Summer Classes of 2022 Edition Forum

[Anonymous User]

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Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

CLS student here: Cleary's offer by honors (OBH) percentage hovers around 80-90% (excluding the P/F semester in 2020, when OBH numbers were wack for most firms and the number was 62%). I don't have the data for the Class of 2023 yet. OBH is not the best metric by any means, but CLS doesn't release GPA data so honors is what we end up relying on to make estimates.

I don't know how reliable the offer by honors percentage is because Cleary is free to make offers to honors students. The question is will those honor students accept Cleary's offer over CSM/S&C/DPW, and I think that's what the poster above was getting at.

[Anonymous User]

Re: returns on recruiting strategies, I don't think this is a question of maximizing profits as much as it's a mental shortcut for "are they smart/prestigious enough for our work/clients?" We all know YMMV for these things depending on firm/gpa/etc., but the point is that firms want a certain base level of intelligence and prestige, and it's really easy to say if you're above median at T6, the top X% at a T14, or even just if you're at a T14 you meet those thresholds. This is inherently arbitrary, so it's not worth debating why one firm picks one set of thresholds while another chooses something different. Beyond that I think much of recruiting is a question of "would I like to spend hours on a plane ride with them?"

One wrinkle. I think a bad recruit or two can sour a firm to a certain class of candidates. So for example, if there were two outlier Cornell students one year who interviewed well but had GPAs below their normal threshold that turned out to perform poorly, a firm may say meh let's just raise our GPA bar for GULC students so we don't get more bad apples. Not saying this is a rational or fair choice, but I do think it happens. By the same token, a good recruit can get a firm to start looking more seriously at a particular group (e.g., law review students from X school that's out of the T14).

Finally, don't forget that there's some selection bias here. HLS/CLS/NYU students may flood to Cleary because they see so many of their 2L peers heading there. This fuels a cycle where some firms can recruit harder during interviewing season. Other schools may have a different pipeline to different firms. There's also some culture-based selection here. I know lots of UVA law review types that shunned the V10 in favor of more lifestyle firms, which I suspect is less common from students from schools like HLS/CLS/NYU who may be (rightly or wrongly) more focused on prestige. Circling back to the previous point, if that happens too much then a firm may start to yield protect.

[Anonymous User]

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Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

CLS student here: Cleary's offer by honors (OBH) percentage hovers around 80-90% (excluding the P/F semester in 2020, when OBH numbers were wack for most firms and the number was 62%). I don't have the data for the Class of 2023 yet. OBH is not the best metric by any means, but CLS doesn't release GPA data so honors is what we end up relying on to make estimates.

I don't know how reliable the offer by honors percentage is because Cleary is free to make offers to honors students. The question is will those honor students accept Cleary's offer over CSM/S&C/DPW, and I think that's what the poster above was getting at.

Yeah plenty of people choose Cleary over the three firms, myself included. At least in my T6 Cleary has a niche as a Biglaw firm where the more academic-minded people go to (whether that's a good thing for the firm's profitability is a different question)

[Anonymous User]

Yeah plenty of people choose Cleary over the three firms, myself included. At least in my T6 Cleary has a niche as a Biglaw firm where the more academic-minded people go to (whether that's a good thing for the firm's profitability is a different question)

I agree; people choose Cleary over CSM, S&C, and DPW all the time.

I also agree that Cleary has a somewhat more academic/nerdy reputation, at least at my school (CLS/NYU). With that said, I find it interesting that Cleary doesn’t seem to pull very well from the T6 schools with the most academic/nerdiest profiles (Y, S, Chi).

[Anonymous User]

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Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

CLS student here: Cleary's offer by honors (OBH) percentage hovers around 80-90% (excluding the P/F semester in 2020, when OBH numbers were wack for most firms and the number was 62%). I don't have the data for the Class of 2023 yet. OBH is not the best metric by any means, but CLS doesn't release GPA data so honors is what we end up relying on to make estimates.

I don't know how reliable the offer by honors percentage is because Cleary is free to make offers to honors students. The question is will those honor students accept Cleary's offer over CSM/S&C/DPW, and I think that's what the poster above was getting at.

Is this the same anon or are DPW associates just riding along with the subtle troll?

