Are there really any tiers/differences within the T13 outside of HYS? Forum

[Prospectiveatty5142]

I don't attend any law school yet and haven't even applied to any yet, so I have no dog in this fight. But I've seen people here break the T13/T14 (I'll get to that later) into tiers like HYS/CCN/MVP/BDN/CG. A lot of the time, these tiers will vary, some people will put Berkeley in with MVP or Cornell in with BDN. I've done a bit of research, and I have a hard time believing this is an accurate way of describing things. I think it's pretty clear that HYS is seen as differently from the rest of the T13, as firms will go significantly lower into the class there than the rest of the T13. I also think it's pretty clear Georgetown has significantly worse outcomes than the top 13 schools, so I think T13 is a fairer term than T14. I think you could also make the case that Yale stands above Harvard and Stanford, as to be its own tier.

But when it comes to the T13 outside of HYS, I'm just not seeing the big differences. What's the difference between Columbia and Cornell? Or Northwestern and NYU?

The only schools that look significantly oddball in certain ways are Chicago, Berkeley and Michigan. Chicago because it has a much higher % of clerks than any school outside of HYS, and Berkeley and Michigan because they have much lower Biglaw+Clerk %'s. I can probably guess why that is for Berkeley, but not sure why for Michigan.

Given this, I think a fair ranking to me looks like:
Tier 1: Yale
Tier 2: Stanford, Harvard
Tier 3: Chicago
Tier 4: Columbia, NYU, UPenn, UVA, Michigan, Berkeley, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell

But then again, I'm a 0L with no experience. Could I be right? Or are there significant differences between some of these schools here besides obvious regional differences? (Duke better for South, Berkeley better for CA, etc.)

[QContinuum]

While Harvard is a hair above CCN, and especially Columbia/NYU, in recent years I don't think there's any night-and-day difference that would justify placing Harvard a whole "tier" ahead of CCN. Like, yes, at equal cost, certainly attend Harvard over CCN, but if Harvard's COA is, say, $50k more than Chicago, then absent a few narrow exceptions I'd plump for Chicago all the way. $50k's a significant chunk of change.

Likewise, Chicago is a hair stronger than Columbia/NYU, especially in recent years. But again, not to the extent of being a whole "tier" above.

Generally there's no placement-power "cliff" from Harvard through Cornell. Rather, it's a gradual "slope" downward. As you move down the rankings, in general, your odds at a federal clerkship decline, and your odds at prestigious PI/fed gov positions also decline.

And while you're pretty secure for BigLaw all the way through Cornell, the caliber of BigLaw firm you'd target slowly declines. It's true that the BigLaw firms at the "bottom" of the V100 still pay starting salaries of $190k or close, same as Cravath, but there are advantages to starting at the "top" (speaking generally, granting that exceptions exist): greater sophistication of work, more work generally to go around (as opposed to having to scrounge and compete with your yearmates to hit your billable minimum), more assurance of receiving a (full market) bonus, and greater "longevity" (both because "top" firms - with exceptions - tend to push associates out later, and because it's easy to lateral "down" the prestige ladder if/when one is pushed out, but very tough to lateral "up"). Also, many firms toward the "bottom" of the V100 do salary compression, such that even though you may start out making $190k or close as a stub-year, by the time you hit year 3 or 4, you're making well below the Cravath scale.

But again, it's a gradual "slope" downward. So, yes, there's a significant difference in outcomes between Columbia and Cornell, even if it's obscured by Cornell's BigLaw placement numbers. But no, it doesn't make sense to slice and dice up the Chicago-through-Cornell schools into "tiers," because it's a gradual slope, not a series of cliff-edge drops in placement power.

It's also true there are regional differences. They aren't huge, but they're not nonexistent either. For someone wanting to work in the South, UVA or Duke would absolutely be the right call over NYU, assuming equal COA. Likewise, Berkeley should be strongly considered by someone wanting to work in CA (though this question comes up more rarely on TLS because Berkeley tends to be stingier than the rest of the T13 on the merit-aid front, such that financial considerations usually end up outweighing any advantages gained by Berkeley's CA location).

