2014 ATL Rankings Forum

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

change cost to reflect real tuition after scholarships.

Accomplishing this will be really difficult if not infeasible.

I don't mean it should be personalized. I'm talking about an aggregate. They publish real tuition numbers per school, no? At least with public schools they do. Campos is always goin on about it.

[jbagelboy]

I *guess* there's a small value to #'s of SCOTUS clerks. But its pretty silly. Most schools will only have 0-2; year-to-year fluctuations would shift the schools up or down based on an incredibly small sampling. Also, prestigious clerks are already included in "good outcomes" 30% so it's double counted. If you have the numbers going into CoA feeders you dont need scotus

Cost is dumb for obvious reasons because everyone has a personalized debt burden. The point is to compare employment opportunities to cost, not to incorporate cost into employment.

The "alumni" thing is just as bad as usnwr.

The only thing this survey gets right vis a vis usnwr is excluding what LSAT scores the incoming class has and stupid shit like that

If you want a strictly prestige ranking, there's always business insider which is just the opinion of judges/practitioners/ect. This ranking is just bad all around but it serves the function of industry prestige signaling. http://www.businessinsider.com/best-law ... -us-2013-9
People want to chase prestige can look at this, and if prestige is important they can balance it independently with professional opportunities and placement. Why mix the garbage in with the relevant information? It's just sending the wrong message to naive applicants

[bk1]

I think the point of SCOTUS clerks is to capture how good a school is at placing into superelite unicorn-type jobs since it is the most visible and easily trackable of all these jobs (it's much harder to figure out how many people each year get placed into ultradifficult to get public interest or government jobs since you can't parse those out of the general pool of PI/gov jobs). I don't think they're saying that SCOTUS clerk placement in and of itself is important, I think they are using it as a proxy.

And while I love purely statistics driven analysis as much as the next guy, if we start with the presumption that HYS are categorically the best schools out there then it's clear that purely statistical methods will not place them at the top and you have to use something as a stand-in to push them above the rest. USNWR uses professor ratings. ATL uses SCOTUS clerks.

[jbagelboy]

I think the point of SCOTUS clerks is to capture how good a school is at placing into superelite unicorn-type jobs since it is the most visible and easily trackable of all these jobs (it's much harder to figure out how many people each year get placed into ultradifficult to get public interest or government jobs since you can't parse those out of the general pool of PI/gov jobs). I don't think they're saying that SCOTUS clerk placement in and of itself is important, I think they are using it as a proxy.

And while I love purely statistics driven analysis as much as the next guy, if we start with the presumption that HYS are categorically the best schools out there then it's clear that purely statistical methods will not place them at the top and you have to use something as a stand-in to push them above the rest. USNWR uses professor ratings. ATL uses SCOTUS clerks.

I disagree that it would be that hard to quantify (if we really care about accuracy in these nationwide surveys) prestigious public interest employers. If we say, okay, the prestigious firms are these 100 in vault or these 250 in NLJ or some more sophisticated metric which includes tough-to-get boutiques, we could find a similarly broad encompassing list of service-y stuff. Skadden scholars, DOJ/SEC/State Dept honors, federal court of appeals clerkships, scotus, icc/other tribunals, domestic impact litigation giants like southern poverty law center or aclu, the type of international human rights or arbitration work that's most grade/prestige sensitive, ect.

I'm not the right person to measure this because I'm going into private practice, but there are very knowledgeable people who could easily list off the ten or fifteen most competitive/desirable positions of this caliber. I'm sure yale would still be #1 this way, if that is what is most important to us all

[rad lulz]

.

[bk1]

Exactly what rad said. It's not figuring out which positions fit in that category, it's getting data every year for how many people at each school got those jobs. SCOTUS clerk hiring tends to be nice and public. The other stuff not nearly so.

[samcro_op]

I hope Iowa is ready for the DROVES

[rad lulz]

I hope Iowa is ready for the DROVES

DROVES of employers flocking to des moines

[rahulg91]

Honestly a little confused how Iowa is put up so high 14.2% BigLaw and 3.4% FedClerk? Why are schools like Emory & WUSTL so far below it? Or is it just because Iowa has done better in overall employment and is cheaper?

[Crowing]

SCOTUS clerks is just to put YLS on top because nobody will take any ranking that doesn't have YLS #1 seriously

[Dredd_2017]

Honestly a little confused how Iowa is put up so high 14.2% BigLaw and 3.4% FedClerk? Why are schools like Emory & WUSTL so far below it? Or is it just because Iowa has done better in overall employment and is cheaper?

