Inside: New York V100 statistics by law school Forum

[Foozle]

Without going into too much detail, I’m doing an economics project right now as part of a required undergraduate course. I chose a topic that relates to law school ranking and placement.

I thought I’d share some of my data in the hope that it would be useful for some TLSers.

This information is the amount of associates from the Class of 2007 and 2008 at V100 firm offices in New York City, categorized by law school.

Methodology:

I used the newest version of the Vault 100, located here. For those of you who don’t know, Vault is a “high powered career” job hunting company. The V100 attempts to rank law firms by prestige, and is often cited on TLS. V100 firms can be considered biglaw, though they're not the only biglaw firms.

I was curious about which law schools V100 firms hired their associates from. What I did was access their websites, and click through the attorney bios (probably 20,000 of them). I looked for associates who graduated with JDs in 2007 and 2008. I chose these two years in order to have a sample large enough to get a wide variety of schools, but yet recent enough for these to be the first firm jobs for graduates, so their only qualifications are which school they attended. About 80 out of the 100 firms met the following criteria: an office in New York and detailed bio information with the institution and year of graduation.

I then compared each school’s number of V100 hires in 2007 and 2008 with the estimated combined size of the two classes. I used the LSAC official guide to get the graduating class size. The 2010 guide, for which the data was gathered in Fall 2008 has the number of JDs awarded in 2007, but I don’t have the data for 2008, so I just doubled it to get the estimated size. I then divided the total number of V100 hires by the combined total of graduates in those years to get a percentage from each school that went on to work for a V100.

Note that this data is only for the New York City offices of the firms.

The Data:
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Schools in NYC, plus Cornell and Hofstra (right outside of NYC), are in bold. Overall I found ~2135 associates who graduated in 2007 or 2008 with a JD.

Conclusions, Tidbits, etc: Fordham is a BEAST (or at least it was in 2007 and 2008). Fordham's data compares favorably with Columbia, NYU, and Cornell. However, in addition to the fact that some of these hires were before the last few rounds of layoffs/hiring freezes, you have to note that Fordham grads overwhemingly stay in New York. In comparison, for example, 65% of NYU grads stay. As a top-30 school and the highest ranked non-T14 in the market, Fordham placed very well in NYC, as it should.

Cardozo and Brooklyn law also placed very well, which will no doubt surprise some people. It surprised me, because I didn't really know anything about them. Perhaps the biggest surprises are St. Johns, Hofstra, and New York Law School (not to be confused with NYU). I did, however, notice that many of the V100 associates from these schools were members of law review or other journals. (Which isn't a surprise)

Aside from those coming from Columbia, NYU, Cornell, and Penn, the number of T14 grads working in V100 firms in New York are relatively low. However, much of this can be attributed to self-selection, as it could be reasonably assumed that they're either not working or firms or working in a different market. In addition, it is likely that some T14 grads have access to options that could be better, such as clerkships.

Overall, none of the data (aside from maybe Brooklyn and Cardozo) is really that surprising. Just thought I'd share. I might have committed some errors, either in the data gathering itself or the calculations.

Please post feedback, thoughts, etc (a simple 'thank you' or 'you're an idiot' is fine). I'm gonna continue to work on this, and eventually include all V100 firm offices.

PS: Can anybody point me to the 2009 USNWR rankings? (not the current one)

[LjakW]

Nice work; thanks.

[Jay-Electronica]

Noice!!!!

[Blindmelon]

BU basically tied with Georgetown and better than BC/UVA/Vand? I'll take that, self selection aside, hah.

[edcrane]

Just so I'm clear, how did you account for clerkships?

[Blindmelon]

Just so I'm clear, how did you account for clerkships?

Ah, and someone finally pointed out the giant elephant in the room.

[jrobby6]

Great Post! Thanks.

[Foozle]

Just so I'm clear, how did you account for clerkships?

I didn't. That was something that I was going to point out in the conclusions section, that you couldn't extrapolate that certain T30s were as good as T14s because T14s might have even better/more options than a biglaw job.

Thanks for reminding me since I left that out.

[edcrane]

Just so I'm clear, how did you account for clerkships?

I didn't. That was something that I was going to point out in the conclusions section, that you couldn't extrapolate that certain T30s were as good as T14s because T14s might have even better/more options than a biglaw job.

Thanks for reminding me since I left that out.

Seems like a pretty significant, though not necessarily fatal, omission. For purposes of comparison, consider the 2006 lawfirmaddict post: http://lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com/

4 Columbia 80.2%
3 Harvard 74.1%
6 Chicago 71.4%
1 Yale 68.8%
2 Stanford 65.9%
4 NYU 61.2%
11 Duke 55.8%
12 Northwestern 53.1%
7 Penn 49.4%
13 Cornell 43.0%
8 Virginia 41.4%
8 Michigan 41.3%
14 Georgetown 34.4%
16 Texas 28.7%
8 Boalt 27.7%
15 UCLA 19.9%
27 Illinois 19.1%
17 Vanderbilt 19.0%
17 USC 18.4%
22 Notre Dame 18.3%
32 Fordham 15.3%

Notice, for example, how Notre Dame, which is known for placing a ton of clerks, does slightly better than Fordham here. Whereas in your study, it does vastly, vastly worse than Fordham.