Finally, Michigan has had more of an academic/PI focus, and to some extent that continues, even though Michigan's no longer entirely as strong a law school as it once was. (NYU's rise in the rankings seems to have coincided with Michigan's fall.) Still, Mich remains a very strong school, and is often a great choice because of its generosity on the merit-aid front. (Mich and NYU tend to be the two most generous T13s.)

[Lurker19]

In regards to Michigan's placement power, the relatively low biglaw numbers are largely self selection. Just over 26% of last year's 1L class didn't do OCI at all. According to LST they have 67.7% of the class going into biglaw and federal clerkships. That's probably right in line with the rest of the T13 when you factor in the large number of people not doing OCI.

[Prospectiveatty5142]

While Harvard is a hair above CCN, and especially Columbia/NYU, in recent years I don't think there's any night-and-day difference that would justify placing Harvard a whole "tier" ahead of CCN. Like, yes, at equal cost, certainly attend Harvard over CCN, but if Harvard's COA is, say, $50k more than Chicago, then absent a few narrow exceptions I'd plump for Chicago all the way. $50k's a significant chunk of change.

Likewise, Chicago is a hair stronger than Columbia/NYU, especially in recent years. But again, not to the extent of being a whole "tier" above.

Generally there's no placement-power "cliff" from Harvard through Cornell. Rather, it's a gradual "slope" downward. As you move down the rankings, in general, your odds at a federal clerkship decline, and your odds at prestigious PI/fed gov positions also decline.

And while you're pretty secure for BigLaw all the way through Cornell, the caliber of BigLaw firm you'd target slowly declines. It's true that the BigLaw firms at the "bottom" of the V100 still pay starting salaries of $190k or close, same as Cravath, but there are advantages to starting at the "top" (speaking generally, granting that exceptions exist): greater sophistication of work, more work generally to go around (as opposed to having to scrounge and compete with your yearmates to hit your billable minimum), more assurance of receiving a (full market) bonus, and greater "longevity" (both because "top" firms - with exceptions - tend to push associates out later, and because it's easy to lateral "down" the prestige ladder if/when one is pushed out, but very tough to lateral "up"). Also, many firms toward the "bottom" of the V100 do salary compression, such that even though you may start out making $190k or close as a stub-year, by the time you hit year 3 or 4, you're making well below the Cravath scale.

But again, it's a gradual "slope" downward. So, yes, there's a significant difference in outcomes between Columbia and Cornell, even if it's obscured by Cornell's BigLaw placement numbers. But no, it doesn't make sense to slice and dice up the Chicago-through-Cornell schools into "tiers," because it's a gradual slope, not a series of cliff-edge drops in placement power.

It's also true there are regional differences. They aren't huge, but they're not nonexistent either. For someone wanting to work in the South, UVA or Duke would absolutely be the right call over NYU, assuming equal COA. Likewise, Berkeley should be strongly considered by someone wanting to work in CA (though this question comes up more rarely on TLS because Berkeley tends to be stingier than the rest of the T13 on the merit-aid front, such that financial considerations usually end up outweighing any advantages gained by Berkeley's CA location).

Finally, Michigan has had more of an academic/PI focus, and to some extent that continues, even though Michigan's no longer entirely as strong a law school as it once was. (NYU's rise in the rankings seems to have coincided with Michigan's fall.) Still, Mich remains a very strong school, and is often a great choice because of its generosity on the merit-aid front. (Mich and NYU tend to be the two most generous T13s.)

Hmm, interesting. So it sounds like the answer is somewhere in between. There's not zero difference, but they're not really "tiers" either.

As for Chicago vs Columbia and NYU, the reason I placed it in a different "tier" is because of the huge clerkship advantage. Again, being a 0L, I know very little, but I do know clerkships are very prestigious and basically required for some lines of work. Chicago in the past 2 years has placed >20% of its graduates in federal clerkships, better than even Harvard whereas NYU and Columbia are at like 4%. I assume some of that has to be self-selection, but that seems to be a huge difference to me. I find it unlikely that that's entirely explained by self-selection. But again, I'm just a 0L who knows little, so if that's entirely self-selection, they would all belong in the same tier.

