Top Law Schools

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Need to know goals and ties. This post is way too thin on details even if you want to not talk about money.

For generic Chicago BL with Chicago ties, I might consider Penn over NU - they place like 10% more students in BL/Clerkships, which is significant. If you want a clerkship and have Chicago ties, I would probably choose UVA over NU. If you are interested in PI, I would probably at least consider Mich over NU.

Yeah, goals are essential here. And I have no idea why you want to forget about money, because money is absolutely essential when weighing schools in this tier. Northwestern on scholarship is almost always better than UVA at sticker, but that seems like an unlikely scenario here.

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votebuilder1 wrote:

guybourdin wrote:Need to know goals and ties. This post is way too thin on details even if you want to not talk about money.

For generic Chicago BL with Chicago ties, I might consider Penn over NU - they place like 10% more students in BL/Clerkships, which is significant. If you want a clerkship and have Chicago ties, I would probably choose UVA over NU. If you are interested in PI, I would probably at least consider Mich over NU.

I'm curious why you think Chicago BL with Chicago ties would make Penn more appealing? The "10% more students in BL/Clerkships" don't mean anything if they all go to NY/DC.

Long term goal is to be in the Chicago government scene, but I went to school near DC and have a lot of connection there, as well. I would consider a clerkship for a few years out of law school.

I want to clarify something else -- 10% of NU law students are JDA/MBA'ers, many of whom do not have the goal to do BL, Clerkship, etc. In essence, wouldn't that mean that those of us wanting to do Clerkship (or big law) may actually have a better chance at a school like NU because there may actually be less competition?

Do you have any proof of this beyond thinking it's logical? It's entirely possible some of, or even most of those JD/MBA candidates end up going BL and doing clerkships. I'm sure a non-zero number go to the business side, but I think it's probably a logical leap to say JD/MBA=Not BL/Art. III.

Regardless, you are talking about peer institutions here. Going to the cheapest one is TCR. But even forgoing that, if they are similarly priced, it would absolutely make sense to pick NU over UVA/Penn for Chicago. UVA/Penn with ties can also get you to Chicago, but if you are from Chicago and want to end up there, NU would probably be the better bet.

The reason for picking Penn above is more that you have a better chance of BL than at NU generally, not that you have a better shot at Chicago BL from Penn.

UVA2B wrote: Do you have any proof of this beyond thinking it's logical?

Thanks for the answer. I appreciate your insights.

As for your question, I have read it on this site that a good chunk of JD/MBA folks don't go to BL/Clerkships. Of course some of them do. I don't have the exact stats available on that, however.

UVA2B wrote: Do you have any proof of this beyond thinking it's logical?

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/profess ... ts/jd-mba/

10/20 JD-MBA's go into business. the other ten go to big law. thats about a 3.5 percent bump to the big law/clerkship figures if you wanna assume they all had the chops to get there. About 5 percent of both Penn and NU JD-only folks went to business.

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The specific pecking order is largely meaningless within the greater T14. They are only useful in that they offer a pale glimpse of the historic prestige that have always existed before any ranking system existed.

Law school prestige has always been largely regional, with 2 or 3 of the T14 feeding into the major legal markets in the US. Certain law schools and law firms have historic ties that drive recruiting, year after year.

If you want to practice in Chicago, attend Northwestern. Don't attend a Philadelphia school simply because some tabloid tells you it is ranked a few places higher. Job numbers are better at Penn, but that's due to their proximity to NYC, and you want to practice in Chicago anyhow.

I don't get it ....money is like the only thing that matters here.

guybourdin wrote:Need to know goals and ties. This post is way too thin on details even if you want to not talk about money.

For generic Chicago BL with Chicago ties, I might consider Penn over NU - they place like 10% more students in BL/Clerkships, which is significant. If you want a clerkship and have Chicago ties, I would probably choose UVA over NU. If you are interested in PI, I would probably at least consider Mich over NU.

UVA makes the least sense...it doesn't even really place into Chicago.

Re: less competition for clerking at NU - if that's true, it might be slightly easier to get professor/institutional support. But it's not like judges are picking only from NU, so I don't think the logic works out. Fewer NU students/grads on the market isn't going to make them inherently more valuable to judges. And some of the schools that place a lot of clerks arguably have better clerkship offices that do more to help with the process.

That said, NU's certainly not going to hurt you in applying for clerkships in any way, so it's sort of moot. Where you want to practice is a much bigger factor here (and money).

whysooseriousbiglaw wrote:

guybourdin wrote:Need to know goals and ties. This post is way too thin on details even if you want to not talk about money.

For generic Chicago BL with Chicago ties, I might consider Penn over NU - they place like 10% more students in BL/Clerkships, which is significant. If you want a clerkship and have Chicago ties, I would probably choose UVA over NU. If you are interested in PI, I would probably at least consider Mich over NU.

UVA makes the least sense...it doesn't even really place into Chicago.

Correlation/causation assumption here. UVA has equal ability to place in Chicago as Penn/NU/Michigan. Just because not many UVA students go there doesn't mean the school can't place in that market.

ETA: that being said, if the goal is exclusively Chicago, at equal cost UVA shouldn't be the target

UVA2B wrote:

whysooseriousbiglaw wrote:

guybourdin wrote:Need to know goals and ties. This post is way too thin on details even if you want to not talk about money.

For generic Chicago BL with Chicago ties, I might consider Penn over NU - they place like 10% more students in BL/Clerkships, which is significant. If you want a clerkship and have Chicago ties, I would probably choose UVA over NU. If you are interested in PI, I would probably at least consider Mich over NU.

UVA makes the least sense...it doesn't even really place into Chicago.

Correlation/causation assumption here. UVA has equal ability to place in Chicago as Penn/NU/Michigan. Just because not many UVA students go there doesn't mean the school can't place in that market.

ETA: that being said, if the goal is exclusively Chicago, at equal cost UVA shouldn't be the target

The correlation matters though because when you don't have students choosing to go to a market fewer firms from that market will attend OCI. You want to make sure a healthy number of Chicago offices are attending OCI wherever you end up going.

Tiago Splitter wrote:

UVA2B wrote:

whysooseriousbiglaw wrote:

guybourdin wrote:Need to know goals and ties. This post is way too thin on details even if you want to not talk about money.

For generic Chicago BL with Chicago ties, I might consider Penn over NU - they place like 10% more students in BL/Clerkships, which is significant. If you want a clerkship and have Chicago ties, I would probably choose UVA over NU. If you are interested in PI, I would probably at least consider Mich over NU.

UVA makes the least sense...it doesn't even really place into Chicago.

Correlation/causation assumption here. UVA has equal ability to place in Chicago as Penn/NU/Michigan. Just because not many UVA students go there doesn't mean the school can't place in that market.

ETA: that being said, if the goal is exclusively Chicago, at equal cost UVA shouldn't be the target

The correlation matters though because when you don't have students choosing to go to a market fewer firms from that market will attend OCI. You want to make sure a healthy number of Chicago offices are attending OCI wherever you end up going.

Yeah, thought my edit confirmed my thinking on this. I just wanted to push back that placement power in general in Chicago at these schools are equal.