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

[Anonymous User]

Yeah plenty of people choose Cleary over the three firms, myself included. At least in my T6 Cleary has a niche as a Biglaw firm where the more academic-minded people go to (whether that's a good thing for the firm's profitability is a different question)

I agree; people choose Cleary over CSM, S&C, and DPW all the time.

I also agree that Cleary has a somewhat more academic/nerdy reputation, at least at my school (CLS/NYU). With that said, I find it interesting that Cleary doesn’t seem to pull very well from the T6 schools with the most academic/nerdiest profiles (Y, S, Chi).

Does any NY firm pull well from the schools you listed? Y feeds into academia and clerkships. S is in California and Chi is, well, in Chicago. My guess is only median and below at these places turn to NYC firms as safeties. But I didn't go to any of these schools so this is obviously just my speculation.

[Anonymous User]

I don't know how reliable the offer by honors percentage is because Cleary is free to make offers to honors students. The question is will those honor students accept Cleary's offer over CSM/S&C/DPW, and I think that's what the poster above was getting at.

Is this the same anon or are DPW associates just riding along with the subtle troll?

Huh? What would be troll here?

Does any NY firm pull well from the schools you listed? Y feeds into academia and clerkships. S is in California and Chi is, well, in Chicago. My guess is only median and below at these places turn to NYC firms as safeties. But I didn't go to any of these schools so this is obviously just my speculation.

Yes, other NY firms pull well from those schools, *relative to Cleary.* (Even after you account for the larger class sizes.) DPW and S&C usually have >10 summers from YLS (though CSM not so much). The point is that ‘Cleary is for eggheaded intellectuals’ only goes so far when the students from the eggheadiest schools don’t tend to go there.

[Anonymous User]

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Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

CLS student here: Cleary's offer by honors (OBH) percentage hovers around 80-90% (excluding the P/F semester in 2020, when OBH numbers were wack for most firms and the number was 62%). I don't have the data for the Class of 2023 yet. OBH is not the best metric by any means, but CLS doesn't release GPA data so honors is what we end up relying on to make estimates.

I don't know how reliable the offer by honors percentage is because Cleary is free to make offers to honors students. The question is will those honor students accept Cleary's offer over CSM/S&C/DPW, and I think that's what the poster above was getting at.

Is this the same anon or are DPW associates just riding along with the subtle troll?

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

What about White & Case? Are they on the same level as Weil, Debevoise, Clearly, etc?

[Anonymous User]

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Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

CLS student here: Cleary's offer by honors (OBH) percentage hovers around 80-90% (excluding the P/F semester in 2020, when OBH numbers were wack for most firms and the number was 62%). I don't have the data for the Class of 2023 yet. OBH is not the best metric by any means, but CLS doesn't release GPA data so honors is what we end up relying on to make estimates.

I don't know how reliable the offer by honors percentage is because Cleary is free to make offers to honors students. The question is will those honor students accept Cleary's offer over CSM/S&C/DPW, and I think that's what the poster above was getting at.

Is this the same anon or are DPW associates just riding along with the subtle troll?

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

What about White & Case? Are they on the same level as Weil, Debevoise, Clearly, etc?

Going off of Chambers corporate band rankings, no.

[Anonymous User]

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Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

CLS student here: Cleary's offer by honors (OBH) percentage hovers around 80-90% (excluding the P/F semester in 2020, when OBH numbers were wack for most firms and the number was 62%). I don't have the data for the Class of 2023 yet. OBH is not the best metric by any means, but CLS doesn't release GPA data so honors is what we end up relying on to make estimates.

Honors at CLS means median…

Btw, this is not true.

1st year curve at CLS has median between B and B+ average, so let's say about 3.16 gpa.

The low honors at CLS (Stone) has a gpa cutoff at 3.41. So between B+ and A- average (but closer to B+). Some mental math gives Stone to about top third of the class.

I won't get into the math or detail for high honors (Kent) but it's basically more than half As and the rest A-. Top 15%.

2nd and 3rd year curve is a joke and if you don't get Stone at least one year you basically gave up or took the hardest classes for no reason.

[Anonymous User]

.
Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

CLS student here: Cleary's offer by honors (OBH) percentage hovers around 80-90% (excluding the P/F semester in 2020, when OBH numbers were wack for most firms and the number was 62%). I don't have the data for the Class of 2023 yet. OBH is not the best metric by any means, but CLS doesn't release GPA data so honors is what we end up relying on to make estimates.