I assumed Harvard was a tier above Chicago, Columbia and NYU, perhaps erroneously simply because it's Harvard. Also because I've read a lot on this site suggesting firms simply have a different cutoff for H, Y and S than any other school. But who am I to correct you if you say that's changed in recent years?

I also did not know about Michigan's academic/PI focus. I knew Berkeley had that reputation but had never heard that about Michigan. Would you say that Michigan's lower Biglaw+Clerkship stats are entirely due to self selection and the school has no real disadvantage in NYC/DC BigLaw compared to schools like UVA, Duke, Cornell and Northwestern? Those schools are similarly ranked but have much higher % of their graduates go into BigLaw or Clerkships. I might add that lstreports.com, which I've been using for most of my conclusions doesn't have Michigan as having that many more grads go into public service than UVA or Cornell. Certainly not enough to explain the huge difference in BigLaw%. Berkeley, on the other hand, has a significantly higher number. I also find it hard to believe academia is that prevalent as I thought Law Professor jobs were unicorns.
I find it hard to believe that Michigan students would be at a huge disadvantage compared to schools with a comparable ranking, but it's hard to find a clear explanation in the numbers for why their BigLaw+Clerkship is so low. Not dissing any students who go to Michigan, it's a fantastic school, just confused by the numbers.

[dvlthndr]

I think there are very substantial differences between CCN and the lower T13, but they are harder to spot unless you go past the raw statistics reported to the ABA. Where you place Chicago also depends on how you define success. For simplicity, let's talk about clerkships, and biglaw employment.

Clerkships

Be really careful with those statistics.

As for Chicago vs Columbia and NYU, the reason I placed it in a different "tier" is because of the huge clerkship advantage. Again, being a 0L, I know very little, but I do know clerkships are very prestigious and basically required for some lines of work. Chicago in the past 2 years has placed >20% of its graduates in federal clerkships, better than even Harvard whereas NYU and Columbia are at like 4%.

Chicago does have "good" clerkship placement relative its peers, but you should take the numbers with a grain of salt. The ABA reports the number of people going directly into a clerkship out of law school. It does not capture people that get a clerkship starting a year or two out of school (which is common for more "liberal" judges and some of the more popular jurisdictions). Lets take an example to see why this matters:

Using Columbia (since it's easy to Google) their handbook shows 35 people with COA clerkships starting in 2018, 45 with federal district court clerkships starting in 2018, and 8 others random clerkships starting in 2018. So ~90 graduates started clerking in 2018. By comparison, their ABA statistics for the graduating class of 2018 only shows ~25 clerks total. That is a big discrepancy. It's the difference between ~20% of a typical graduating class clerking in reality, versus only ~5.5% of the graduating class clerking according to ABA statistics .

I'm not suggesting that Columbia is a "good" choice if you want to clerk and you have HYS or Chicago as an alternative (and Columbia is, admittedly, an extreme example since they place heavily in SDNY/EDNY/2nd Cir. which tend to do hiring a couple years out). But taking the reported statistics at face value may lead you to some wildly inaccurate conclusions.

BigLaw
The same goes for BigLaw employment numbers. Even if the whole T13 have high employment numbers in general, there is a huge difference between working at a V10 firm, and working at some random firm deep in the V100.

If you take a look at the page for Wachtell, you will find ~50 Columbia Law graduates working there. This is in the same ballpark as the number of Harvard graduates (~60). By comparison, you have only have 7 people from Duke, 3 people from Cornell, and only one Northwestern graduate. It is also worth noting that you have somewhat fewer people from Chicago working there as well (~15), even accounting for the the different class sizes (~200 for Chicago, ~450 for Columbia, ~550 for Harvard).