Actually according to the NLJ 250 2013 numbers I believe Iowa had 11.05% biglaw, coupled with a 3.4% fed clerk that should put them WAY lower. I can only assume they score big because of low tuition, federal judges, and a really strong alumni rating.

Emory is in exactly the place it should be. Its NLJ 2013 stats dropped to 13.7% at a time when almost every other T20 ticked up a couple points. Still a great school, but with the bias towards solid employment outcomes in this ranking that means a dropped score.

I think the ATL rankings are, by a huge margin, the best one out there. I applied this cycle based almost exclusively off the NLJ 2010-2013 stats coupled with clerkships. ATL rankings would have saved me a lot of time if they were around when I started looking into all of this in 2012. I'd say as much on the ATL comments if Disqus didn't suck so hard.

[isuperserial]

Honestly a little confused how Iowa is put up so high 14.2% BigLaw and 3.4% FedClerk? Why are schools like Emory & WUSTL so far below it? Or is it just because Iowa has done better in overall employment and is cheaper?

I mean, if they judge it off of the in state tuition cost, Iowa is insanely cheap for a top school. But to me this is essentially meaningless. Scholarships made other schools cheaper than Iowa for me; the sticker price is quite frequently not the price you end up paying. Hypothetically it doesn't matter how expensive, say, Fordham is if I get a full ride.

[samcro_op]

Honestly a little confused how Iowa is put up so high 14.2% BigLaw and 3.4% FedClerk? Why are schools like Emory & WUSTL so far below it? Or is it just because Iowa has done better in overall employment and is cheaper?

I mean, if they judge it off of the in state tuition cost, Iowa is insanely cheap for a top school. But to me this is essentially meaningless. Scholarships made other schools cheaper than Iowa for me; the sticker price is quite frequently not the price you end up paying. Hypothetically it doesn't matter how expensive, say, Fordham is if I get a full ride.

I think a lot of their ranking comes from their really impressive c/o 2013 employment rankings http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=12 ... 0330001858
Actually the rankings there are quite similar to ATL rankings, also year Iowa is cheap as shit, didn't they lower their tuition this year?

[beepboopbeep]

I think the ATL ranking is, by a huge margin, the best one out there. I applied this cycle based almost exclusively off the NLJ 2010-2013 stats coupled with clerkships. ATL rankings would have saved me a lot of time if they were around when I started looking into all of this in 2012. I'd say as much on the ATL comments if Disqus didn't suck so hard.

I guess I'd agree if not for the cost thing. It's like the 0L on here the other day trying to compare schools by saying "0 scholarship at each of the T14 and ten seconds to decide" - no one is ever facing that situation. Ranking on cost means the metric is pretty useless for someone trying to make an actual decision, where costs are asymmetrical. As said above, it doesn't matter how expensive a school is if you have a full ride.

The alumni ranking is also pretty silly given that BYU, IU, Howard, and W&L are the four highest ranks. (http://abovethelaw.com/careers/law-scho ... ew=ratings)

[jbagelboy]

Exactly what rad said. It's not figuring out which positions fit in that category, it's getting data every year for how many people at each school got those jobs. SCOTUS clerk hiring tends to be nice and public. The other stuff not nearly so.

That's a very fair critique, but considering the amount of effort put into the window dressing, salesmanship and commercialization of these surveys, if someone serious cared to collect the data they could do so in not so long. The level of analysis and searching to compile the data year to year required is comparable to a high school senior AP statistics project.

Whether it's published or made publicly available: that I'm not sure of. I don't know if the federal government agencies, for example, release that information anywhere; I grant that's unrealistic in 2014. If the transparency movement pushes far enough, then maybe soon we could get explicit breakdowns of "government" and "public interest" job placements in ABA which would simplify the exercise.

[manu6926]

...

[Dredd_2017]

I don't want to argue with you over this unimportant issue.
But many people with strong numbers do fail to get scholarships. International students are not eligible for the need-based financial aid. So they can only aim for the named scholarships. I was lucky enough to get a Butler, but I'm sure that the process for named scholarships is far from automatic and that many international, especially k-JD, applicants fail to get any named scholarship offer. In those situations, applicants with YHS numbers will be comparing schools at sticker prices.

