Top Law Schools

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Vanderbilt, Texas, UCLA for general. Depends where you want to work. For NY, Fordham is pretty much the 15th best option for biglaw. For Cali, USC is a great option, Atlanta = Emory. Etc

SHANbangs wrote:Hey guys,

what are, in your opinion, the best schools outside of the T-14 for big law? I know the rankings do matter, but it seems some people believe a higher ranked school may not necessarily be more advantageous for big law pursuits.

Uh, I don't know anyone who thinks a non-T14 school may be better for BigLaw. SmallLaw in certain regions sure, but not BigLaw. Many current Big Law attorneys have come on here and confirmed that their firms only recruit from T14 and the very top of other schools (a position which no one can seriously bet they will end up). OCI results from various schools backs this up.

That's not to say that some regionals don't have a shot at Big Law...but they are not more advantageous then a T14.

blhoward2 wrote:

SHANbangs wrote:Hey guys,

what are, in your opinion, the best schools outside of the T-14 for big law? I know the rankings do matter, but it seems some people believe a higher ranked school may not necessarily be more advantageous for big law pursuits.

Uh, I don't know anyone who thinks a non-T14 school may be better for BigLaw. SmallLaw in certain regions sure, but not BigLaw. Many current Big Law attorneys have come on here and confirmed that their firms only recruit from T14 and the very top of other schools (a position which no one can seriously bet they will end up). OCI results from various schools backs this up.

That's not to say that some regionals don't have a shot at Big Law...but they are not more advantageous then a T14.

Hmmm...not exactly.

Vandy outplaced GULC and Cornell in the 09 NLJ 250. UT-Austin is widely regarded to be a better bet for the state biglaw than GULC Cornell and possibly others. Sometimes when you're not sure, that's fine; you can say as much. Just don't give out blatant misinformation masquerading as objective fact.

http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/law%20sc ... page12.pdf

Knock yourself out.

Not a perfect metric, as it doesn't consider prestigious clerkships, which can be harder to get than biglaw, but this is basically a rough estimate of placement power.

blhoward2 wrote: Uh, I don't know anyone who thinks a non-T14 school may be better for BigLaw. SmallLaw in certain regions sure, but not BigLaw. Many current Big Law attorneys have come on here and confirmed that their firms only recruit from T14 and the very top of other schools (a position which no one can seriously bet they will end up). OCI results from various schools backs this up.

That's not to say that some regionals don't have a shot at Big Law...but they are not more advantageous then a T14.

Don't think that's what he was asking.

To OP though- this should give you a good idea, probably the most comprehensive/recent resource out there.
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1

OP, you need to know where you want to practice first.

i.e.

Midwest = WashU, Notre Dame, U of Illinois, U of Wisconsin, U of Minnesota

Northeast = Fordham, BU, BC, Cardozo, Brooklyn, Villanova, Temple

West and Northwest = USC, UCLA, UCD, UCH, BYU, U of Washington

Southwest = U of Texas, SMU, U of Arizona

Southeast= Vanderbilt, Emory, U of Georgia

Atlantic coast= George Washington, William and Mary, Washington & Lee, Wake Forest, University of North Carolina

No order. However you should not choose a school based off of big law expectations unless you are looking at a school where it is guaranteed, such as HYS, against schools where it is not, such as everywhere else.

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rad law wrote:http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/law%20sc ... page12.pdf

Knock yourself out.

Not a perfect metric, as it doesn't consider prestigious clerkships, which can be harder to get than biglaw, but this is basically a rough estimate of placement power.

Yale is quite the Biglaw TTT

miamiman wrote:

blhoward2 wrote:

SHANbangs wrote:Hey guys,

what are, in your opinion, the best schools outside of the T-14 for big law? I know the rankings do matter, but it seems some people believe a higher ranked school may not necessarily be more advantageous for big law pursuits.

Uh, I don't know anyone who thinks a non-T14 school may be better for BigLaw. SmallLaw in certain regions sure, but not BigLaw. Many current Big Law attorneys have come on here and confirmed that their firms only recruit from T14 and the very top of other schools (a position which no one can seriously bet they will end up). OCI results from various schools backs this up.

That's not to say that some regionals don't have a shot at Big Law...but they are not more advantageous then a T14.

Hmmm...not exactly.

Vandy outplaced GULC and Cornell in the 09 NLJ 250. UT-Austin is widely regarded to be a better bet for the state biglaw than GULC Cornell and possibly others. Sometimes when you're not sure, that's fine; you can say as much. Just don't give out blatant misinformation masquerading as objective fact.

+1. Vandy is a T14-esque option for big law. Also RC fail by blhoward, since he clearly didn't understand the question.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:OP, you need to know where you want to practice first.

i.e.