A similar trend exists for many of the other "top" firms. For example, Cravath shows 101 Columbia Law graduates, which is comparable to the number of Harvard Law graduates (~112). By comparison, you have 10 people from Duke, 15 from Cornell, 14 people from Northwestern, and 20 people from Chicago.

You can play with the numbers at different firms and check, but if your goal is to work for one of the top firms, your chances coming from CCN is going to be substantially better than graduating out of some random school on the lower half of the T13 (and with the exception of Kirkland, I would guess that Columbia and NYU have stronger placement than Chicago).

Anyway, this is not to advocate for any particular school over any other, but it should hopefully highlight that there is some logic behind the normal "tiers." At a minimum, there are some meaningful differences between the T6 and the rest of the T14. Whether or not those matter depends a lot on your career goals.

[Prospectiveatty5142]

I think there are very substantial differences between CCN and the lower T13, but they are harder to spot unless you go past the raw statistics reported to the ABA. Where you place Chicago also depends on how you define success. For simplicity, let's talk about clerkships, and biglaw employment.

Clerkships

Be really careful with those statistics.

As for Chicago vs Columbia and NYU, the reason I placed it in a different "tier" is because of the huge clerkship advantage. Again, being a 0L, I know very little, but I do know clerkships are very prestigious and basically required for some lines of work. Chicago in the past 2 years has placed >20% of its graduates in federal clerkships, better than even Harvard whereas NYU and Columbia are at like 4%.

Chicago does have "good" clerkship placement relative its peers, but you should take the numbers with a grain of salt. The ABA reports the number of people going directly into a clerkship out of law school. It does not capture people that get a clerkship starting a year or two out of school (which is common for more "liberal" judges and some of the more popular jurisdictions). Lets take an example to see why this matters:

Using Columbia (since it's easy to Google) their handbook shows 35 people with COA clerkships starting in 2018, 45 with federal district court clerkships starting in 2018, and 8 others random clerkships starting in 2018. So ~90 graduates started clerking in 2018. By comparison, their ABA statistics for the graduating class of 2018 only shows ~25 clerks total. That is a big discrepancy. It's the difference between ~20% of the graduating class clerking in reality, and only ~5.5% of the gradating class clerking according to ABA statistics.

I'm not suggesting that Columbia is a "good" choice if you want to clerk and you have HYS or Chicago as an alternative (and Columbia is, admittedly, an extreme example since they place heavily in SDNY/EDNY/2nd Cir. which tend to do hiring a couple years out). But you should be careful taking the reported stats at face value.

BigLaw
The same goes for BigLaw employment numbers. Even if the whole T13 have high employment numbers in general, there is a huge difference between working at a V10 firm, and working at some random firm deep in the V100.

If you take a look at the page for Wachtell, you will find ~50 Columbia Law graduates working there. This is in the same ballpark as the number of Harvard graduates (~60). By comparison, you have only have 7 people from Duke, 3 people from Cornell, and only one Northwestern graduate. It is also worth noting that you have somewhat fewer people from Chicago working there as well (~15), even accounting for the the different class sizes (~200 for Chicago, ~450 for Columbia, ~550 for Harvard).

A similar trend exists for many of the other "top" firms. For example, Cravath shows 101 Columbia Law graduates, which is comparable to the number of Harvard Law graduates (~112). By comparison, you have 10 people from Duke, 15 from Cornell, 14 people from Northwestern, and 20 people from Chicago.

You can play with the numbers at different firms and check, but if your goal is to work for one of the top firms, your chances coming from CCN is going to be substantially better than graduating out of some random school on the lower half of the T13 (and with the exception of Kirkland, I would guess that Columbia and NYU have stronger placement than Chicago).

Anyway, this is not to advocate for any particular school over any other, but it should hopefully highlight that there is some logic behind the normal "tiers." At a minimum, there are some meaningful differences between the T6 and the rest of the T14. Whether or not those matter depends a lot on your career goals.

Well that definitely explains the difference in clerkship numbers. I found it bizarre that Columbia and NYU, the 5th and 6th ranked schools had only 4% of their students going into clerkships. That makes a lot more sense that the 2nd circuit and SDNY prefer a few years of work experience.

