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is there consensus on which one is more reliable, or are they equally useless?

Fish = #1 in Vault for IP; Fish = Band 2 in Chambers for IP.

What gives?

US News just ranked Fish tier 1 nationally in IP for what it's worth. So I don't know if you were looking at fish specifically or just the whole thing more generally. I'd guess that the average of these three sources will tend to be more reliable than any one of them individually.
http://bestlawfirms.usnews.com/firmprof ... m_id=15877
Are you trying to decide between IP offers at this point?

Anonymous User wrote:is there consensus on which one is more reliable, or are they equally useless?

Fish = #1 in Vault for IP; Fish = Band 2 in Chambers for IP.

What gives?

The vault rankings are associate prestige rankings. That means they are (1) from an associate's perspective, and (2) based only on prestige.

The chambers rankings are peer review bands based on interviews of senior practitioners and clients. That means they are (1) from a more senior practitioner/client perspective, and (2) based on multiple factors including but not limited to prestige.

The two often are similar, but not always. For instance, some firms have a very strong partnership but are not particularly selective regarding associates, and vice versa. For example you'll notice that skadden is on almost every vault practice area ranking because skadden is just a generally prestigious/selective place. But they're not ranked as highly across the board in chambers, because some practice areas aren't particularly notable.

In general, I would use vault as a proxy for junior/midlevel exit options, whereas I think chambers is more representative of the overall prestige of the practice group and the caliber of cases you will be getting. Again, often the same, but not always.

rcb5142 wrote:US News just ranked Fish tier 1 nationally in IP for what it's worth. So I don't know if you were looking at fish specifically or just the whole thing more generally. I'd guess that the average of these three sources will tend to be more reliable than any one of them individually.
http://bestlawfirms.usnews.com/firmprof ... m_id=15877
Are you trying to decide between IP offers at this point?

Except that only puts them in the top 25% along with Finnegan and 22 other ranked firms.

rcb5142 wrote:US News just ranked Fish tier 1 nationally in IP for what it's worth. So I don't know if you were looking at fish specifically or just the whole thing more generally. I'd guess that the average of these three sources will tend to be more reliable than any one of them individually.
http://bestlawfirms.usnews.com/firmprof ... m_id=15877
Are you trying to decide between IP offers at this point?

OP here, no way - I wish - I have zero offers to date; tons of callbacks though, hopefully one of them will turn into ACCEPTANCE

digitalcntrl wrote:

rcb5142 wrote:US News just ranked Fish tier 1 nationally in IP for what it's worth. So I don't know if you were looking at fish specifically or just the whole thing more generally. I'd guess that the average of these three sources will tend to be more reliable than any one of them individually.
http://bestlawfirms.usnews.com/firmprof ... m_id=15877
Are you trying to decide between IP offers at this point?

Except that only puts them in the top 25% along with Finnegan and 22 other ranked firms.

True, but I think that is kind of a virtue of the USN and Chambers rankings (although I admit I haven't read the USN methodology yet). Vault I think makes many meaningless distinctions among the top firms by creating a strict hierarchy rather than the "band" or "tier" structure. Generally, I tend to agree with chuckbass above. I'm sure you'll be fine OP with tons of CBs.

It doesn't matter. The rankings are only useful insofar as the other information they have about the firms or simply identifying firms that you might not know about in different areas... i.e. at the front end of the process, when you're choosing what firms to bid on and prepping for interviews. Once you're choosing between offers, you need much deeper information.