Where did the smartest people from your law school go? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Not necessarily people with the highest grades or the longest resume, but where did the people you thought were smartest go?

[Anonymous User]

Smartest people from my mid-T14 always seemed to go to DPW but also Cov DC, Cleary, Hogan

[Anonymous User]

Covington DC at my T-6

[Anonymous User]

IDK about "smartest" but at my T6, I think the most "commercial" / polished grinders gravitate to S&C and CSM, whereas DPW and Cleary both attract a more intellectual set of people. Thinking mainly of the NY market. Just based on notable alums listed in wikipedia articles, DPW and CSM each have a beefy "academia" section while S&C is a little lighter on that front. (Yes, I realize the flaws of that analysis, it's just directional.)

I'm guessing the real answer is WLRK or some uber-selective lit boutique though.

[Anonymous User]

The smartest people from my T4 didn’t/don’t seem to go the firms you’d think. It seems they pick based on fit and long term goals.

[Anonymous User]

My perspective at CLS:

It's very varied. Typical firms you would expect - Wachtell, Williams and Connolly, Susman, Munger.

Of the large NY corporate firms - DPW is overrepresented.

Politically orientated people split and do their own thing - Gibson Dunn, Jones Day, Jenner, some boutiques.

[Anonymous User]

They are clerking.

[Anonymous User]

I'm at Harvard. Honestly, they've either gone to the elite litigation boutiques or out of law altogether and into consulting (MBB) or banking (Goldman, PJT, Evercore, etc).

[Anonymous User]

From a T6: Almost all do a mix of clerking then lit boutiques/Dc firms or NY biglaw top firms (WLRK, CSM, S&C, DPW, Cleary seem to take higher share of law review/very bright legal minds).

[Anonymous User]

At my HYS, 99% of the students you'd guess are top 10-20% first clerk for Circuit judges. Then they scatter. Some go into the government in various positions, some clerk again, some get academic fellowships, and the ones on the law firm route typically go to WLRK, S&C, Covington DC, W&C, or one of the super selective boutiques like Susman, Wilkinson, Kellogg, Irell, etc. It does seem like most of the top students head to DC rather than NYC though.

[Anonymous User]

They quit their V5 firms after two years to learn coding.

[Anonymous User]

They are clerking.

TCR

Northwestern - seemed best and brightest did courts of appeals clerkships and went to firms like Williams & Connolly/Cravath/Wachtell. With that said, tons of super smart JD-MBAs end up working at funds or other business roles, and also lots of people go to Kirkland/Sidley because they want to stay in Chicago.

[Anonymous User]

UChicago. Virtually all clerk. By volume, GDC (mostly DC and CA, some NY, CO, TX) and Kirkland (mostly Chicago, plus some DC) probably have the most. A good number end up at the usual suspects--Munger, W&C, Susman, WLRK, all of the good D.C. firms. A few become big-city PDs, which is seemingly our biggest PI avenue. A few gun for academia. A few go to practice in secondary or tertiary markets. In terms of city, DC > Chicago/Cali > NYC. Not many go to non-WLRK NY V10 biglaw of some sort.

[Anonymous User]

Smartest people at T10 went government, or another similar job that promises an upper-middle class lifestyle without toxic stress

[Anonymous User]

HLS (couple years ago): almost all clerk COA and summer in DC. After the clerkships, some to govt, some to PI, most back to elite firms (most in DC but more diffuse than for the summer).

Within DC firms, the firms are more varied than you would think. Since so many folks are into appellate and Supreme Court, there’s a real concentration of Sears level people at places with great appellate practices: Gibson, Wilmer, Kirkland, Paul Weiss, Latham, Sidley etc. More politically inclined people with excellent grades also end up at Jones Day, Jenner. A lot at boutiques too, especially Kellogg, Susman.