Midwest = WashU, Notre Dame, U of Illinois, U of Wisconsin, U of Minnesota

Northeast = Fordham, BU, BC, Cardozo, Brooklyn, Villanova, Temple

West and Northwest = USC, UCLA, UCD, UCH, BYU, U of Washington

Southwest = U of Texas, SMU, U of Arizona

Southeast= Vanderbilt, Emory, U of Georgia

Atlantic coast= George Washington, William and Mary, Washington & Lee, Wake Forest, University of North Carolina

No order. However you should not choose a school based off of big law expectations unless you are looking at a school where it is guaranteed, such as HYS, against schools where it is not, such as everywhere else.

You're being way too lenient. A 20% shot at NLJ250 =/= a good shot at biglaw

SHANbangs wrote:Hey guys,

what are, in your opinion, the best schools outside of the T-14 for big law? I know the rankings do matter, but it seems some people believe a higher ranked school may not necessarily be more advantageous for big law pursuits.

I was referencing the bolded parts of the question...

miamiman wrote:

blhoward2 wrote:

SHANbangs wrote:Hey guys,

what are, in your opinion, the best schools outside of the T-14 for big law? I know the rankings do matter, but it seems some people believe a higher ranked school may not necessarily be more advantageous for big law pursuits.

Uh, I don't know anyone who thinks a non-T14 school may be better for BigLaw. SmallLaw in certain regions sure, but not BigLaw. Many current Big Law attorneys have come on here and confirmed that their firms only recruit from T14 and the very top of other schools (a position which no one can seriously bet they will end up). OCI results from various schools backs this up.

That's not to say that some regionals don't have a shot at Big Law...but they are not more advantageous then a T14.

Hmmm...not exactly.

Vandy outplaced GULC and Cornell in the 09 NLJ 250. UT-Austin is widely regarded to be a better bet for the state biglaw than GULC Cornell and possibly others. Sometimes when you're not sure, that's fine; you can say as much. Just don't give out blatant misinformation masquerading as objective fact.

TBF, GULC and Cornell may be in the T14 though they place like they aren't. I guess I always skip over them when I think of T14. Also, no need to be a douche.

Edit: Also, the markets GULC and Cornell typically placed in took a much bigger nosedive than Vandy. Does not mean their placement will always match '09.

blhoward2 wrote:TBF, GULC and Cornell may be in the T14 though they place like they aren't.

Lulz wut?

The only school that did better than them was Vanderbilt.

rad law wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:OP, you need to know where you want to practice first.

i.e.

Midwest = WashU, Notre Dame, U of Illinois, U of Wisconsin, U of Minnesota

Northeast = Fordham, BU, BC, Cardozo, Brooklyn, Villanova, Temple

West and Northwest = USC, UCLA, UCD, UCH, BYU, U of Washington

Southwest = U of Texas, SMU, U of Arizona

Southeast= Vanderbilt, Emory, U of Georgia

Atlantic coast= George Washington, William and Mary, Washington & Lee, Wake Forest, University of North Carolina

No order. However you should not choose a school based off of big law expectations unless you are looking at a school where it is guaranteed, such as HYS, against schools where it is not, such as everywhere else.

You're being way too lenient. A 20% shot at NLJ250 =/= a good shot at biglaw

True, but as I said, the OP should not choose a school based on big law unless he/she is comparing a big law feeder to a non-big law feeder. I thnk that is a problem on this site - people pretend like non-big law schools are great at placing in big law and they choose them over other schools for only that reason.

blhoward2 wrote: TBF, GULC and Cornell may be in the T14 though they place like they aren't. I guess I always skip over them when I think of T14. Also, no need to be a douche.

Yep. I'm all about T-12.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:

blhoward2 wrote:TBF, GULC and Cornell may be in the T14 though they place like they aren't.

Lulz wut?

The only school that did better than them was Vanderbilt.

rad law wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:OP, you need to know where you want to practice first.

i.e.

Midwest = WashU, Notre Dame, U of Illinois, U of Wisconsin, U of Minnesota

Northeast = Fordham, BU, BC, Cardozo, Brooklyn, Villanova, Temple

West and Northwest = USC, UCLA, UCD, UCH, BYU, U of Washington

Southwest = U of Texas, SMU, U of Arizona

Southeast= Vanderbilt, Emory, U of Georgia

Atlantic coast= George Washington, William and Mary, Washington & Lee, Wake Forest, University of North Carolina

No order. However you should not choose a school based off of big law expectations unless you are looking at a school where it is guaranteed, such as HYS, against schools where it is not, such as everywhere else.

