all T14 schools the same outside of Yale or Harvard (subtle Stanford trolling due to maybe east coast bias or not many Stanford applicants?).

I also remember reading on these forums a few years back from someone who was in DC biglaw and a GULC alum that his firm and most of the other firms in DC reserved a specific amount of seats in their SA class each year for GULC grads and that was simply not done for any of the other T14 schools. Is GULC held in higher regard in the DC biglaw market than it is elsewhere (or at least on these forums)?

If we were to rank schools for targeting DC biglaw specifically would it really just be YHS and then everyone else? Or how accurate does this look:
YH
S
VD
GCC
MPNNCB

[Elston Gunn]

I'm worried you don't understand just how hard it is to crack D.C. You could be top quarter at Chicago and hardly guaranteed a D.C. SA. D.C. firms mostly have very small classes (we're talking 7 people is a lot for most of them), and the firms that don't are places like Covington, Williams and Connolly, Wilmer, etc. that have crazy high grade cutoffs (i.e., better be top 10% at a T14 just to get in the door).

Going to Georgetown over NYU (for similar money) because of what you perceive to be superior D.C. big law placement would be a terrible decision imo. I also highly doubt its superiority--sure, they may have a lot go to D.C., but they still have top, top grades, and I imagine GTown has by far the biggest contingent of people who are D.C. or bust.

[jbagelboy]

What about specifically, Georgetown's ability to place in DC? They do have the largest percentage of their class that obtains employment in DC by a very large margin. I've spoken to several practicing attorneys in DC at biglaw firms and they all held GULC in high regard (none of them actually went to GULC) and said that they view Georgetown as a peer school to UVA or Duke. One of them explicitly mentioned that he viewed all T14 schools the same outside of Yale or Harvard (subtle Stanford trolling due to maybe east coast bias or not many Stanford applicants?).

I also remember reading on these forums a few years back from someone who was in DC biglaw and a GULC alum that his firm and most of the other firms in DC reserved a specific amount of seats in their SA class each year for GULC grads and that was simply not done for any of the other T14 schools. Is GULC held in higher regard in the DC biglaw market than it is elsewhere (or at least on these forums)?

If we were to rank schools for targeting DC biglaw specifically would it really just be YHS and then everyone else? Or how accurate does this look:
YH
S
VD
GCC
MPNNCB

Not accurate at all

Probably Y > SHChi > Columbia/UVA > other T14 is closer, but this is subject to so many caveats and probably still flawed.

[RSN]

Could you speak to any of the other caveats? Must be threads on this in the past, but haven't found anything yet.