[Person1111]

My view is that HLS is probably not significantly better than CCN if your goal is generic NYC biglaw. Its real advantage versus CCN is if you are looking at biglaw in other markets, prestigious government jobs, etc. It is probably the only school in the country with a truly national reach.

[The Lsat Airbender]

Another factor people haven't mentioned yet is faculty reputation, which has a large impact on US News rankings and general public perception without being something that prospective students (should) care about. The publishing prowess and name recognition (in academic circles) of their faculty is one of the big areas where NYU/Columbia resemble HYSChicago and not the rest of the 14.

LSAT 25th percentiles are also interesting to look at - they drop off noticeably after HYSColumbia and then again after Chicago/NYU.

This is all just making something out of nothing, though. I disagree with the threat title insofar as the Harvard-CCN gap isn't obviously larger than that between Yale and Stanford/Harvard or between CCN and MVPB. And it's not very parsimonious to put too much stock in tiers anyway because different people need such different things out of law school

[TheBlueDevil]

Another factor people haven't mentioned yet is faculty reputation, which has a large impact on US News rankings and general public perception without being something that prospective students (should) care about. The publishing prowess and name recognition (in academic circles) of their faculty is one of the big areas where NYU/Columbia resemble HYSChicago and not the rest of the 14.

LSAT 25th percentiles are also interesting to look at - they drop off noticeably after HYSColumbia and then again after Chicago/NYU.

This is all just making something out of nothing, though. I disagree with the threat title insofar as the Harvard-CCN gap isn't obviously larger than that between Yale and Stanford/Harvard or between CCN and MVPB. And it's not very parsimonious to put too much stock in tiers anyway because different people need such different things out of law school

If one cares about "general public perception," then it makes sense to look at rankings that more directly measure that. Given that the general public probably does not have some specialized reputational scheme for law schools, it makes sense to look at general university rankings as well.

The T14 according to the current US News National University Rankings looks like this:
1. Harvard
2. Columbia & Yale
4. Stanford, Chicago & Penn
7. Northwestern
8. Duke
9. Notre Dame & Vanderbilt
11. Cornell
12. WashU
13. UCLA
14. Emory

According to the current Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, it looks like this:
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Berkeley
4. Yale
5. UCLA
6. Chicago
7. Columbia
8. Michigan
9. Penn
10. Cornell
11. NYU
12. Univ. of Wash.
13. Duke
14. Texas

The T14 according to the Times Higher Education World Rankings in the subject of law:
1. Stanford
2. Duke
3. Yale
4. Chicago
5. Harvard
6. NYU
7. Berkeley
8. Columbia
9. Penn
10. UCLA
11. Univ. of Wash.
12. Georgetown
13. Michigan
14. Cornell

The Academic Ranking of World University:
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Berkeley
4. Columbia
5. Chicago
6. UCLA
7. Yale
8. Cornell
9. Univ. of Wash.
10. Penn
11. Michigan
12. Wash U
13. Wisconsin
14. Duke

Of the T14 schools, only eight appear on all four lists: Yale (highest: 2, mean: 4), Harvard (highest: 1, mean: 2), Stanford (highest: 1, mean: 2.25), Chicago (highest: 4, mean: 4.75), Columbia (highest: 2, mean: 5.25), Penn (highest: 4, mean: 8), Duke (highest: 2, mean: 9.25), and Cornell (highest: 8, mean: 10.75). NYU (only made 2/4 lists), Michigan (3/4), Virginia (0/4), Berkeley (3/4), Northwestern (1/4), and Georgetown (1/4) did not make the cut on all four. UCLA was the only non-T14 school to make all four lists.

I doubt any useful conclusions can be drawn from the foregoing analysis when it comes to selecting an American law school. Frankly, in terms of lay prestige, I would still assume that Berkeley, Georgetown, and Northwestern, at a minimum, would make anyone's list.

