This just sounds like a willful misreading of the statistics. It's not surprising that 86 schools collectively place more people in biglaw than 14. But the percentage of a given student body getting biglaw drops massively with every tier town in the rankings. Of those 86, I think you'll find a huge portion of the biglaw placement comes from schools ranked 15-30. Biglaw placement is generally poor for schools in the 50-100 band.latinx wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 9:38 pmLet's use a definition that big law is represented on the ABA 509 statements as firms with more than 500 lawyers. Using that definition, and using the 2021 data, I added up 2371 graduates of T14 schools got into big law, 1999 graduates of the other Tier 1 schools got into big law, and 950 graduates of Tier 2 schools got into big law. There are also hundreds of Tier 3 and Tier 4 school graduates that got into big law, but I didn't want to add those all up. The point being that MORE LAW SCHOOL GRADUATES FROM SCHOOLS OUTSIDE THE T14 GOT BIG LAW THAN T14 GRADUATES. Again, we are all in agreement that for various reasons, graduates of T14 schools have an advantage in obtaining big law. But the majority of 2021 big law came from outside the T14, despite the lower recruiting, lower networking, lower resources, and other disadvantages. No denying that a smaller fraction of students outside the T14 get big law, and this fraction drops the lower in the ranking you go (meaning you either have to finish higher in the ranking or have connections). But I continue to argue that part of the reason for this is due to the lower quality of the student body (if you use mean LSAT and undergraduate GPA to determine quality). If you take a given student, Billy Bob, the advantage of attending T14 is not as massive as might first appear. Now if Billy Bob feels his life is over if he doesn't get big law, there is no question he should enroll in T14, cost be damned (of course, being in T14 doesn't guarantee big law, and Billy Bob could end up disappointed and broke). There is no doubt there is an advantage but how big of an advantage is it and how much is that advantage worth? Hence the title of this post.The Lsat Airbender wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:45 amFor biglaw? Massive advantage. So large an advantage that that suggesting Billy attend the T2 is irresponsibly stupid advice; anyone dispensing such advice should be ashamed of themselves.
We've already explained why "student body quality" isn't meaningful for this purpose. You don't actually have to do all that well in the T-14 to get biglaw. At HYSCCN, it's all but guaranteed if you really want it (absent times like the immediate aftermath of the great recession). And if you can get into HYSCCN, you are probably getting significant money (if not a full ride or close) to a lower T14.