[Foozle]

Just so I'm clear, how did you account for clerkships?

I didn't. That was something that I was going to point out in the conclusions section, that you couldn't extrapolate that certain T30s were as good as T14s because T14s might have even better/more options than a biglaw job.

Thanks for reminding me since I left that out.

Seems like a pretty significant, though not necessarily fatal, omission. For purposes of comparison, consider the 2006 lawfirmaddict post: http://lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com/

4 Columbia 80.2%
3 Harvard 74.1%
6 Chicago 71.4%
1 Yale 68.8%
2 Stanford 65.9%
4 NYU 61.2%
11 Duke 55.8%
12 Northwestern 53.1%
7 Penn 49.4%
13 Cornell 43.0%
8 Virginia 41.4%
8 Michigan 41.3%
14 Georgetown 34.4%
16 Texas 28.7%
8 Boalt 27.7%
15 UCLA 19.9%
27 Illinois 19.1%
17 Vanderbilt 19.0%
17 USC 18.4%
22 Notre Dame 18.3%
32 Fordham 15.3%

Notice, for example, how Notre Dame, which is known for placing a ton of clerks, does slightly better than Fordham here. Whereas in your study, it does vastly, vastly worse than Fordham.

Part of the reason Notre Dame does "vastly, vastly worse" than Fordham is because, as I pointed out, these are only statistics for New York Vault 100 offices.

[adamlippes]

...

[edcrane]

Part of the reason Notre Dame does "vastly, vastly worse" than Fordham is because, as I pointed out, these are only statistics for New York Vault 100 offices.

Reading comprehension fail on my part.

That said, now that I actually have read the title of this post, this is pretty useless for the top 14 or so schools. It does, however, provide a decent means of comparing the regional schools in NY.

[edgarderby]

Notice, for example, how Notre Dame, which is known for placing a ton of clerks, does slightly better than Fordham here. Whereas in your study, it does vastly, vastly worse than Fordham.

Not that we have a choice anymore ITE, but I don't know a single person here that wanted NYC to begin with. One guy with great grades from NYC here didn't even plan on applying there before the recession. I think a lot of people that come here are really focused on whatever region they come from, which varies greatly.

Why not just do research on websites of all vault firms for associates hired within the last 5 years? That'd be a lot more interesting. Actually, I'd rather see one that uses chambers rankings, since it seems like the highly touted firms aren't usually the ones that are the largest.

[04102014]

Very informative post. Thanks!

[canceled02062010]

Notice, for example, how Notre Dame, which is known for placing a ton of clerks, does slightly better than Fordham here. Whereas in your study, it does vastly, vastly worse than Fordham.

Not that we have a choice anymore ITE, but I don't know a single person here that wanted NYC to begin with. One guy with great grades from NYC here didn't even plan on applying there before the recession. I think a lot of people that come here are really focused on whatever region they come from, which varies greatly.

Why not just do research on websites of all vault firms for associates hired within the last 5 years? That'd be a lot more interesting. Actually, I'd rather see one that uses chambers rankings, since it seems like the highly touted firms aren't usually the ones that are the largest.

Are you really criticizing his research because it doesn't benefit your particular needs?

Why don't you do your own research bra?

NICE JOB OP.

[edcrane]

Notice, for example, how Notre Dame, which is known for placing a ton of clerks, does slightly better than Fordham here. Whereas in your study, it does vastly, vastly worse than Fordham.

Not that we have a choice anymore ITE, but I don't know a single person here that wanted NYC to begin with. One guy with great grades from NYC here didn't even plan on applying there before the recession. I think a lot of people that come here are really focused on whatever region they come from, which varies greatly.

Fair point. I just misread the OP and failed to notice the tabulation was limited to NYC offices. Obviously this is only meaningful for regional schools in NY.

[adamlippes]

FWIW, OCS gives us a binder at NYU, telling us where 2Ls ended up for their summer. For 2008, roughly 46% of the class ended up at a V20. That's pretty fuckin' good.

[edgarderby]

Are you really criticizing his research because it doesn't benefit your particular needs?

The utility gained vs. the cost of expanding the scope of such a study would seem to be more efficient. So, sort of, since I already attend law school and it doesn't benefit my needs whatsoever, other than curiosity.

Why don't you do your own research bra?

I already attend law school and it doesn't benefit my needs whatsoever, other than curiosity.

[adamlippes]

edgar, vault doesn't measure firm size; it measures "prestige" (no matter how elusive the term is). Chambers is good for individual departments (so we know, for instance, that Paul Weiss is just as good as some V5s if litigation is your goal). However, overall, Chambers tends to correspond with Vault.

