Top Law Schools

Are they on par with schools like BU, BC, Fordham, GWU, WUSTL, USC, et cetera? I’ve seen them compared on here to UMN, Wisconsin and Iowa, but the stats seem to suggest they’re more on par with the former.

http://www.law.com/pdf/nlj/20080414empl ... trends.pdf

And the amount actually reporting salary is fairly impressive…

--LinkRemoved--

Thoughts?

bump

At a recent law school/graduate fair, I spoke with one of the recent graduates representing the school. I asked about employment in specific, and since we had been having a good conversation so far she was actually a little more honest than I expected about the situation with big law (aka 140k+ salaries). She said right now it's tough, probably about 1/3 are getting those kind of jobs.

I know this contradicts the online stuff a bit, but that's self reporting, so take it for what it is.

My inference from all of this: If you want to make 120k or above, you need to do well (top 1/3) or be very good in OCI's.

My guess is the cutoff for $120k jobs is much higher than top 1/3. I mean only 1/3 of GULC is getting biglaw ITE.

I would disagree. It's quite possible that a 3rd of the class is doing very well. Illinois is a great school. It's in a different market. And god forbid there is not some magical line between the t14 and the schools right behind it... UCLA and USC are behind GULC but I would bet at least 1/3 of those are making great salaries... These schools do well because they have set markets and firms and alumni that love to recruit from them. Just because GULC is ranked higher and is doing "eh" doesn't negate this.

I feel like Illinois is a great school but its hard to compare it to BU/BC/Fordham as opposed to Wisc/Minn RIGHT now. Midwest schools obviously feed into Chicago, the largest primary market nearby where prolly a lot of good jobs r. However, BU/BC/Fordham feed into New York/Boston, which is just a much larger legal market. ITE, it seems its just a bit easier to get into NY law as opposed to Chicago, so I'd say career prospect-wise, the eastern schools r just a safer bet at this pt. In normal years i'm sure they're relatively the same.

fugitivejammer wrote:I feel like Illinois is a great school but its hard to compare it to BU/BC/Fordham as opposed to Wisc/Minn RIGHT now. Midwest schools obviously feed into Chicago, the largest primary market nearby where prolly a lot of good jobs r. However, BU/BC/Fordham feed into New York/Boston, which is just a much larger legal market. ITE, it seems its just a bit easier to get into NY law as opposed to Chicago, so I'd say career prospect-wise, the eastern schools r just a safer bet at this pt. In normal years i'm sure they're relatively the same.

Complete bulls*>t. This is assuming that each market has the same amount of great feeder schools.Yes, there will always be more legal jobs in NYC and Boston than Chicago, but there's a shit-ton less schools that are competing (notably) against Illinois for the good Chicago jobs...who are they really up against other than Chi, NW, part of Michigan, and some of Wustl? And don't give me "loyola" crap because they weren't competing for those jobs in the first place...

BU and BC and fordham are in the same boat as Illinois. A big old sinking one. But they all have a good deal of their class above water still. The only sad news is that they all also have a bigger portion of their class completely sunk.

mst wrote:there will always be more legal jobs in NYC and Boston than Chicago,

There are more jobs in New York AND Boston than there are in Chi. There are NOT more jobs in Boston than there are in Chicago. I think the Top 1/3 is very optomistic, but I do like Illinois. It would be good to hear from some 2Ls and 3Ls at UIUC.

How does Wisconsin compare against Illinois as far as job prospects are concerned in Chicago?

Repost this in legal employment if you want non 0L opinions.

Aqualibrium wrote:Repost this in legal employment if you want non 0L opinions.

Good idea.

mst wrote:At a recent law school/graduate fair, I spoke with one of the recent graduates representing the school. I asked about employment in specific, and since we had been having a good conversation so far she was actually a little more honest than I expected about the situation with big law (aka 140k+ salaries). She said right now it's tough, probably about 1/3 are getting those kind of jobs.

I know this contradicts the online stuff a bit, but that's self reporting, so take it for what it is.

My inference from all of this: If you want to make 120k or above, you need to do well (top 1/3) or be very good in OCI's.

I understand, but 1/3rd seems to be the deal at BU, BC, USC, UCLA, et cetera as well. At UMN, Wisconsin and Iowa, it’s much lower, which seems to suggest that Illinois is better than the other Big Ten schools. I ask, because on here I always see Illinois lumped together with Iowa, UMM and Wisconsin but its employment stats (both pre-ITE and ITE) seem to suggest that it’s more on par with the Fordhams and BCs of the world than the Minnesotas of the world.