[Prospectiveatty5142]

Another factor people haven't mentioned yet is faculty reputation, which has a large impact on US News rankings and general public perception without being something that prospective students (should) care about. The publishing prowess and name recognition (in academic circles) of their faculty is one of the big areas where NYU/Columbia resemble HYSChicago and not the rest of the 14.

LSAT 25th percentiles are also interesting to look at - they drop off noticeably after HYSColumbia and then again after Chicago/NYU.

This is all just making something out of nothing, though. I disagree with the threat title insofar as the Harvard-CCN gap isn't obviously larger than that between Yale and Stanford/Harvard or between CCN and MVPB. And it's not very parsimonious to put too much stock in tiers anyway because different people need such different things out of law school

If one cares about "general public perception," then it makes sense to look at rankings that more directly measure that. Given that the general public probably does not have some specialized reputational scheme for law schools, it makes sense to look at general university rankings as well.

The T14 according to the current US News National University Rankings looks like this:
1. Harvard
2. Columbia & Yale
4. Stanford, Chicago & Penn
7. Northwestern
8. Duke
9. Notre Dame & Vanderbilt
11. Cornell
12. WashU
13. UCLA
14. Emory

According to the current Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, it looks like this:
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Berkeley
4. Yale
5. UCLA
6. Chicago
7. Columbia
8. Michigan
9. Penn
10. Cornell
11. NYU
12. Univ. of Wash.
13. Duke
14. Texas

The T14 according to the Times Higher Education World Rankings in the subject of law:
1. Stanford
2. Duke
3. Yale
4. Chicago
5. Harvard
6. NYU
7. Berkeley
8. Columbia
9. Penn
10. UCLA
11. Univ. of Wash.
12. Georgetown
13. Michigan
14. Cornell

The Academic Ranking of World University:
1. Harvard
2. Stanford
3. Berkeley
4. Columbia
5. Chicago
6. UCLA
7. Yale
8. Cornell
9. Univ. of Wash.
10. Penn
11. Michigan
12. Wash U
13. Wisconsin
14. Duke

Of the T14 schools, only eight appear on all four lists: Yale (highest: 2, mean: 4), Harvard (highest: 1, mean: 2), Stanford (highest: 1, mean: 2.25), Chicago (highest: 4, mean: 4.75), Columbia (highest: 2, mean: 5.25), Penn (highest: 4, mean: , Duke (highest: 2, mean: 9.25), and Cornell (highest: 8, mean: 10.75). NYU (only made 2/4 lists), Michigan (3/4), Virginia (0/4), Berkeley (3/4), Northwestern (1/4), and Georgetown (1/4) did not make the cut on all four. UCLA was the only non-T14 school to make all four lists.

I doubt any useful conclusions can be drawn from the foregoing analysis when it comes to selecting an American law school. Frankly, in terms of lay prestige, I would still assume that Berkeley, Georgetown, and Northwestern, at a minimum, would make anyone's list.

Huh? UVA's not on any of those? I'm surprised, as on the east coast, UVA is generally thought of as tops. It's probably the single best public for banking/consulting recruiting. If I were ranking the T14 by lay prestige, I think you have to go:
1. Harvard
2. Yale
3. Stanford
4. Columbia
5. Upenn
6. Chicago
7. Duke
8. Cornell
9. Northwestern
10. Georgetown
11/12/13/14: Berkeley/Michigan/UVA/NYU in no particular order

All are fantastic undergrads though as well as law schools (and most have great business schools too interestingly enough)

[cavalier1138]

Oh joy. Another "lay prestige" thread.

[Prospectiveatty5142]

Oh joy. Another "lay prestige" thread.

That was not my aim in starting this thread, would like to know what you think about the original question

[Wild Card]

Chicago and Columbia have produced very many distinguished graduates. NYU hasn't been as successful, but for some reason is looked upon very favorably by the very best law firms, on a different level than the rest of the T14, as a poster suggested above.

Also, Georgetown is a good school, on a different level than Vanderbilt and WUSTL, etc. It may be unscrupulous in admitting too many students and charging too much money, but it still still attracts high-potential people in a way that Vandy et al. cannot.