Honors at CLS means median…

Btw, this is not true.

1st year curve at CLS has median between B and B+ average, so let's say about 3.16 gpa.

The low honors at CLS (Stone) has a gpa cutoff at 3.41. So between B+ and A- average (but closer to B+). Some mental math gives Stone to about top third of the class.

I won't get into the math or detail for high honors (Kent) but it's basically more than half As and the rest A-. Top 15%.

2nd and 3rd year curve is a joke and if you don't get Stone at least one year you basically gave up or took the hardest classes for no reason.

Nitpicking/continuing to go off topic but think this is worth clarifying: Kent is substantially less than 15% for 1L, no? Thought it was somewhere between 5-10%. Can't remember where I saw that but 15 students per 1L section getting Kent just intuitively seems high considering the guidance for an A is 6-11% per class. Would make sense for 2-3L though. Glad to be corrected if you know otherwise (+ definitely agree on Stone).

[Anonymous User]

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

Not sure about Cleary, but surprising to hear this about Debevoise because all of my friends describe it as a sweatshop.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

Not everyone did an easy major at an easy undergrad. T6 students tend to have gone to stronger quality undergrads and often have done substantive majors. Further, the LSAT is a standardized test. Of course the average kid at Chicago is smarter and harder working than the average kid at a t50, which isn’t to say that lower T1 schools are not strong reputable schools.

Biglaw hires accordingly, knowing there isn’t actually much daylight between median uChicago versus top quarter uChicago. It’s not like TLS gunners have a special knowledge that median anywhere = median everywhere and that median = shit even at Harvard. Some people are just obsessed with grades and demeaning those with worse grades, since they have nothing else in their life to feel good about.

Judges, WLRK, top lit shops, academia etc. may demand top grades from a top school, but ultimately they do that because they can and because they particularly value academic credentials, versus e.g. doing PE M&A at Kirkland — where K&E also cares about your academic chops, but to a lesser extent than Kellogg or Merrick Garland or whoever does

[Anonymous User]

Not everyone did an easy major at an easy undergrad. T6 students tend to have gone to stronger quality undergrads and often have done substantive majors. Further, the LSAT is a standardized test. Of course the average kid at Chicago is smarter and harder working than the average kid at a t50, which isn’t to say that lower T1 schools are not strong reputable schools.

Biglaw hires accordingly, knowing there isn’t actually much daylight between median uChicago versus top quarter uChicago. It’s not like TLS gunners have a special knowledge that median anywhere = median everywhere and that median = shit even at Harvard. Some people are just obsessed with grades and demeaning those with worse grades, since they have nothing else in their life to feel good about.

Judges, WLRK, top lit shops, academia etc. may demand top grades from a top school, but ultimately they do that because they can and because they particularly value academic credentials, versus e.g. doing PE M&A at Kirkland — where K&E also cares about your academic chops, but to a lesser extent than Kellogg or Merrick Garland or whoever does

There is a of course a fundamental different in being a Supreme Court clerk and doing PE deals at K&E. One really does require a very high level of raw intelligence, the other could be done by Pinky from Pinky and the Brain (though these days some of the K&E laterals make Pinky look like a sharp dude). This isn't a question of what you "value," its a question of having the minimum level of competence to do the job.

[Anonymous User]

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[Anonymous User]

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Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

Because all number driven schools admit people based on ugpa+lsat only and they don't mean shit. Is an ASU 4.0 dance major HLS student smarter than a 3.3 MIT physics major?

As an HLS grad, I confirm there most likely isn't anyone at HLS that majored in dance at a state university. Never seen anybody similar. Most people majored in econ, math, finance, government, philosophy, etc. Even if there is such an individual, to the extent such person had the right credentials to get admitted to HLS, we cannot know for sure that the MIT physics major is necessarily smarter either.

[Anonymous User]

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Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

CLS student here: Cleary's offer by honors (OBH) percentage hovers around 80-90% (excluding the P/F semester in 2020, when OBH numbers were wack for most firms and the number was 62%). I don't have the data for the Class of 2023 yet. OBH is not the best metric by any means, but CLS doesn't release GPA data so honors is what we end up relying on to make estimates.

