Top Law Schools

So I have been admitted to both Duke law and Georgetown and can't, for the life of me, begin to make a decision. I know Duke has more prestige, great employment stats, and an incredible faculty (plus living down south after four years in upstate New York would be a major plus), but GULC is in DC (a bonus for many obvious reasons) and has a really amazing IR law program (a specialization that I am considering as a possible career path and that I will definitely want to pursue to some extent no matter where I go to school). Does anyone have any suggestions to help me settle the differences between these schools?

Duke is in the elite eight?

Cornell was in the sweet 16, but I'd rather go to g-town any day.

pelmen74 wrote:So I have been admitted to both Duke law and Georgetown and can't, for the life of me, begin to make a decision. I know Duke has more prestige, great employment stats, and an incredible faculty (plus living down south after four years in upstate New York would be a major plus), but GULC is in DC (a bonus for many obvious reasons) and has a really amazing IR law program (a specialization that I am considering as a possible career path and that I will definitely want to pursue to some extent no matter where I go to school). Does anyone have any suggestions to help me settle the differences between these schools?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=112442

Just a thought. Am in the same boat (+Michigan and Cornell)

violinst wrote:

pelmen74 wrote:So I have been admitted to both Duke law and Georgetown and can't, for the life of me, begin to make a decision. I know Duke has more prestige, great employment stats, and an incredible faculty (plus living down south after four years in upstate New York would be a major plus), but GULC is in DC (a bonus for many obvious reasons) and has a really amazing IR law program (a specialization that I am considering as a possible career path and that I will definitely want to pursue to some extent no matter where I go to school). Does anyone have any suggestions to help me settle the differences between these schools?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=112442

Just a thought. Am in the same boat (+Michigan and Cornell)

Re: thread
GULC's employment stats can't compare with the rest of the top 14's; it has a very, very poor clerkship showing (not reflected in that biglaw link you posted...so GULC probably comes out even worse if you include clerkship employment statistics); it has a massive class size and is supposedly very competitive; and I heard its most recent OCI was an absolute slaughterhouse, which wouldn't surprise me, considering...

fortissimo wrote:

violinst wrote:

pelmen74 wrote:So I have been admitted to both Duke law and Georgetown and can't, for the life of me, begin to make a decision. I know Duke has more prestige, great employment stats, and an incredible faculty (plus living down south after four years in upstate New York would be a major plus), but GULC is in DC (a bonus for many obvious reasons) and has a really amazing IR law program (a specialization that I am considering as a possible career path and that I will definitely want to pursue to some extent no matter where I go to school). Does anyone have any suggestions to help me settle the differences between these schools?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=112442

Just a thought. Am in the same boat (+Michigan and Cornell)

Re: thread
GULC's employment stats can't compare with the rest of the top 14's; it has a very, very poor clerkship showing (not reflected in that biglaw link you posted); it has a massive class size and is supposedly very competitive; and I heard its most recent OCI was an absolute slaughterhouse, which wouldn't surprise me, considering...

I don't know about the most recent OCI, but if one looks at the most data available:
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1
one can see that 289 students from GULC got jobs in NLJ250 firms. If one assumes that most of those students were full-time students (around 458 of them), than the percentage is actually very good.

violinst wrote:

fortissimo wrote:

violinst wrote:

pelmen74 wrote:So I have been admitted to both Duke law and Georgetown and can't, for the life of me, begin to make a decision. I know Duke has more prestige, great employment stats, and an incredible faculty (plus living down south after four years in upstate New York would be a major plus), but GULC is in DC (a bonus for many obvious reasons) and has a really amazing IR law program (a specialization that I am considering as a possible career path and that I will definitely want to pursue to some extent no matter where I go to school). Does anyone have any suggestions to help me settle the differences between these schools?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=112442

Just a thought. Am in the same boat (+Michigan and Cornell)

Re: thread
GULC's employment stats can't compare with the rest of the top 14's; it has a very, very poor clerkship showing (not reflected in that biglaw link you posted); it has a massive class size and is supposedly very competitive; and I heard its most recent OCI was an absolute slaughterhouse, which wouldn't surprise me, considering...

I don't know about the most recent OCI, but if one looks at the most data available:
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1
one can see that 289 students from GULC got jobs in NLJ250 firms. If one assumes that most of those students were full-time students (around 458 of them), than the percentage is actually very good.

Why would you even assume that? Don't many, if not most, PT students transfer into the FT class 2L year and go through OCI? The percentage is also out of "total JDs awarded," which makes it questionable to deduct 200 students from the number. Are you assuming that PT students who graduate in that year never go through OCI?

Also, add in clerkships to get legit comparisons among schools.

fortissimo wrote:

violinst wrote:

fortissimo wrote:

violinst wrote: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=112442

Just a thought. Am in the same boat (+Michigan and Cornell)

Re: thread
GULC's employment stats can't compare with the rest of the top 14's; it has a very, very poor clerkship showing (not reflected in that biglaw link you posted); it has a massive class size and is supposedly very competitive; and I heard its most recent OCI was an absolute slaughterhouse, which wouldn't surprise me, considering...

I don't know about the most recent OCI, but if one looks at the most data available:
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1
one can see that 289 students from GULC got jobs in NLJ250 firms. If one assumes that most of those students were full-time students (around 458 of them), than the percentage is actually very good.

Why would you even assume that? Don't many, if not most, PT students transfer into the FT class 2L year and go through OCI?

Also, add in clerkships to get legit comparisons among schools.

http://www.leiterrankings.com/jobs/2000 ... erks.shtml

Better than UPenn at least. Also, Leiter used the FT+PT number, though I doubt that any one in the PT program would do clerkship. If Leiter had only used the FT number, GULC could have ranked much higher!

