Law school alum stereotypes? Forum

[beepboopbeep]

I find this thread super weird -- I'm several years out and have never thought of where my coworkers went to law school outside of (1) during my clerkship year, but mostly because we talked about our law school experiences more, and (2) if people went to my school and were close enough in year that I knew them or knew of them. I honestly couldn't tell you where 80+% of the attorneys I work with went to law school.

[Anonymous User]

YLS alums won’t work as hard, probably because they know that they’ll land in an even better place if they get booted from biglaw anyway.

In DC at least Virginia and Georgetown alumni have very different vibes. Hard to describe.

Georgetown is for white people who like the city and will tell the cops you have reefer and UVA is for white people who don't like the city but will still tell the cops you have reefer.

/s (but only kind of)

[feminist.supporter]

YLS alums won’t work as hard, probably because they know that they’ll land in an even better place if they get booted from biglaw anyway.

In DC at least Virginia and Georgetown alumni have very different vibes. Hard to describe.

Georgetown is for white people who like the city and will tell the cops you have reefer and UVA is for white people who don't like the city but will still tell the cops you have reefer.

/s (but only kind of)

Went to both. Can confirm. Astoundingly accurate.

[Anonymous User]

The weirdest people I have met are from WUSTL; actually, WUSTL to T14 transfers (of which there are many).

I feel like WSTL seems to attract a lot of very rankings focused types who either miss out on the top tier schools or who are offered a lot of money to attend WSTL over them (similar to the undergrad side). I imagine the people who go because they actually want to practice in the STL area are a bit different.

I went to WUSTL (in part because I was offered a full ride, but in part because I’m from the area and thought I would work in STL biglaw, but then I ended up moving for personal reasons). I was miserable during 1L. My section was extremely, extremely competitive. It seemed like everyone was either annoyed that they were there (because they wanted to go to a T14) or thought they were better than everyone else (because they got into the T14 but went to Wash U for the money). I genuinely considered transferring at the end of my 1L year because I was so unhappy.

Thankfully, I made a great group of friends during my 2L year, and the rest of law school was a lot of fun. But yeah... there are some interesting personalities at WUSTL.

This sounds like UT minus the "Texas forever" blue blood types. Alums themselves are generally nice folks, though. Very friendly.

[Anonymous User]

Duke law male: incredibly and insufferably broey

[Anonymous User]

Almost all of the gunners that went to big firms at UVA went to DC. All of the generally chill, cool people who did biglaw went to NYC or other markets (like Texas). I don't know why, but DC seems like gunner-city.

[Anonymous User]

Doesn’t DC require top grades and so you have to be something of a gunner to end up there? (Also probably a cultural fit for certain gunners.)

I have found Columbia male alums to be pretty insufferably snooty and self-satisfied, but not sure if that was because I wasn’t from a T14 or because I wasn’t from NYC - not sure if it’s a school prestige thing or a “NYC is the center of the universe” thing. (And TBF my sample isn’t huge. Just notable.)

[Anonymous User]

Pretty much every UC Hastings grad I met was a gunner.

As a Hastings grad, I'm curious - what kind of gunner are we talking about here?

Work at a firm that hires median-ish T14 but tippy-top from Hastings. As a result, every Hastings grad I've worked with is a mega-gunner and the rest of my coworkers are hard-working, but low-key -- opposite of the Yale problem described above. For what its worth, I'm sure my T14s tippy-top gunners are asshats at W&C or wherever they ended up going.

Are T14 tippy-top gunners really going to White & Case?

Original poster – Williams and Connolly

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

ITT: People make exceedingly broad generalizations about schools they didn't attend that have hundreds of students a year based on the three alums they know.

[Anonymous User]

ITT: People make exceedingly broad generalizations about schools they didn't attend that have hundreds of students a year based on the three alums they know.

Totally agree, but I think that's kinda the fun of it

[Anonymous User]

Pretty much every UC Hastings grad I met was a gunner.

As a Hastings grad, I'm curious - what kind of gunner are we talking about here?

Work at a firm that hires median-ish T14 but tippy-top from Hastings. As a result, every Hastings grad I've worked with is a mega-gunner and the rest of my coworkers are hard-working, but low-key -- opposite of the Yale problem described above. For what its worth, I'm sure my T14s tippy-top gunners are asshats at W&C or wherever they ended up going.

Are T14 tippy-top gunners really going to White & Case?

The cream goes to White & Case

[Anonymous User]

.

[nixy]

ITT: People make exceedingly broad generalizations about schools they didn't attend that have hundreds of students a year based on the three alums they know.

Pretty sure that was the whole point.

[Anonymous User]

Duke law male: incredibly and insufferably broey

Duke alum here and I 100% agree with this. Huge bro contingent. My theory is that it’s mostly self selection among comparable T-14 schools as the others in that range either have very different vibes (Berkeley, Cornell) or are too cold for full bro-ing (Michigan, also Cornell).

The non bros at Duke are great though and generally I think of Duke alumni as less neurotic because we got to enjoy a gorgeous part of the country, go the beach/mountain etc. whenever we felt like it. Just stay away from the bros.

