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How easy is it to get a big law job in other parts of the country with a ucla degree assuming you graduate towards the top of your class. I tried researching where there grads worked, but couldn't find anything. I assume it's hard to go to the east coast, but I'm more interested in other west past cities like SF and Seattle. Any help would be great!

sst123 wrote:How easy is it to get a big law job in other parts of the country with a ucla degree assuming you graduate towards the top of your class. I tried researching where there grads worked, but couldn't find anything. I assume it's hard to go to the east coast, but I'm more interested in other west past cities like SF and Seattle. Any help would be great!

Probably pretty tough without really good grades and ties. I would suggest a T14 (preferably Berkeley or Stanford) if you want those cities. Law school is too hard/unpredictable to assume you'll end up at the top of the class.

sst123 wrote:I tried researching where there grads worked, but couldn't find anything.

It's on UCLA Law's website under employment statistics.

http://www.law.ucla.edu/career-services ... stics.aspx

The percentages are calculated on LawSchoolTransparency.

http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... b=location

In short, UCLA does NOT have national carry. And since Stanford grads are going to fill up SF biglaw, UCLA is stuck competing with T-14 grads for LA biglaw.

Stanford is NOT going to "fill up" SF BigLaw. Stanford has the smallest class size of the T14 (less than 200), and most of those graduates do not go on to BigLaw in SF. If you don't believe me, look at the first-year associate classes of any SF firm.

sst123 wrote:How easy is it to get a big law job in other parts of the country with a ucla degree assuming you graduate towards the top of your class. I tried researching where there grads worked, but couldn't find anything. I assume it's hard to go to the east coast, but I'm more interested in other west past cities like SF and Seattle. Any help would be great!

why not just take the extra step and assume you find a big law job?

Considering that a third of the class gets biglaw at all? Portability wouldn't be my main concern.

hichvichwoh wrote:

sst123 wrote:How easy is it to get a big law job in other parts of the country with a ucla degree assuming you graduate towards the top of your class. I tried researching where there grads worked, but couldn't find anything. I assume it's hard to go to the east coast, but I'm more interested in other west past cities like SF and Seattle. Any help would be great!

why not just take the extra step and assume you find a big law job?

This. That is an incredibly dangerous assumption. Don't go to UCLA unless you want California.

iamgeorgebush wrote:Stanford is NOT going to "fill up" SF BigLaw. Stanford has the smallest class size of the T14 (less than 200), and most of those graduates do not go on to BigLaw in SF. If you don't believe me, look at the first-year associate classes of any SF firm.

Thanks for setting me straight. Where can I find the first-year associate classes? I was only able to find Hanson Bridgett's 2010 class which consisted of Boalt and UC Hastings grads. I played with some numbers and estimated that SLS probably sent ~35 of its 2012 grads to biglaw in California.

IpleadtheFiF wrote:

iamgeorgebush wrote:Stanford is NOT going to "fill up" SF BigLaw. Stanford has the smallest class size of the T14 (less than 200), and most of those graduates do not go on to BigLaw in SF. If you don't believe me, look at the first-year associate classes of any SF firm.

Thanks for setting me straight. Where can I find the first-year associate classes? I was only able to find Hanson Bridgett's 2010 class which consisted of Boalt and UC Hastings grads. I played with some numbers and estimated that SLS probably sent ~35 of its 2012 grads to biglaw in California.

I don't think this info is publicly available in easy-to-read list form for many firms. You could figure it by looking at a firm's website, though, for example at Latham & Watkins: http://www.lw.com/people?searchtopicids=30&esmode=1 (associates in general for the first two pages are: 1 UVA, 4 UCLA, 5 Boalt, 1 SLS, 1 Michigan, 1 GWU, 1 NYU)

Seems like UCLA is portable to SF.

Related question: does UCLA have any portability to Las Vegas? It is very close to socal and obviously a much better school than UNLV.

iamgeorgebush wrote:

IpleadtheFiF wrote:

iamgeorgebush wrote:Stanford is NOT going to "fill up" SF BigLaw. Stanford has the smallest class size of the T14 (less than 200), and most of those graduates do not go on to BigLaw in SF. If you don't believe me, look at the first-year associate classes of any SF firm.

Thanks for setting me straight. Where can I find the first-year associate classes? I was only able to find Hanson Bridgett's 2010 class which consisted of Boalt and UC Hastings grads. I played with some numbers and estimated that SLS probably sent ~35 of its 2012 grads to biglaw in California.

I don't think this info is publicly available in easy-to-read list form for many firms. You could figure it by looking at a firm's website, though, for example at Latham & Watkins: http://www.lw.com/people?searchtopicids=30&esmode=1 (associates in general for the first two pages are: 1 UVA, 4 UCLA, 5 Boalt, 1 SLS, 1 Michigan, 1 GWU, 1 NYU)

Seems like UCLA is portable to SF.

Guess it depends on your definition of portability. When I was choosing schools I asked recent UCLA and USC grads working in Northern CA about large firm hiring in Northern CA, the general sense I got from them was that you needed to be at least in the top 25% of your class, if not higher.

BigZuck wrote:

iamgeorgebush wrote:

IpleadtheFiF wrote:

iamgeorgebush wrote:Stanford is NOT going to "fill up" SF BigLaw. Stanford has the smallest class size of the T14 (less than 200), and most of those graduates do not go on to BigLaw in SF. If you don't believe me, look at the first-year associate classes of any SF firm.

Thanks for setting me straight. Where can I find the first-year associate classes? I was only able to find Hanson Bridgett's 2010 class which consisted of Boalt and UC Hastings grads. I played with some numbers and estimated that SLS probably sent ~35 of its 2012 grads to biglaw in California.

I don't think this info is publicly available in easy-to-read list form for many firms. You could figure it by looking at a firm's website, though, for example at Latham & Watkins: http://www.lw.com/people?searchtopicids=30&esmode=1 (associates in general for the first two pages are: 1 UVA, 4 UCLA, 5 Boalt, 1 SLS, 1 Michigan, 1 GWU, 1 NYU)

Seems like UCLA is portable to SF.

Guess it depends on your definition of portability. When I was choosing schools I asked recent UCLA and USC grads working in Northern CA about large firm hiring in Northern CA, the general sense I got from them was that you needed to be at least in the top 25% of your class, if not higher.

I don't doubt it.

In the end, though, you're still going to need to do pretty well at a place like Boalt...maybe it's top 40% or something instead of top 25% (I kind of doubt both of these figures though, looking at LST, which puts their large firm scores at 54% and 34%). Whatever number it is, is getting top X% at Boalt any easier than getting top Y% at UCLA? I don't know. I expect there's a higher caliber of students at Boalt, and I expect firms account for these things when assessing associate candidates. Then again, maybe not...the two schools have virtually identical medians: c/o 2016 same median LSAT among the two schools, and UCLA actually has 0.01 higher median GPA.