Honors at CLS means median…

Btw, this is not true.

1st year curve at CLS has median between B and B+ average, so let's say about 3.16 gpa.

The low honors at CLS (Stone) has a gpa cutoff at 3.41. So between B+ and A- average (but closer to B+). Some mental math gives Stone to about top third of the class.

I won't get into the math or detail for high honors (Kent) but it's basically more than half As and the rest A-. Top 15%.

2nd and 3rd year curve is a joke and if you don't get Stone at least one year you basically gave up or took the hardest classes for no reason.

Nitpicking/continuing to go off topic but think this is worth clarifying: Kent is substantially less than 15% for 1L, no? Thought it was somewhere between 5-10%. Can't remember where I saw that but 15 students per 1L section getting Kent just intuitively seems high considering the guidance for an A is 6-11% per class. Would make sense for 2-3L though. Glad to be corrected if you know otherwise (+ definitely agree on Stone).

As someone who was not even close I have no idea.

Mathematically, it depends if the same group of people are the ones getting the As and A-s in each class. If they are, then I imagine it could be as high as top 13 to 15%. If some underachievers like me were stealing a couple As here and there then there are less As to go around so it could be lower like 5%? Not 100% sure on the math but the point is it's difficult and most of them go clerk or wachtell/boutique anyways

[Anonymous User]

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

Not sure about Cleary, but surprising to hear this about Debevoise because all of my friends describe it as a sweatshop.

I'm a Class of 2017. Really surprised that Cleary is now deemed a tier below firms like K&E and Latham by law students. Is it because of Vault? So ridiculous.

[Anonymous User]

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

Not sure about Cleary, but surprising to hear this about Debevoise because all of my friends describe it as a sweatshop.

I'm a Class of 2017. Really surprised that Cleary is now deemed a tier below firms like K&E and Latham by law students. Is it because of Vault? So ridiculous.

My perception for NY corporate (going off of Chambers and Vault rankings):

Wachtell >>> S&C, Cravath > Skadden, K&E, STB, DPW > PW, Cleary, Debevoise > Latham, Weil.

The only "true" divisions are Wachtell (and maybe S&C) from the rest. Arguing K&E or Cleary is like arguing UPenn or Northwestern. Somewhat arbitrary and ultimately meaningless.

[Anonymous User]

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

Not sure about Cleary, but surprising to hear this about Debevoise because all of my friends describe it as a sweatshop.

I'm a Class of 2017. Really surprised that Cleary is now deemed a tier below firms like K&E and Latham by law students. Is it because of Vault? So ridiculous.

My perception for NY corporate (going off of Chambers and Vault rankings):

Wachtell >>> S&C, Cravath > Skadden, K&E, STB, DPW, > PW, Cleary, Debevoise > Skadden, STB > K&E, Latham, Weil.

The only "true" divisions are Wachtell (and maybe S&C) from the rest. Arguing K&E or Cleary is like arguing UPenn or Northwestern. Somewhat arbitrary and ultimately meaningless.

This wrong. Fixed above.

[Anonymous User]

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

Not sure about Cleary, but surprising to hear this about Debevoise because all of my friends describe it as a sweatshop.

I'm a Class of 2017. Really surprised that Cleary is now deemed a tier below firms like K&E and Latham by law students. Is it because of Vault? So ridiculous.

My perception for NY corporate (going off of Chambers and Vault rankings):

Wachtell >>> S&C, Cravath > Skadden, K&E, STB, DPW, > PW, Cleary, Debevoise > Skadden, STB > K&E, Latham, Weil.

The only "true" divisions are Wachtell (and maybe S&C) from the rest. Arguing K&E or Cleary is like arguing UPenn or Northwestern. Somewhat arbitrary and ultimately meaningless.

This wrong. Fixed above.

mehhhh honestly not sure if there is a true difference between the Cleary and Skadden/STB levels. if anything I'd put PW with DPW and then have Cleary/Deb/Skadden/STB together

[Anonymous User]

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

Not sure about Cleary, but surprising to hear this about Debevoise because all of my friends describe it as a sweatshop.

I'm a Class of 2017. Really surprised that Cleary is now deemed a tier below firms like K&E and Latham by law students. Is it because of Vault? So ridiculous.