You're being way too lenient. A 20% shot at NLJ250 =/= a good shot at biglaw

True, but as I said, the OP should not choose a school based on big law unless he/she is comparing a big law feeder to a non-big law feeder. I thnk that is a problem on this site - people pretend like non-big law schools are great at placing in big law and they choose them over other schools for only that reason.

I was kidding because Gtown/Cornell get beat up on here a good bit. Agreed on the second part.

The t-14 is really no longer a meaningful distinction: whether you are searching for placement opportunities in big law or clerkships, there is not a neat correlation between rank and opportunity. It's probably better to use the rankings as general proxy to determine large differences than individual performance. Not every school in the t-14 is a national school, at least they are not "national" in the respect that they place better (or have the ability to place better) in certain regions than strong regional schools. In fact, some non-t14's have a much larger geographic disbursement than several schools in the "t-14," and several lower ranked t-14's have wider geographic placement ability than those higher ranked. To determine who has the best placement, with a few exceptions, it's best to start with a region, reference placement statistics, then rankings. And even then, your information will lack utility unless you can derive the placement specifics--for example, the individual firms where students secured positions.

But to answer your question with less nuance: Vandy.

Rawlsian wrote:The t-14 is really no longer a meaningful distinction: whether you are searching for placement opportunities in big law or clerkships, there is not a neat correlation between rank and opportunity. It's probably better to use the rankings as general proxy to determine large differences than individual performance. Not every school in the t-14 is a national school, at least they are not "national" in the respect that they place better (or have the ability to place better) in certain regions than strong regional schools. In fact, some non-t14's have a much larger geographic disbursement than several schools in the "t-14," and several lower ranked t-14's have wider geographic placement ability than those higher ranked. To determine who has the best placement, with a few exceptions, it's best to start with a region, reference placement statistics, then rankings. And even then, your information will lack utility unless you can derive the placement specifics--for example, the individual firms where students secured positions.

But to answer your question with less nuance: Vandy.

I agree...but you also can't look at T14 schools as really being outpaced by certain regionals. When that's true, it's usually in a market T14 grads self-select away from. Did you hear the the Univ of North Dakota placed better than HYS? At least, it does in ND.

blhoward2 wrote:
TBF, GULC and Cornell may be in the T14 though they place like they aren't. I guess I always skip over them when I think of T14. Also, no need to be a douche.

Edit: Also, the markets GULC and Cornell typically placed in took a much bigger nosedive than Vandy. Does not mean their placement will always match '09.

Not quite right. Vandy's 2nd most popular market last year--the year for those placement statistics--was NYC, with DC a close second. Here's how it broke down:
-36 grads stayed in TN (about 15%)
-22 went to NY (about 10%, all NYC)
-20 went to DC (slightly less than 10%).

Though, you are right in a more subtle way: schools that are heavily dependent on one market seem to be much more vulnerable to market swings; thus schools with broad geographic disbursement--like Vandy or UM--do well in volatile times.

Rawlsian wrote:

blhoward2 wrote:
TBF, GULC and Cornell may be in the T14 though they place like they aren't. I guess I always skip over them when I think of T14. Also, no need to be a douche.

Edit: Also, the markets GULC and Cornell typically placed in took a much bigger nosedive than Vandy. Does not mean their placement will always match '09.

Not quite right. Vandy's 2nd most popular market last year--the year for those placement statistics--was NYC, with DC a close second. Here's how it broke down:
-36 grads stayed in TN (about 15%)
-22 went to NY (about 10%, all NYC)
-20 went to DC (slightly less than 10%).

Though, you are right in a more subtle way: schools like that heavily dependent on one market are much more vulnerable to market swings; thus schools with broad geographic disbursement like Vandy or UM are do well in volatile times.

Don't get me wrong, Vandy was on my shortlist and is a great school. But Vandy =/= most other T2-4 schools.

Edit: I wonder where everyone else went? If their biggest two markets only account for 25% of students, that screams they had to search elsewhere to find jobs. No way that many firms are interviewing at OCI representing that many different markets.

blhoward2 wrote:

Rawlsian wrote:The t-14 is really no longer a meaningful distinction: whether you are searching for placement opportunities in big law or clerkships, there is not a neat correlation between rank and opportunity. It's probably better to use the rankings as general proxy to determine large differences than individual performance. Not every school in the t-14 is a national school, at least they are not "national" in the respect that they place better (or have the ability to place better) in certain regions than strong regional schools. In fact, some non-t14's have a much larger geographic disbursement than several schools in the "t-14," and several lower ranked t-14's have wider geographic placement ability than those higher ranked. To determine who has the best placement, with a few exceptions, it's best to start with a region, reference placement statistics, then rankings. And even then, your information will lack utility unless you can derive the placement specifics--for example, the individual firms where students secured positions.

