Top Law Schools

I will be writing a "Why Duke" essay and was wondering how people went about compiling that kind of information? I had never considered it prior, I have done some reading of the website, but I was wondering how people went about gathering the particular nuances and characteristics of a given school in order to compose a "Why X law school" letter.

For a couple of the schools to which I applied, I actually reached out to profs. I mean, it wasn't specifically to get "Why X" info, but rather to get information that I wanted before applying. But the info I had received did help when I wrote my "Why X" essays.