I think one of the reasons TLS is so against judging at sticker is because the vast majority of people here have the stats to get at least some money at schools somewhere in the T20 or at strong regionals. To them sticker is a useless and arbitrary factor even though for the bulk of law students it's their reality. There has been an explosion in "Merit scholarships" in the last few years which have exacerbated this issue.

However just like you I support their inclusion in the ranking, if only in the hope that one day the ATL rankings actually matter and schools are incentivized to lower tuition. Hilarious, I know.

[rayiner]

It seems: LST data, ATL rankings for employment outcomes
US News rankings primarily for prestige (entry standards)
Both are good sources of info.
This is how I see it. If you don't see things the way I do, good for you.
I didn't quite agree with ATL's methodology of using sticker prices for "cost". Cost almost always varies for each individual due to scholarships. I got criticized heavily yesterday for assuming sticker for school comparison. People with t6 numbers do tend to get schollys from lower-ranked schools.

USNWR is not a prestige ranking. Its a survey of the opinions of law professors. That's the driving metric in the ranking. As such, its totally useless.

Opinions of law professors or biglaw partners imply prestige. What people at the top think about your school is important.
Essentially, if rankings didn't exist, we'd be asking lawyers that we know, or your undergrad professor with a law degree about which schools are the best.
I do think any resource, be it rankings or anything whatsoever, should be read with a grain of salt, but bashing such things as completely useless just doesn't make sense, when the rankings have been around since the late 1980s.

Opinions of law professors don't count for anything. They're just opinions about law school faculties. Worse than useless. The practitioner component might be relevant if the response rate on that part of the USNWR survey wasn't abysmal. As it is, the practitioner component doesn't actually influence the rankings hardly at all.

[lastsamurai]

Loved reading some of the comments on the rankings...especially the one regarding GW's placement

[mx23250]

I hope Iowa is ready for the DROVES

DROVES of employers flocking to des moines

Iowa is actually in Iowa City. Been there, nice college town.

[crit_racer]

wtf USC?

[Big Dog]

International students are not eligible for the need-based financial aid. So they can only aim for the named scholarships. I was lucky enough to get a Butler, but I'm sure that the process for named scholarships is far from automatic and that many international, especially k-JD, applicants fail to get any named scholarship offer. In those situations, applicants with YHS numbers will be comparing schools at sticker prices.

Incorrect. HYS are (practically) the only law schools that offer meaningful need-based aid. So, everyone -- including internationals -- with HYS numbers can be competing for merit money from LS down the food chain. If you have the numbers, the school will pay you for it.

[moonman157]

I think the ATL ranking is, by a huge margin, the best one out there. I applied this cycle based almost exclusively off the NLJ 2010-2013 stats coupled with clerkships. ATL rankings would have saved me a lot of time if they were around when I started looking into all of this in 2012. I'd say as much on the ATL comments if Disqus didn't suck so hard.

I guess I'd agree if not for the cost thing. It's like the 0L on here the other day trying to compare schools by saying "0 scholarship at each of the T14 and ten seconds to decide" - no one is ever facing that situation. Ranking on cost means the metric is pretty useless for someone trying to make an actual decision, where costs are asymmetrical. As said above, it doesn't matter how expensive a school is if you have a full ride.

The alumni ranking is also pretty silly given that BYU, IU, Howard, and W&L are the four highest ranks. (http://abovethelaw.com/careers/law-scho ... ew=ratings)

Are those factored into the ATL rankings? Cause if so, LOL @ schools with <50% LST scores beating out Harvard and Yale on a metric in the rankings. That's some Cooley rankings shit right there.

And that's why rankings are stupid. Their whole purpose is to figure out how University of Colorado stacks against University of Arizona stacks against Boston College. That's why the LST way is the best: ignore arbitrary distinctions between schools that no one should be deciding between, and instead focus on job placement and where you want to practice (with costs factored in based on individual circumstances). The only rankings people should be looking at are job placement rankings, and even those need a ton of qualifications

[Dafaq]

Last year one ATL criteria seemed to include COL. Perhaps ATL eliminated that standard since both NYU and Columbia had big jumps this go-around. Either that or ATL believes NYC COL is a lot less this year compared to ’13.

[Ricky-Bobby]

Last year one ATL criteria seemed to include COL. Perhaps ATL eliminated that standard since both NYU and Columbia had big jumps this go-around. Either that or ATL believes NYC COL is a lot less this year compared to ’13.

IIRC, they use tuition rates as an analog for COL. Wildly inaccurate, but that's what they do.