But to answer your question with less nuance: Vandy.

I agree...but you also can't look at T14 schools as really being outpaced by certain regionals. When that's true, it's usually in a market T14 grads self-select away from. Did you hear the the Univ of North Dakota placed better than HYS? At least, it does in ND.

Part of my point is that, at least how we are using the term, some t-14's operate like strong regionals. And the self-selection into the school's popular region, is often because the students have better options in the regions they choose.

edit: grammar

blhoward2 wrote:

Rawlsian wrote:

blhoward2 wrote:
TBF, GULC and Cornell may be in the T14 though they place like they aren't. I guess I always skip over them when I think of T14. Also, no need to be a douche.

Edit: Also, the markets GULC and Cornell typically placed in took a much bigger nosedive than Vandy. Does not mean their placement will always match '09.

Not quite right. Vandy's 2nd most popular market last year--the year for those placement statistics--was NYC, with DC a close second. Here's how it broke down:
-36 grads stayed in TN (about 15%)
-22 went to NY (about 10%, all NYC)
-20 went to DC (slightly less than 10%).

Though, you are right in a more subtle way: schools like that heavily dependent on one market are much more vulnerable to market swings; thus schools with broad geographic disbursement like Vandy or UM are do well in volatile times.

Don't get me wrong, Vandy was on my shortlist and is a great school. But Vandy =/= most other T2-4 schools.

Yea, I agree. All of the t-14 are excellent schools. I'm just saying "t-14" doesn't mean as much as it used to; and when trying to determine opportunities for clerkships and big law, it's best to investigate the area where one wants to practice first.

Vandy is a good school, but I want to inject some skepticism ITT.

In the NLJ 2007 and 2008 rankings it was behind all other T14s and USC. In 2008 it was also behind BC.

The main point is that VULS actually made a slight % gain (possibly due to the top of the class choosing biglaw over clerking? wild speculation) and kept its position from the boom. No other school was able to make gains, and almost all others fell. GULC dropped from high 40s to low 40s and Cornell from low 60s to low 40s.

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2428438260

The real question is how this will shake out in the future, as the market continues to change. I'm not sure anybody can answer that reliably.

NayBoer wrote:Vandy is a good school, but I want to inject some skepticism ITT.

In the NLJ 2007 and 2008 rankings it was behind all other T14s and USC. In 2008 it was also behind BC.

The main point is that VULS actually made a slight % gain (possibly due to the top of the class choosing biglaw over clerking? wild speculation) and kept its position from the boom. No other school was able to make gains, and almost all others fell. GULC dropped from high 40s to low 40s and Cornell from low 60s to low 40s.

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2428438260

The real question is how this will shake out in the future, as the market continues to change. I'm not sure anybody can answer that reliably.

A good point. But keep in mind that their placement in clerkships has been enjoying parallel success. And Vandy is now outplacing several t-14's in art. III clerkships. Vandy is improving, and not just in placement statistics. Here are Vandy's recent class medians:

2010: 167, 3.74
2011: 168, 3.72
2012: 168, 3.71

I believe the median this year will move to 169. Granted, the median at several t14's will probably increase as well, but Vandy's student quality (understood by the numbers) is competitive with the lower t-14s; add a smaller class than most, and broad geographic placement, and I believe these placement trends will continue.

/end of my Vandy trolling

Rawlsian wrote:

NayBoer wrote:Vandy is a good school, but I want to inject some skepticism ITT.

In the NLJ 2007 and 2008 rankings it was behind all other T14s and USC. In 2008 it was also behind BC.

The main point is that VULS actually made a slight % gain (possibly due to the top of the class choosing biglaw over clerking? wild speculation) and kept its position from the boom. No other school was able to make gains, and almost all others fell. GULC dropped from high 40s to low 40s and Cornell from low 60s to low 40s.

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... hbxlogin=1
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2428438260

The real question is how this will shake out in the future, as the market continues to change. I'm not sure anybody can answer that reliably.

A good point. But keep in mind that placement in clerkships has been enjoying parallel success, and Vandy is now outplacing several t-14's in art. III clerkships as well. Vandy is improving, and not just in placement statistics. Here are Vandy's recent classes' medians:

2010: 167, 3.74
2011: 168, 3.72
2012: 168, 3.71

I believe the median this year will move to 169. Granted, the median at several t14's will probably increase as well, but Vandy's student quality (understood by the numbers) is competitive with the lower t-14s; add a smaller class than most, and broad geographic placement, and I believe these placement trends will continue.

/end of my Vandy trolling

If Vandy sold out and took splitters, they could hit 170.