Top Law Schools

Had a few questions about this: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/composite.pdf

1. Anybody know who published this?

2. Anybody know where they got their data from?

3. Anybody know what graduating class this represents? I'm assuming it is some year between 2005 and 2009 (for the top schools it has higher NLJ250 than the 2005 NLJ Go-To and lower than the 2009 NLJ Go-To), or does represent more than 1 year of graduates?

4. Doesn't it seem awfully pessimistic for the less prestigious schools? If I am right and it is one of the boom years, don't the NLJ250 percentages for schools like GW, Davis, UT, etc seem low in comparison with the schools above them?

Thanks.

i have no answers for you, but wow, look at yale. no "other firm jobs"

(1) The National Law Journal. They do a lot of stats like this, and are very reputable.

(2) They publish a list of the 250 largest (by attorney count) law firms, which is the 'NLJ 250'. I do not know where they obtain individual school data for graduates, but I assume it's a combination of self reporting / surveys / their own investigation. It's a large outfit and it does a lot of this, much only available on a subscription basis.

(3) My memory is these breakouts usually only represent one year. Skimming it I couldn't tell you which.

(4) Those percentages seem about right to me. Edit: Here's the class of 2005 (who summered in 2004 and did OCI in 2003 - quite old) and the numbers look close enough for government work. NLJ 250 placement drops like a rock after the top 10-15 or so schools. http://www.law.com/pdf/nlj/20080414empl ... trends.pdf

Keep in mind that it's organized in an annoying way: A school is listed as being part of the "market" most if it's grads go to, so you see weird things like UVA being a school in the NYC market - but the results are for all grads, not just the chunk of grads actually going to the market.

the Biglaw disrepancy between UNC and Wake is surprising as well IMO

What ever year this is, it makes ND look good, eyeballing it they would be in the 18th for a biglaw plus clerkship ranking (not sure why UT and USC are so low for whatever year this)

thesealocust wrote:(1) The National Law Journal. They do a lot of stats like this, and are very reputable.

(2) They publish a list of the 250 largest (by attorney count) law firms, which is the 'NLJ 250'. I do not know where they obtain individual school data for graduates, but I assume it's a combination of self reporting / surveys / their own investigation. It's a large outfit and it does a lot of this, much only available on a subscription basis.

(3) My memory is these breakouts usually only represent one year. Skimming it I couldn't tell you which.

(4) Those percentages seem about right to me. Edit: Here's the class of 2005 (who summered in 2004 and did OCI in 2003 - quite old) and the numbers look close enough for government work. NLJ 250 placement drops like a rock after the top 10-15 or so schools. http://www.law.com/pdf/nlj/20080414empl ... trends.pdf

Keep in mind that it's organized in an annoying way: A school is listed as being part of the "market" most if it's grads go to, so you see weird things like UVA being a school in the NYC market - but the results are for all grads, not just the chunk of grads actually going to the market.

Thanks.

If you had to guess, do you think that this would be a class between 2005 and 2009 or do you think it would be older than that?

bk187 wrote:If you had to guess, do you think that this would be a class between 2005 and 2009 or do you think it would be older than that?

I'd guess it's '05-'07. The data can be a little freaky, I think there are even two very slightly different PDFs of the '05 numbers floating around.

That graph has been floating around for a while. I'm pretty sure it's from '05 since it's been posted in conjunction with a similar graph from the same year.

Also, there has always been a large drop off... the graphs just give a good visualization.

keg411 wrote:That graph has been floating around for a while. I'm pretty sure it's from '05 since it's been posted in conjunction with a similar graph from the same year.

Also, there has always been a large drop off... the graphs just give a good visualization.

I'm fairly sure it isn't 2005 because it definitely differs from the 2005 one (as thesealocust posted above) and both are from the same source (NLJ).

I guess I wasn't very clear in what I meant by the dropoff. After looking back at it, what I found odd was that comparing the 2009 NLJ to both the graph I posted and the graph from 2005 was that Texas and USC almost doubled their NLJ250 placement while the schools above them all seemed to lose around 5-10%.

I take it there isn't a more recent one? Graphs are my friend, makes everything easier to digest lol

FeelTheHeat wrote:I take it there isn't a more recent one? Graphs are my friend, makes everything easier to digest lol

This is the newest employment graph: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/law%20sc ... page12.pdf (Class of 2009 who did OCI in 2007).

The class of 2010 data from the NLJ is supposed to be released later this month.

The graph you are referring to was published in the National Law Journal, in an article from April 2008, titled, "What rankings don't say about costly choices"...

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 7904889498

I don't know if the article says what year the information was compiled from, but that is where the 2008 is coming from.

Does anyone know if a median of the starting salary for schools is compiled and published anywhere? Irlg.com has this information, but the latest data available is from 2007.

Thanks!

run26.2 wrote:Does anyone know if a median of the starting salary for schools is compiled and published anywhere? Irlg.com has this information, but the latest data available is from 2007.

Thanks!

I think the consensus is that medians are pretty much useless.
Data like these NLJ charts present a clearer picture (blue gets market biglaw/bigmidlaw salary [$100k-160k]), everything else ends up with $30-60k.

sidewaysglance wrote:The graph you are referring to was published in the National Law Journal, in an article from April 2008, titled, "What rankings don't say about costly choices"...

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 7904889498

I don't know if the article says what year the information was compiled from, but that is where the 2008 is coming from.

Thanks. Based on the published date I'd assume it is class of 2007, though it could be earlier.

rman1201 wrote:

run26.2 wrote:Does anyone know if a median of the starting salary for schools is compiled and published anywhere? Irlg.com has this information, but the latest data available is from 2007.

Thanks!

I think the consensus is that medians are pretty much useless.
Data like these NLJ charts present a clearer picture (blue gets market biglaw/bigmidlaw salary [$100k-160k]), everything else ends up with $30-60k.

Yah. I know. I am interested in seeing how many schools report a median of 160.

word on the street is that it is c/o 2007 OCI.

run26.2 wrote:

rman1201 wrote:

run26.2 wrote:Does anyone know if a median of the starting salary for schools is compiled and published anywhere? Irlg.com has this information, but the latest data available is from 2007.

Thanks!

I think the consensus is that medians are pretty much useless.
Data like these NLJ charts present a clearer picture (blue gets market biglaw/bigmidlaw salary [$100k-160k]), everything else ends up with $30-60k.

Yah. I know. I am interested in seeing how many schools report a median of 160.

Check USNWR. The answer: a lot of them.

Look at http://www.lawschooltransparency.com for a breakdown of the median salary and other data.

Kohinoor wrote:word on the street is that it is c/o 2007 OCI.

OCI? But it has clerkships so shouldn't it be graduates?