thexfactor wrote:
1. People below median get biglaw jobs at michshitgan. I cant say the same about wustl. According to NLJ250 numbers WUSTl is at 13% vs 37% at Mich. I don't think anyone below top 1/3 (prob top 25%) get biglaw jobs at WUSTL.
2. Also the quality of biglaw jobs are much better at Umich.
I would take Umich in a heartbeat unless I get a full scholarship at WUSTL. Even then I would prob lean towards Umich.
The problem is that WUSTL only places decent in the STL market. However, the STL market isn't very open to outsiders.
People have to realize that 3 years of life is a fixed cost of attending law school. time= money.
If 37% of people at UM are getting biglaw jobs, that means your chance of getting one at median is spotty at best. Below median, you're boned unless you have things other than grades going for you. Either way, your chances of getting a Biglaw job at UM are lower than a coin toss, and if you strike out at OCI there, you're pretty much in the same boat as a WUSTL grad with the same grades -- you'll be relegated to networking your ass off and you'll also have trouble in secondary markets where most firms won't hire you because they think you will bolt for NYC or Chicago after getting a year or two of experience on your resume.
Also, I know a handful of people below top third here with Biglaw. And, yes, there's a handful of top 10% without. But I haven't had any problems with WUSTL's reputation when I've been out networking. I've been to San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC, and everybody I've talked to knew how good of a school it was and had nothing but positive reactions.
We just don't have the strongest OCI, which really hurts our overall Biglaw numbers. This is simply a factor of our home market not being that big. Most T14s have a local mega-market where they can dump a ton of their grads. But if you're not sitting around waiting for an offer to fall into your lap from a firm that comes to your school to interview you, you'll find that most people respect the school. I've gotten my resume passed on to a number of managing partners at Biglaw offices, and my grades are a hair below median. If you circumvent the recruiting offices which are overly concerned with numbers (similar to the law school application process), simply due to the fact that they have many hundreds of applications for only a few positions and need to narrow down the field somehow, you'll find that the partners that spend all of their time with clients rather than sorting through resumes are more impressed with your personality and your past work experience. Just the fact that you're out networking is impressive in itself, since so few law students make a serious effort at it.
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