Top Law Schools

Here's a list of big law + fed + state clerkships. I jus found out peeps don't add state clerkships into their consideration, so perhaps this is totally worthless.

Columbia is best, followed by Duke, then NYU, then Northwestern, then GULC (like golf, the lower the score, the better)


1.) Georgetown
a. 2013 – 41.4 + 8.8 = 50.2 (5)
b. 2012 – 39.1 + 6.9 = 46 (5)
c. 2011 – 33.8 + 7.9 = 41.7 (5) = 15
2.) Northwestern
a. 2013 – 55.6 + 8.1 = 63.7 (4)
b. 2012 – 49.2 + 8.1 = 57.3 (4)
c. 2011 – 53.3 + 9 = 62.3 (2) = 10
3.) NYU
a. 2013 – 58.2 + 11.4 = 69.6 (2)
b. 2012 – 59.5 + 7.7 = 67.2 (3)
c. 2011 – 43.2 + 13.5 = 56.7 (4) = 9
4.) Columbia
a. 2013 – 73.2 + 5.9 = 79.1 (1)
b. 2012 – 64.1 + 9 = 73.1 (1)
c. 2011 – 61.5 + 9.4 = 70.9 (1) = 3
5.) Duke
a. 2013 – 51.4 + 15.3 = 66.7 (3)
b. 2012 – 51 + 19.6 = 70.6 (2)
c. 2011 – 45 + 15 = 60 (3) = 8

Yeah no one really cares about States.

The problem is that most, but not all, state clerkships are useless as a measure of desirable outcomes, both because they're easy to get and because they don't necessarily lead to good jobs. There are some states where a clerkship is the route to biglaw, but by and large, that's the exception and not the rule

I've seen state clerkships be a solid route to state government jobs, but not enough to espouse a trend.

I think state clerkships can be a perfectly good outcome (and not always easy to get), but I really doubt adding them to the stats changes anyone's picture of which schools are desirable and why.