Aqualibrium wrote:Repost this in legal employment if you want non 0L opinions.

Here's some flavor from the Legal Employment forum:

LOL if you think 1/3 of the class is getting $100k+ jobs from Illinois.

fugitivejammer wrote:I feel like Illinois is a great school but its hard to compare it to BU/BC/Fordham as opposed to Wisc/Minn RIGHT now. Midwest schools obviously feed into Chicago, the largest primary market nearby where prolly a lot of good jobs r. However, BU/BC/Fordham feed into New York/Boston, which is just a much larger legal market. ITE, it seems its just a bit easier to get into NY law as opposed to Chicago, so I'd say career prospect-wise, the eastern schools r just a safer bet at this pt. In normal years i'm sure they're relatively the same.

But isn’t there more competition for NYC because everyone and their mother wants to go there? And how is the NY market better than the Chicago one right now? Plus, all Fordham has is NYC, where Illinois probably has at least some mobility, though BU and BC do as well.

Rory1987 wrote:

fugitivejammer wrote:I feel like Illinois is a great school but its hard to compare it to BU/BC/Fordham as opposed to Wisc/Minn RIGHT now. Midwest schools obviously feed into Chicago, the largest primary market nearby where prolly a lot of good jobs r. However, BU/BC/Fordham feed into New York/Boston, which is just a much larger legal market. ITE, it seems its just a bit easier to get into NY law as opposed to Chicago, so I'd say career prospect-wise, the eastern schools r just a safer bet at this pt. In normal years i'm sure they're relatively the same.

But isn’t there more competition for NYC because everyone and their mother wants to go there? And how is the NY market better than the Chicago one right now? Plus, all Fordham has is NYC, where Illinois probably has at least some mobility, though BU and BC do as well.

NYC has WAY more jobs, but not proportionately more people gunning for it.

Go ask 2Ls in the Legal Employment forum where it's easiest to get a job. NYC is so much easier than Chicago that 0Ls suggesting otherwise is TLS hilarity.

Aqualibrium wrote:Repost this in legal employment if you want non 0L opinions.

Done. Good idea btw.

Rory1987 wrote:Are they on par with schools like BU, BC, Fordham, GWU, WUSTL, USC, et cetera? I’ve seen them compared on here to UMN, Wisconsin and Iowa, but the stats seem to suggest they’re more on par with the former.

http://www.law.com/pdf/nlj/20080414empl ... trends.pdf

And the amount actually reporting salary is fairly impressive…

--LinkRemoved--

Thoughts?

Hmmm, interesting data. It does seem more legit than Minnesota or Wisconsin certainly.

Rory1987 wrote:

fugitivejammer wrote:I feel like Illinois is a great school but its hard to compare it to BU/BC/Fordham as opposed to Wisc/Minn RIGHT now. Midwest schools obviously feed into Chicago, the largest primary market nearby where prolly a lot of good jobs r. However, BU/BC/Fordham feed into New York/Boston, which is just a much larger legal market. ITE, it seems its just a bit easier to get into NY law as opposed to Chicago, so I'd say career prospect-wise, the eastern schools r just a safer bet at this pt. In normal years i'm sure they're relatively the same.

But isn’t there more competition for NYC because everyone and their mother wants to go there? And how is the NY market better than the Chicago one right now? Plus, all Fordham has is NYC, where Illinois probably has at least some mobility, though BU and BC do as well.

Just b/c BU and BC feed more into the NY/Boston/DC area than UofI, doesn't mean that people with ties to the midwest couldn't come back and do well there as well. I know several people who went back to Chicago with offers from BU, and I myself had an offer or two from the big firms in the midwest city where I'm from. The point is that I think BU/BC/GW type schools, allow more access to the bigger markets like NY, DC, Boston, and CA AND if one has ties to the midwest, one can come back b/c these are more recognizable schools. Whereas, I don't think Illinois grads can go very easily to big cities like NY, Boston, DC, and cities in CA. Obviously all schools are hurting right now, so it's not like BU grads can go wherever they want, but I just think that they have more options than a school likse U of I does. U of I, at least for now, is still lumped with the very regional midwest schools.