2011 Top 50 Go-To Law Schools Forum

[PDaddy]

OMG a lot of the top 10 is under 50 percent now. I remember when I first began looking at law schools every top 10 had at least 50 percent of the class in nlj 250--Columbia used to have 70+ percent.....this is really getting bad. Look what happened to Duke!!!! 38 percent

Some of it could be self-selection. Many graduates don't want the hassle of knowing they may have to leave BigLaw involuntarily, so they have elect not to play the game and go into PI or gov't sector jobs. Some may go the Business route or stay in school to get a masters or MBA. Others go into university administration or go overseas.

Plus, you have to remember, many top grads don't want BigLaw anyways, so to make BigLaw at a school that places 38% of its graduates in BigLaw, you may only need to be in the top 45-50%. That's still a fair chance. And if you are URM at a school like that, an employer may need to replace a URM who left the firm and thus may dig even deeper into the pool to find someone with potential (say top-55%). No one should rely on this, but it is a reality.

[FiveSermon]

When does data regarding clerkships come out? If we add biglaw placement+Clerkship I think we can reasonably assess how these schools did.

[rman1201]

When does data regarding clerkships come out? If we add biglaw placement+Clerkship I think we can reasonably assess how these schools did.

March 15th (With the new US News rankings)

[PDaddy]

Guess its bye bye to all that T-12 nonsense

I don't understand....

T14 minus Duke & GULC seems reasonable enough to me.

T11. Yale has no business being lumped in with the elite schools.

Agreed. i have always felt that Yale is way overrated. Yale doesn't produce "legal practitioners"; it produces "legal scholars".

[FiveSermon]

Guess its bye bye to all that T-12 nonsense

I don't understand....

T14 minus Duke & GULC seems reasonable enough to me.

T11. Yale has no business being lumped in with the elite schools.

Agreed. i have always felt that Yale is way overrated. Yale doesn't produce "legal practitioners"; it produces "legal scholars".

I'd give my left nut to pay sticker at Yale.

[PomasThynchon]

I'd give my left nut to pay sticker at Yale.

I'd give both my nuts, so long as I had the chance to have some of my...stuff frozen beforehand.

[FiveSermon]

I'd give my left nut to pay sticker at Yale.

I'd give both my nuts, so long as I had the chance to have some of my...stuff frozen beforehand.

That would be too weird. I need my ballsack to at least feel full. But maybe prosthetic balls?

[PomasThynchon]

I'd give my left nut to pay sticker at Yale.

I'd give both my nuts, so long as I had the chance to have some of my...stuff frozen beforehand.

That would be too weird. I need my ballsack to at least feel full. But maybe prosthetic balls?

I could do that. I could definitely, definitely do that. If I could turn back time, I'd take a year, maybe two, off after high school and mature a little. College is not the place to "grow up," and I grew up too late.

[drylo]

When does data regarding clerkships come out? If we add biglaw placement+Clerkship I think we can reasonably assess how these schools did.

This is an important point. The "manipulable" thing is not literally true, but it is true that the NLJ 250 numbers do not tell the whole story. Clerkships are one important part of that story. It is also apparently true that NYC firms had far lower no-offer rates than other parts of the country in summer 2009--so this skews the class of 2010 numbers (in favor of schools like Cornell that place heavily in NYC). It is also worth noting that there are a number of small, "boutique" firms that pay like NLJ 250 firms in their respective markets but obviously do not count in NLJ 250 stats. The impact of these firms is near impossible to measure, but still very real. (For instance, targeting secondary markets only, I had multiple offers from NLJ 250 firms for this summer, but I chose to spend half of my summer at a small boutique firm--and could very well end up there after graduation, by choice.)

[whitman]

Nice try. If it was me I wouldn;t have said it so respectively respectfully to the sack of douche bags that you failures in life are!

FTFY again.

Don't get too excited about catching my spelling mistakes. I'm typing while watching the Miami game. Truth be told, I should stop wasting time responding to such losers and just enjoy the game. chow!

Wait, so you weren't being sarcastic when you used "respectively" the second time? Oh, so you're just an idiot.