Williams and Connolly and Covington get some good people, but frankly Covington hires a lot of like 6H *fine* but hardly brilliant people because of class size. In my year, one of the like half dozen W&C people had below median grades and the others were like around the magna line but nowhere near Sears/Fay. I think this is really just due to the weakness of the appellate practices; people with those offers also have Gibson/Wilmer/Kirkland and just go there for appellate prestige/work. I know someone who picked Sidley over both Connolly and Covington and that was fairly uniformly celebrated as the right choice because of the appellate practice and scotus clerks at Sidley.

[Anonymous User]

Repping the non-T14s here. From my T25, the smartest people went to CSM, DPW, S&C, Skadden, and Latham. Several are doing COA clerkships (including a few who are working for 1-2 years at the aforementioned firms and then clerking, or doing D. Ct followed by COA).

[Wild Card]

No one at my law school struck me as particularly smart, but the folks with high grades who were nice (or at least weren't nasty) went on to clerk (COA) and/or work at biglaw firms: WLRK, Cravath, e.g.

I'm also thinking of decent people with high grades who ended up at DPW, SullCrom, Cleary.

"Smart" is hard to define, because you could include common sense and cleverness: being well-socialized (knowing how to act upper middle class) and knowing how to answer behavioral and substantive law questions on the fly. In which case, COA clerkship, Wachtell, Cravath, and elite litigation boutique are good measures.

[Anonymous User]

The pathways that people have already brought up (CoA, DC firms, etc.) are litigation focused, which makes sense. Not because lit-focused people are smarter, but because I think the field stratifies more at the top end between merely elite outcomes vs. super elite outcomes. I'm not sure there's anything comparable on the corporate side, apart from maybe WLRK.

[target_corp]

Patent law.

[Anonymous User]

At Columbia, we get people going a lot of different places. A lot of people go to the traditional NY powerhouses (CSM, S&C, DPW). Some go to DC (Gibson and Covington come to mind). I think we have less that go clerk right away. This could be partially due to self-selection, as people come to CLS for NY Biglaw. I can't say I have heard of too many people doing public interest or fellowships, but I am not tuned into those crowds. Hell, one of the smartest people I know at CLS may be on their way to a strike out. Shows you how intelligence doesn't always shine through in grades or 20 minute interviews. These are just a few of my observations, I may totally be wrong.

[Anonymous User]

COA and/or elite district court (SDNY/EDNY/DDC/NDCA/CDCA/NDIL)

[Anonymous User]

Many of the smartest people at my T14 law school tended to end up at really strong firms in regional markets (CO, MI, WA, TN) or in DC. Also COA clerkships or 'sexy' PI jobs.

[Anonymous User]

I went to a HYS. During their summers the smartest kids in my grade went to the usual biglaw firms (WLRK, W&C, MTO, CSM, S&C, Susman, Kellogg...), and clerked for name-brand COA judges. After, they split up into two groups. One group (mostly very-smart-but-not-quite-tippy-top students) went back to their summer biglaw firm or transferred to another biglaw firm with a similar reputation. The other (mostly SCOTUS / big-time-feeder clerks) went to "less prestigious" biglaw firms with leading appellate teams and a reputation for good work-life balance (Jones Day, Orrick, O'Melveny...). Maybe the second group thinks they've proven themselves enough already - or maybe they're so burnt out from gunning they couldn't hack it at a WLRK anymore.

[Anonymous User]

Smartest? Wlrk.

[NoLongerALurker]

HYS.

The three/four smartest (including the one who was I think easily the smartest): consulting
The rest seemed to be mostly clerking (then lit boutiques).

A few years out, interestingly, a lot of the "Whoa they're really smart but went into biglaw" types seemed to have left biglaw for greener pastures, but more interestingly a lot of the "Oh, they *think* they're really smart but they're kind of annoying" types who refused to do biglaw ultimately found themselves in biglaw haha.

(Me: Complete ride-the-median unexceptional biglaw corporate tool who wishes he was as smart as the ones who went into consulting)