I will stay off this thread for now, for both of us are repeating ourselves.

violinst wrote: http://www.leiterrankings.com/jobs/2000 ... erks.shtml

Better than UPenn at least. Also, Leiter used the FT+PT number, though I doubt that any one in the PT program would do clerkship. If Leiter had only used the FT number, GULC could have ranked much higher!

I will stay off this thread for now, for both of us are repeating ourselves.

Supreme Court clerkships? Wrong info

Use Article III clerkship data (which includes SCOTUS but also all federal clerkships (COA and district)).

fortissimo wrote:

violinst wrote: http://www.leiterrankings.com/jobs/2000 ... erks.shtml

Better than UPenn at least. Also, Leiter used the FT+PT number, though I doubt that any one in the PT program would do clerkship. If Leiter had only used the FT number, GULC could have ranked much higher!

I will stay off this thread for now, for both of us are repeating ourselves.

Supreme Court clerkships? Wrong info

Use Article III clerkship data (which includes SCOTUS but also all federal clerkships (COA and district)).

In the Article III clerkship ranking, New Mexico, Kentucky, and Ohio State all perform better than many T14 schools. This indicates that, as far as Article III clerkship placement goes, high-GPAs and regional-bias matter more than the reputation of individual schools. While a SCOTUS clerkship may not be the first stop for a new graduate, its selection is almost purely merit-based (and the reputation of the school counts here). Those GULC graduates who got the SCOTUS clerkships were not likely to be PT students, so I think that the Leiter ranking should have used GULC's FT number to calculate the percentage, in which case GULC would have ranked much higher.

violinst wrote:

pelmen74 wrote:So I have been admitted to both Duke law and Georgetown and can't, for the life of me, begin to make a decision. I know Duke has more prestige, great employment stats, and an incredible faculty (plus living down south after four years in upstate New York would be a major plus), but GULC is in DC (a bonus for many obvious reasons) and has a really amazing IR law program (a specialization that I am considering as a possible career path and that I will definitely want to pursue to some extent no matter where I go to school). Does anyone have any suggestions to help me settle the differences between these schools?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=112442

Just a thought. Am in the same boat (+Michigan and Cornell)

I think the thread linked above pretty much summarized the argument going on here. It seems to me that a lot of PT students (at least 30%) are bound to take Big Law jobs so you can't just deduct 200 from the number of students. ALthough the GULC numbers MIGHT increase if you take off PT, there is a 15% gap between GULC and Duke that definitely wont be filled. Either way, any GULC or Duke trolls (if the latter even exist on this forum) want to give me some other reasons for choosing their schools, apart from job placement statistics?

Sigh. Now With a 75k scholly at USC, my decision has gotten that much harder.

pelmen74 wrote:

violinst wrote:

pelmen74 wrote:So I have been admitted to both Duke law and Georgetown and can't, for the life of me, begin to make a decision. I know Duke has more prestige, great employment stats, and an incredible faculty (plus living down south after four years in upstate New York would be a major plus), but GULC is in DC (a bonus for many obvious reasons) and has a really amazing IR law program (a specialization that I am considering as a possible career path and that I will definitely want to pursue to some extent no matter where I go to school). Does anyone have any suggestions to help me settle the differences between these schools?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=112442

Just a thought. Am in the same boat (+Michigan and Cornell)

I think the thread linked above pretty much summarized the argument going on here. It seems to me that a lot of PT students (at least 30%) are bound to take Big Law jobs so you can't just deduct 200 from the number of students. ALthough the GULC numbers MIGHT increase if you take off PT, there is a 15% gap between GULC and Duke that definitely wont be filled. Either way, any GULC or Duke trolls (if the latter even exist on this forum) want to give me some other reasons for choosing their schools, apart from job placement statistics?

My point is that GULC's PT stats introduces distortions (positive or negative) to a comparison/ranking of T14 employment data, since none of the other schools has a PT program. It would be great if there is a FT-only (and a PT-only) database for GULC.

If you want DC connections, you can participate in the Duke in DC semester program and still benefit from the smaller class size and better placement of Duke.

Muckduck wrote:Duke is in the elite eight?

Well WVU is in the Final Four, but that's no reason to go there.

violinst wrote:

fortissimo wrote:

violinst wrote:

pelmen74 wrote:So I have been admitted to both Duke law and Georgetown and can't, for the life of me, begin to make a decision. I know Duke has more prestige, great employment stats, and an incredible faculty (plus living down south after four years in upstate New York would be a major plus), but GULC is in DC (a bonus for many obvious reasons) and has a really amazing IR law program (a specialization that I am considering as a possible career path and that I will definitely want to pursue to some extent no matter where I go to school). Does anyone have any suggestions to help me settle the differences between these schools?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=112442

Just a thought. Am in the same boat (+Michigan and Cornell)

Re: thread
GULC's employment stats can't compare with the rest of the top 14's; it has a very, very poor clerkship showing (not reflected in that biglaw link you posted); it has a massive class size and is supposedly very competitive; and I heard its most recent OCI was an absolute slaughterhouse, which wouldn't surprise me, considering...

I don't know about the most recent OCI, but if one looks at the most data available:
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1
one can see that 289 students from GULC got jobs in NLJ250 firms. If one assumes that most of those students were full-time students (around 458 of them), than the percentage is actually very good.

Even assuming that the PT folks got no NLJ250 jobs, you're neglecting the 100 transfer students.

Violinist Gt PT troll; GT FT Fanboi.

Desert Fox wrote:Violinist Gt PT troll; GT FT Fanboi.

What have I become?!