That was actually me; interestingly enough, I was also watching a basketball game, UNC-Maryland, when I typed "respectively" instead of "respectfully". I'm not sure why he made it seem like he had anonymously defended himself. Very strange. I certainly wouldn't have done that if it were me.

Regardless, I understand looking at someone's situation and believing they're making an egregious error in attending a lower-ranked law school, but, come on, try to not live up to the stereotype of law students as mean-spirited, narcissistic elitists.

[09042014]

Hasn't this thread pretty much run its course? Two year old data, easily manipulable, that you can read any way you like. Has little to no effect on the prospects of current and future students.

Actually it's seriously making Cornell look good in my eyes. Call me dumb and gullible but ranking #2 doesn't seem too fluke like to me. It shows that Cornell can at least do as well as most other t14 schools.

Like I've said for the past year, Cornell is definitely a peer of MVPDN. If someone absolutely wants NYC, it's probably better than everything but T6 or Penn.

But their ranking in this list isn't the end all be all. NU was 1 last year and it dropped to 8.

[Aberzombie1892]

Hasn't this thread pretty much run its course? Two year old data, easily manipulable, that you can read any way you like. Has little to no effect on the prospects of current and future students.

Actually it's seriously making Cornell look good in my eyes. Call me dumb and gullible but ranking #2 doesn't seem too fluke like to me. It shows that Cornell can at least do as well as most other t14 schools.

Like I've said for the past year, Cornell is definitely a peer of MVPDN. If someone absolutely wants NYC, it's probably better than everything but T6 or Penn.

But their ranking in this list isn't the end all be all. NU was 1 last year and it dropped to 8.

True, but Cornell normally does extremely well. Last year was an anomaly for the school. Cornell, as you said, is the go to NYC school outside the T6 and maybe Penn. Someone who wants big law NYC should consider nothing else without $$$.

[09042014]

Hasn't this thread pretty much run its course? Two year old data, easily manipulable, that you can read any way you like. Has little to no effect on the prospects of current and future students.

Actually it's seriously making Cornell look good in my eyes. Call me dumb and gullible but ranking #2 doesn't seem too fluke like to me. It shows that Cornell can at least do as well as most other t14 schools.

Like I've said for the past year, Cornell is definitely a peer of MVPDN. If someone absolutely wants NYC, it's probably better than everything but T6 or Penn.

But their ranking in this list isn't the end all be all. NU was 1 last year and it dropped to 8.

True, but Cornell normally does extremely well. Last year was an anomaly for the school. Cornell, as you said, is the go to NYC school outside the T6 and maybe Penn. Someone who wants big law NYC should consider nothing else without $$$.

I wouldn't go so far as to say consider nothing else. It's hard to separate self selection.

Quibbling over the small placement differences amongst the lower t14 is silly. School cultural and fit become more important than possibly 2% better placement in NYC.

[TheThreader]

any thoughts on Texas?

[Kswizzie]

any thoughts on Texas?

We talked about it earlier and we all thought it was slack

[FiveSermon]

any thoughts on Texas?

We talked about it earlier and we all thought it was slack

slack? what that mean dawg?

[Kswizzie]

any thoughts on Texas?

We talked about it earlier and we all thought it was slack

slack? what that mean dawg?

I don't know. I was just saying things. someone asked a question about its relatively poor showing earlier since Texas gets alot of TLS love. They were asking if Texas places its students heavily in to other types of jobs that would explain its cruddy showing in the NLJ rankings... but I don't think it does.

I wouldn't go there if I were you.

[09042014]

any thoughts on Texas?

We talked about it earlier and we all thought it was slack

slack? what that mean dawg?

I don't know. I was just saying things. someone asked a question about its relatively poor showing earlier since Texas gets alot of TLS love. They were asking if Texas places its students heavily in to other types of jobs that would explain its cruddy showing in the NLJ rankings... but I don't think it does.

I wouldn't go there if I were you.

The TLS rumors about Texas was that it rebounded well after the crash. Meaning 2011 and 2012 should be better. But who knows.