[cavalier1138]

Oh joy. Another "lay prestige" thread.

That was not my aim in starting this thread, would like to know what you think about the original question

I think that it's a largely pointless exercise. Everybody does their own alphabet soup of the T13. Harvard students insist on HYS, despite Yale routinely beating them for the number one spot. Penn students invariably say HYSCCNP. As mentioned in the thread, there are reasons to separate HYS and CCN from the rest of the pack. But in reality, your decision is going to be based on a number of other factors that you can't measure yet. You will almost never end up comparing two totally different schools in the T13 at equal cost.

[LBJ's Hair]

these threads are stupid but I'm going to put in my requisite "Harvard is closer to CCN than it is to Yale by any metric other than # of annual SCOTUS clerks" comment

[nealric]

It's true that the BigLaw firms at the "bottom" of the V100 still pay starting salaries of $190k or close, same as Cravath, but there are advantages to starting at the "top" (speaking generally, granting that exceptions exist): greater sophistication of work, more work generally to go around (as opposed to having to scrounge and compete with your yearmates to hit your billable minimum), more assurance of receiving a (full market) bonus, and greater "longevity" (both because "top" firms - with exceptions - tend to push associates out later, and because it's easy to lateral "down" the prestige ladder if/when one is pushed out, but very tough to lateral "up"). Also, many firms toward the "bottom" of the V100 do salary compression, such that even though you may start out making $190k or close as a stub-year, by the time you hit year 3 or 4, you're making well below the Cravath scale.

I disagree that necessarily difficult to lateral up. While it's true that some of the most elite firms don't do much lateral hiring, there are plenty of v10s and v20s that are happy to take lower v100 associates. I say this because I worked at a "random v100" and saw many of my fellow associates lateral up (in fact is was probably the most common exit for junior associates). I had the opportunity to lateral to a v10 but chose in-house. Once you've had a few years of experience, firms mostly care about what you can do for them. If you are at a strong practice within a v100 that gives you exposure to the sort of work the v10 is looking to hire for, they aren't going to look down on you simply because your firm was lower down in the pecking order.

But I do agree with the other advantages of a higher-up firm. The top-tier firms don't have to scramble for work, and the work they do get is much less cost sensitive. It takes a lot of pressure of associates when they aren't getting told to limit the amount of time they spend on a matter and don't have to go around asking for work. On the other hand, most of the firms that maintain some semblance of work/life balance tend to be a bit lower in the pecking order.

[LBJ's Hair]

It's true that the BigLaw firms at the "bottom" of the V100 still pay starting salaries of $190k or close, same as Cravath, but there are advantages to starting at the "top" (speaking generally, granting that exceptions exist): greater sophistication of work, more work generally to go around (as opposed to having to scrounge and compete with your yearmates to hit your billable minimum), more assurance of receiving a (full market) bonus, and greater "longevity" (both because "top" firms - with exceptions - tend to push associates out later, and because it's easy to lateral "down" the prestige ladder if/when one is pushed out, but very tough to lateral "up"). Also, many firms toward the "bottom" of the V100 do salary compression, such that even though you may start out making $190k or close as a stub-year, by the time you hit year 3 or 4, you're making well below the Cravath scale.

I disagree that necessarily difficult to lateral up. While it's true that some of the most elite firms don't do much lateral hiring, there are plenty of v10s and v20s that are happy to take lower v100 associates. I say this because I worked at a "random v100" and saw many of my fellow associates lateral up (in fact is was probably the most common exit for junior associates). I had the opportunity to lateral to a v10 but chose in-house. Once you've had a few years of experience, firms mostly care about what you can do for them. If you are at a strong practice within a v100 that gives you exposure to the sort of work the v10 is looking to hire for, they aren't going to look down on you simply because your firm was lower down in the pecking order.