Additionally, Chambers would include firms that probably don't make a significant difference in determining strength of biglaw placement. For example, I don't think it's hugely beneficial to know, for the purpose of statistics, how many students placed in Bartlit Beck, Susman Godfrey, Ivins Phillips, Keker, etc.

[Foozle]

Notice, for example, how Notre Dame, which is known for placing a ton of clerks, does slightly better than Fordham here. Whereas in your study, it does vastly, vastly worse than Fordham.

Not that we have a choice anymore ITE, but I don't know a single person here that wanted NYC to begin with. One guy with great grades from NYC here didn't even plan on applying there before the recession. I think a lot of people that come here are really focused on whatever region they come from, which varies greatly.

Why not just do research on websites of all vault firms for associates hired within the last 5 years? That'd be a lot more interesting. Actually, I'd rather see one that uses chambers rankings, since it seems like the highly touted firms aren't usually the ones that are the largest.

Yeah, like I noted, I'm expanding it. I just decided to hurry up and post the info just for NYC. Eventually it'll be all V100 offices around the country that meet the criteria. It's gonna be 2007-2008 instead of the last five years because I want data for associates who are at their first job after graduation. In this way, I hope to control for lateral movement.

Gathering the data is really, really boring.

[adamlippes]

Notice, for example, how Notre Dame, which is known for placing a ton of clerks, does slightly better than Fordham here. Whereas in your study, it does vastly, vastly worse than Fordham.

Not that we have a choice anymore ITE, but I don't know a single person here that wanted NYC to begin with. One guy with great grades from NYC here didn't even plan on applying there before the recession. I think a lot of people that come here are really focused on whatever region they come from, which varies greatly.

Why not just do research on websites of all vault firms for associates hired within the last 5 years? That'd be a lot more interesting. Actually, I'd rather see one that uses chambers rankings, since it seems like the highly touted firms aren't usually the ones that are the largest.

Yeah, like I noted, I'm expanding it. I just decided to hurry up and post the info just for NYC. Eventually it'll be all V100 offices around the country that meet the criteria. It's gonna be 2007-2008 instead of the last five years because I want data for associates who are at their first job after graduation. In this way, I hope to control for lateral movement.

Gathering the data is really, really boring.

I'm curious: How did you gather for Cravath? They don't include graduation years in their attorney bios.

[Foozle]

Notice, for example, how Notre Dame, which is known for placing a ton of clerks, does slightly better than Fordham here. Whereas in your study, it does vastly, vastly worse than Fordham.

Not that we have a choice anymore ITE, but I don't know a single person here that wanted NYC to begin with. One guy with great grades from NYC here didn't even plan on applying there before the recession. I think a lot of people that come here are really focused on whatever region they come from, which varies greatly.

Why not just do research on websites of all vault firms for associates hired within the last 5 years? That'd be a lot more interesting. Actually, I'd rather see one that uses chambers rankings, since it seems like the highly touted firms aren't usually the ones that are the largest.

Yeah, like I noted, I'm expanding it. I just decided to hurry up and post the info just for NYC. Eventually it'll be all V100 offices around the country that meet the criteria. It's gonna be 2007-2008 instead of the last five years because I want data for associates who are at their first job after graduation. In this way, I hope to control for lateral movement.

Gathering the data is really, really boring.

I'm curious: How did you gather for Cravath? They don't include graduation years in their attorney bios.

One of the 20 firms that I don't have any data from. I wasn't happy with Cravath.

Most just didn't have an NYC office, which means they'll be included when I look at other markets. Some, however (5 or 6), don't have graduation years.

[irie]

actually the NLJ does this study based on the NLJ250 law firms, it is the 2008 Law School Hiring survey and available on http://www.almresearchonline.com for $200 or something like that. my law firm has a premium membership so all the reports are free... i went ahead and downloaded it. probably not something I can legally share cuz its owned and copyrighted by Incisive Intelligence LLC, but if your firm has a subscription you should go take a look. it's pretty comprehensive, covers all associate hirings by NLJ250 firms from most US Law Schools, and rate of promotion to partner, etc.

edit: it costs $250 without membership

[Foozle]

actually the NLJ does this study based on the NLJ250 law firms, it is the 2008 Law School Hiring survey and available on http://www.almresearchonline.com for $200 or something like that. my law firm has a premium membership so all the reports are free... i went ahead and downloaded it. probably not something I can legally share cuz its owned and copyrighted by Incisive Intelligence LLC, but if your firm has a subscription you should go take a look. it's pretty comprehensive, covers all associate hirings by NLJ250 firms from most US Law Schools, and rate of promotion to partner, etc.

edit: it costs $250 without membership

Wish I had access to that, haha.

[OperaSoprano]

Conclusions, Tidbits, etc: Fordham is a BEAST (or at least it was in 2007 and 2008). Fordham's data compares favorably with Columbia, NYU, and Cornell.

Excellent work, sir. Excellent work.