My perception for NY corporate (going off of Chambers and Vault rankings):

Wachtell >>> S&C, Cravath > Skadden, K&E, STB, DPW, > PW, Cleary, Debevoise > Skadden, STB > K&E, Latham, Weil.

The only "true" divisions are Wachtell (and maybe S&C) from the rest. Arguing K&E or Cleary is like arguing UPenn or Northwestern. Somewhat arbitrary and ultimately meaningless.

This wrong. Fixed above.

This is trolling if you think Skadden/K&E/STB are worse for corporate than boomer Cleary or Debevoise lmao. Original ranking was probably the most accurate, with DPW on par with Skadden/K&E/STB

[Anonymous User]

Crowell & Moring

DC

George Washington (2) 2Ls, (1) 1L
Georgetown (1) 2L (1) 1L
Virginia (1) 1L
American (1)
Stanford (1)
Howard(1)
Washington and Lee (1)
George Mason (1)

NY

Georgetown (1)
Cornell (1)

Los Angeles

Usc (1)
Ucla (1)
Loyola (1)

San Francisco

Mitchell Hamline (1)
Berkeley (1)
Ucla (1)

Orange County
UCI (2)
Ucla (1)

Chicago
Case Western (1)
Indiana (1)

[Anonymous User]

I would also question whether choosing CSM or S&C over Cleary really is the smarter play here. I know a handful of classmates who turned down offers from V10 (S&C, STB, DPW) for places like Cleary and Debevoise because they don't want to sweat harder for the same pay and marginally better exit ops (if any).

Not sure about Cleary, but surprising to hear this about Debevoise because all of my friends describe it as a sweatshop.

I'm a Class of 2017. Really surprised that Cleary is now deemed a tier below firms like K&E and Latham by law students. Is it because of Vault? So ridiculous.

My perception for NY corporate (going off of Chambers and Vault rankings):

Wachtell >>> S&C, Cravath > Skadden, K&E, STB, DPW, > PW, Cleary, Debevoise > Skadden, STB > K&E, Latham, Weil.

The only "true" divisions are Wachtell (and maybe S&C) from the rest. Arguing K&E or Cleary is like arguing UPenn or Northwestern. Somewhat arbitrary and ultimately meaningless.

This wrong. Fixed above.

This is trolling if you think Skadden/K&E/STB are worse for corporate than boomer Cleary or Debevoise lmao. Original ranking was probably the most accurate, with DPW on par with Skadden/K&E/STB

Skadden/STB I understand, but DAMN K&E really got the millennials brainwashed.

[Anonymous User]

.
Compared to firms who also heavily draw from their target schools they are. How many candidates do you think would pick Cleary over CSM/S&C/DPW. Top students go to wachtell/DC lit or clerk, good students go to a top ranked white shoe, and firms like cleary are left with a flock of median students at HLS/CLS/NYU who are indistinguishable from their T50 median peers.

Not sure where you are getting this low quality information from. Cleary mostly draws from above median even from CLS and NYU.

Why do you think HLS median students are indistinguishable from T50 median? Literally no biglaw firms agree with you. and given that Florida State or Indiana medians largely don’t really work in major market biglaw, what’s your frame of reference there?

Sounds like you’re overestimating the importance of grades and may be detached from reality. Raw intellectual horsepower + effort + common sense is what drives performance in my practice group. Sometimes top performers were CLS Kent or HLS magna, but most of the time they’re people who didn’t like law school as much as you probably did.

Another anon here. HLS median students are obviously distinguishable from T50 median. That being said, I can't comment anything about Cleary drawing above median folks from CLS and NYU. Do you have access to data?

Because all number driven schools admit people based on ugpa+lsat only and they don't mean shit. Is an ASU 4.0 dance major HLS student smarter than a 3.3 MIT physics major?

As an HLS grad, I confirm there most likely isn't anyone at HLS that majored in dance at a state university. Never seen anybody similar. Most people majored in econ, math, finance, government, philosophy, etc. Even if there is such an individual, to the extent such person had the right credentials to get admitted to HLS, we cannot know for sure that the MIT physics major is necessarily smarter either.

Wrong. I know at least one HLS grad who got a 4.0 in Fashion Merchandizing at a state school undergrad