But I do agree with the other advantages of a higher-up firm. The top-tier firms don't have to scramble for work, and the work they do get is much less cost sensitive. It takes a lot of pressure of associates when they aren't getting told to limit the amount of time they spend on a matter and don't have to go around asking for work. On the other hand, most of the firms that maintain some semblance of work/life balance tend to be a bit lower in the pecking order.

also depends on the practice area, right. if you're doing cap markets, finance, M&A, and they need bodies, they're happy to hire. or a niche speciality group.

litigation, which is less profitable, increasingly cost-sensitive, prestige-sensitive, and can be filled from clerkship hiring etc...like, people generally move down the chain, not up

[Dipsychus]

In terms of academic and research-oriented jobs, I assume there are cliffs here, and a weirdly precipitous-cum-plateaus downward slope? Yale at the top, then Harvard/Stanford, and then...? Or, in terms of placement, extreme bimodality?

[nealric]

It's true that the BigLaw firms at the "bottom" of the V100 still pay starting salaries of $190k or close, same as Cravath, but there are advantages to starting at the "top" (speaking generally, granting that exceptions exist): greater sophistication of work, more work generally to go around (as opposed to having to scrounge and compete with your yearmates to hit your billable minimum), more assurance of receiving a (full market) bonus, and greater "longevity" (both because "top" firms - with exceptions - tend to push associates out later, and because it's easy to lateral "down" the prestige ladder if/when one is pushed out, but very tough to lateral "up"). Also, many firms toward the "bottom" of the V100 do salary compression, such that even though you may start out making $190k or close as a stub-year, by the time you hit year 3 or 4, you're making well below the Cravath scale.

I disagree that necessarily difficult to lateral up. While it's true that some of the most elite firms don't do much lateral hiring, there are plenty of v10s and v20s that are happy to take lower v100 associates. I say this because I worked at a "random v100" and saw many of my fellow associates lateral up (in fact is was probably the most common exit for junior associates). I had the opportunity to lateral to a v10 but chose in-house. Once you've had a few years of experience, firms mostly care about what you can do for them. If you are at a strong practice within a v100 that gives you exposure to the sort of work the v10 is looking to hire for, they aren't going to look down on you simply because your firm was lower down in the pecking order.

But I do agree with the other advantages of a higher-up firm. The top-tier firms don't have to scramble for work, and the work they do get is much less cost sensitive. It takes a lot of pressure of associates when they aren't getting told to limit the amount of time they spend on a matter and don't have to go around asking for work. On the other hand, most of the firms that maintain some semblance of work/life balance tend to be a bit lower in the pecking order.

also depends on the practice area, right. if you're doing cap markets, finance, M&A, and they need bodies, they're happy to hire. or a niche speciality group.

litigation, which is less profitable, increasingly cost-sensitive, prestige-sensitive, and can be filled from clerkship hiring etc...like, people generally move down the chain, not up

That may very well be true for lit vs. corporate, although your chances of getting more substantive motion or trial experience are probably better at the lower-tier and less leveraged firm. I definitely had classmates who had a problem escaping from doc review purgatory at "top" firms, which I can imagine would not be conducive to a successful lateral move.

[LBJ's Hair]

In terms of academic and research-oriented jobs, I assume there are cliffs here, and a weirdly precipitous-cum-plateaus downward slope? Yale at the top, then Harvard/Stanford, and then...? Or, in terms of placement, extreme bimodality?

There's another thread on this that I posted in that gets into this, but the short version is "Yale and Harvard are vastly overrepresented but that's probably more correlation than causation and Quality of Scholarship matters a lot more than what law school you went to."

If you have an MPP and substantive expertise in health policy and get your JD from Penn, clerk on a court of appeals court, and then publish an excellent health law article in a good journal, you're in way better shape for a competitive academic fellowship than a K-JD Harvard student who clerked CA2 and is writing yet another piece on the 4th Amendment.

If you wanna do academia like, don't give up because you didn't get into Yale. Give up because you have bad ideas and don't know anything

[cavalier1138]

If you wanna do academia like, don't give up because you didn't get into Yale. Give up because you have bad ideas and don't know anything

And remember that a lot of professors didn't let that stop them from shooting for the stars (*cough*Amy Wax*cough*).