[PomasThynchon]

any thoughts on Texas?

We talked about it earlier and we all thought it was slack

slack? what that mean dawg?

I don't know. I was just saying things. someone asked a question about its relatively poor showing earlier since Texas gets alot of TLS love. They were asking if Texas places its students heavily in to other types of jobs that would explain its cruddy showing in the NLJ rankings... but I don't think it does.

I wouldn't go there if I were you.

Texas would probably skew heavily toward...Texas employment. Are there not a lot of Texas firms in the NLJ 250?

[FiveSermon]

Texas is now TTTexas.

[ndirish2010]

I am surprised that we did not take as big of a hit as UIUC and WUSTL did. Seeing that almost 24% number almost made me happy.

[FiveSermon]

I am surprised that we did not take as big of a hit as UIUC and WUSTL did. Seeing that almost 24% number almost made me happy.

Yeah I was shocked. I never hear ND mentioned on TLS but they outplaced a lot of other peer schools...

[mst]

Summary of this thread: NLJ releases data. Students go too far in making assumptions on data.

NYU's drop could very likely be associated with its huge PI schtick. 70+ in PI (in positions that generally are good enough for biglaw placement) makes a big difference in %, and honestly if you had the choice of chasing big-law with a probability of being no-offered or deferred and then being let go in a few years regardless vs pursuing notable PI with one of the most generous LRAP's in existence, which would you choose? Columbia & Chicago just don't attact the same kind of PI-leaning folks, nor do they place as well into PI, as NYU. When you combine NYU's PI & NLJ250 numbers you get numbers comparable or better than Chicago's and Columbia's, assuming their prestigious PI placement is not nearly as high as NYU's (a leap of faith has to be made here, but I don't think it's an unreasonable one).

And to the person who suggested that those who place into PI are just no-offers, you're probably wrong. A good portion of those positions are extremely competitive and I don't think I'm going too far by suggesting they could probably have gotten solid SA's + offers had that been their preference.

Somehow people can look at Yale and Harvard and see their low numbers and be perfectly fine suggesting their people self-select out of big law, yet they can't look at a school like NYU... one of, if not THE premiere PI schools in the country... and assume that this is just that school's way of responding to a shitty economy 1-2 years ago.

[Helmholtz]

The take away lesson from this is that the views of hiring partners at biglaw firms change every year. There's no doubt that biglaw firms decided that they would like Cornell more this year and Northwestern less. I was talking to a biglaw partner last June who really wasn't a fan of Georgetown. Guess what. By August, he had changed his mind and loved them. Reason? None. That's what makes this tricky. The key is to recognize this fickleness and predict how their emotions are going to swing the year you do OCI hiring.

[FiveSermon]

Summary of this thread: NLJ releases data. Students go too far in making assumptions on data.

NYU's drop could very likely be associated with its huge PI schtick. 70+ in PI (in positions that generally are good enough for biglaw placement) makes a big difference in %, and honestly if you had the choice of chasing big-law with a probability of being no-offered or deferred and then being let go in a few years regardless vs pursuing notable PI with one of the most generous LRAP's in existence, which would you choose? Columbia & Chicago just don't attact the same kind of PI-leaning folks, nor do they place as well into PI, as NYU. When you combine NYU's PI & NLJ250 numbers you get numbers comparable or better than Chicago's and Columbia's, assuming their prestigious PI placement is not nearly as high as NYU's (a leap of faith has to be made here, but I don't think it's an unreasonable one).

And to the person who suggested that those who place into PI are just no-offers, you're probably wrong. A good portion of those positions are extremely competitive and I don't think I'm going too far by suggesting they could probably have gotten solid SA's + offers had that been their preference.

Somehow people can look at Yale and Harvard and see their low numbers and be perfectly fine suggesting their people self-select out of big law, yet they can't look at a school like NYU... one of, if not THE premiere PI schools in the country... and assume that this is just that school's way of responding to a shitty economy 1-2 years ago.

Duke? Cornell? What about those 2? Vandy also. NYU may have a rep as one of the best PI schools but...