[Anonymous User]

At a V15-30 in NYC, which I mention so you have an idea where in the class the samples tend to come from:

Sample sizes for HYS are too small to comment.

The Chicago contingency is not gunnery, nice, and quirky in a good way.

NYU and Columbia grads blend together and are overall fine/normal while still maintaining a certain requisite intensity. I don’t think that the Columbia grads are less pleasant than the NYU grads. This is definitely the largest group at the firm.

We also have a lot of Fordham grads and they are competent and hardworking but not the insufferable gunners described upthread (perhaps because the v10 took the worst/best of them).

Michigan and Penn are definitely the sweet spot in terms of prestige and personality. Can’t think of any I don’t like.

UVA grads are the most social and a bit cliquey. You just know they went to UVA.

Georgetown grads are probably the most eclectic mix. Some seem bitter and unpleasant while the others are great. I don’t really know what to make of them.

I may think of others later and supplement this list, but those are the more distinct/larger groups.

[Anonymous User]

Northwestern alum here. Any NU stereotypes?

[Anonymous User]

Northwestern alum here. Any NU stereotypes?

ya know, that's a good question. i haven't met many NU Law alums in NY, whether at my firm or on deals. but I will say the one I know is great haha

[Anonymous User]

went to gtown, had a blast and thought most of the people i interacted w/ were fun, sociable, decent people.

i've found that to be same w/other gulc alums at my firm.

[ExpOriental]

All law school graduates are materially identical, in that they are all contemptible perverts.

[Anonymous User]

I went to Northwestern a while back and the majority of my classmates were absolutely insufferable. Some of the worst people I’ve ever met in my life, and I’ve worked in a lot of different jobs with a lot of different people. Cutthroat to the point of giving classmates false information in an effort to sabotage their exam performance, a sense of elitism that was nauseating, and just not good people (example from a conversation with a classmate: “why do you bag your groceries while checking out? That’s beneath us.”) . Maybe it’s a law school thing, or maybe my 1L section was as historically awful as the class years above he conveyed, idk.

There were obviously exceptions and I am very grateful for my friendships with those small few, but I often wonder what life would’ve been like at a different school. I know at least a dozen alumni who share my feelings.

[Anonymous User]

I went to Northwestern a while back and the majority of my classmates were absolutely insufferable. Some of the worst people I’ve ever met in my life, and I’ve worked in a lot of different jobs with a lot of different people. Cutthroat to the point of giving classmates false information in an effort to sabotage their exam performance, a sense of elitism that was nauseating, and just not good people (example from a conversation with a classmate: “why do you bag your groceries while checking out? That’s beneath us.”) . Maybe it’s a law school thing, or maybe my 1L section was as historically awful as the class years above he conveyed, idk.

There were obviously exceptions and I am very grateful for my friendships with those small few, but I often wonder what life would’ve been like at a different school. I know at least a dozen alumni who share my feelings.

Yeesh, that bagging groceries comment is next level entitlement.

[Anonymous User]

Get me a first-generation Spanish speaking kid from an unranked school (like South Texas). They will succeed. They were taught to work hard and hustle. These white people got nothing on them.

[Anonymous User]

Get me a first-generation Spanish speaking kid from an unranked school (like South Texas). They will succeed. They were taught to work hard and hustle. These white people got nothing on them.

Agreed wholeheartedly. Some of the junior associates on my deals (V10 firm) from HYS act like they're above the junior work.

[Anonymous User]

Texas: The student body is large enough and has such a diversity of interests/backgrounds that it's hard to nail down one stereotype. There is a visible contingent of former UT/A&M/TCU frat/sorority types who came to law school with hopes of one day crushing O&G deals at V&E or Kirkland like their parents do. But then there are some more lowkey academic types who came to UT because it was the best value school that they got into. And another group of people who grew up on the coasts and had never been to Texas before admitted students' day. All of these groups produce gunners in their own way, but they also have nice, sociable people.

There are certainly some hyper-competitive people, but I haven't experienced the WUSTL-like phenomenon of mega-gunners with chips on their shoulder because they didn't get into a higher ranked school. Most people bought into the "Best Place in the World to be a Law Student" recruiting pitch and seem happy to have gone to UT.

[Anonymous User]

Pretty much every UC Hastings grad I met was a gunner.

As a Hastings grad, I'm curious - what kind of gunner are we talking about here?

Work at a firm that hires median-ish T14 but tippy-top from Hastings. As a result, every Hastings grad I've worked with is a mega-gunner and the rest of my coworkers are hard-working, but low-key -- opposite of the Yale problem described above. For what its worth, I'm sure my T14s tippy-top gunners are asshats at W&C or wherever they ended up going.

I went to Hastings and this does not surprise me at all. I can think of a dozen or so classmates who were at the top of the class who were and still are gunners. I can only think of one who was a jerk in a gunner-y way (but he was a jerk in general) while the rest were just really hardworking, smart, and ambitious. But I've never worked with any of them so I can't say what that's like.