Top Law Schools

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I personally couldn't give a shit about reputation beyond some mild bragging rights. There are legit reasons for selecting Columbia over NYU (job placement), and it's not prestige. Prestige matters a bit in getting a job out of law school, but beyond that, I don't think anyone here is especially snobby about it.

Except for those Yale bastards. They can shove it.

I can't really speak on anyone outside of this community though. Other than HYS, most people don't know crap about the prestige of certain universities. You can say you're going to Penn, and the reply will be something along the lines of "Oh, screw JoePa", or Columbia and something along the lines of "I didn't know they had law schools in South Carolina".

When you tell people you got into Notre Dame law, they'll pass out on the floor. If you tell them you got into UVA, they'll look puzzled and go "U.. veehey?"

No rhyme or reason. Picking up chicks in bars is probably not a good reason to pick a law school. (Unless it's between H and S. :DDD)

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pacifica wrote:(2) Since I'm guessing the answer to #1 will probably be "depends", are there certain types of students who care more about the reputation of the university versus the law school? i.e. If they were undergrads at top versus not-so-top universities, do they care more/less about the reputation of the law school's mother university?

I weight preftige more heavily than I should/is logical because going to a preftigious school is kind of a dream of mine. I like to think that that's the case because I'm first generation, started college at a CC, and idealize fancy schools like they're Hogwarts, not because I'm a douche. When you're dealing with reputation or lay prestige, it's difficult to separate people's impressions of a school's undergrad (the part of the school those impressions generally concern) from its law school (which most people don't think about that much, if at all). That's why it can sound really impressive to some people to say that you attend Notre Dame Law School, even though ND's LS is middling when compared to its UG. So, yes, when people like me factor a LS's preftige into its value, we're almost certainly basing a large part of our assessment of that preftige on how people think about the school's UG. But should preftige ever be seriously weighted when choosing among law schools? Probably not, but whatever.

twentypercentmore wrote:When you tell people you got into Notre Dame law, they'll pass out on the floor. If you tell them you got into UVA, they'll look puzzled and go "U.. veehey?"

No rhyme or reason. Picking up chicks in bars is probably not a good reason to pick a law school. (Unless it's between H and S. :DDD)

Pretty much. This how all of my conversations went when I was home this summer.

Rando: So I hear you're going to law school!
Me: Yeah, I'm going to [insert CCN]
Rando: Oh...did you consider Cooley or MSU?

IT's not that these people are stupid or uneducated. It's just that if you have no reason to really care about law school - you're not an attorney, no one in your family attends law school - you're going to have very strong regional biases and big brand name recognition. So I could see someone being very excited about a person go to Michigan but not understanding why NYU or the University of Chicago would also be fantastic.

The prestige of a given law school, within the legal profession, is pretty well correlated to job placement isn't it? I mean, job placement is the main reason a law school is prestigious in the first place. Law is one of the most prestige-obsessed professions out there. If HLS placed relatively poorly, maybe it would retain some amount of overflow prestige from the rest of the university, but not much.

For instance, OP, maybe a number of years ago you could argue that the edge Columbia had on NYU in many people's minds was based more on the Ivy mystique than anything tangible, but now that times are tougher, Columbia is placing grads in desirable jobs at a significantly better rate than NYU. That dramatizes the whole issue--when the proverbial gun is to the hiring partners' heads (or whoever does the hiring for X job), they're going to take the more prestigious grads, on average.

catholicgirl wrote:

twentypercentmore wrote:When you tell people you got into Notre Dame law, they'll pass out on the floor. If you tell them you got into UVA, they'll look puzzled and go "U.. veehey?"

No rhyme or reason. Picking up chicks in bars is probably not a good reason to pick a law school. (Unless it's between H and S. :DDD)

Pretty much. This how all of my conversations went when I was home this summer.

Rando: So I hear you're going to law school!
Me: Yeah, I'm going to [insert CCN]
Rando: Oh...did you consider Cooley or MSU?

IT's not that these people are stupid or uneducated. It's just that if you have no reason to really care about law school - you're not an attorney, no one in your family attends law school - you're going to have very strong regional biases and big brand name recognition. So I could see someone being very excited about a person go to Michigan but not understanding why NYU or the University of Chicago would also be fantastic.

If you had asked me 2 years ago, I would have said that Columbia was just a good art school in Chicago, and that a bunch of comedians went to NYU. If I had heard someone reference the University of Chicago, I probably would have just assumed they meant the University of Illinois AT Chicago.

North wrote:

pacifica wrote:(2)That's why it can sound really impressive to some people to say that you attend Notre Dame Law School, even though ND's LS is middling when compared to its UG

NDLS is #22, ND undergrad is #19 in US World & News

andythefir wrote:NDLS is #22
___________ ____ = ____ Top 10.9%
____201

andythefir wrote:ND undergrad is #19 in US World & News
_________________________________ ____= ____ Top 0.8%
_____________2363

FTFY.

North wrote:

andythefir wrote:NDLS is #22
___________ ____ = ____ Top 10.9%
____201

andythefir wrote:ND undergrad is #19 in US World & News
_________________________________ ____= ____ Top 0.8%
_____________2363

FTFY.

Lol haha was about to say this. Not to mention I think ND's undergrad prestige is better than its 19 ranking. I think it's definitely ahead of Rice, WUSTL, Vandy, probably even Chicago, JHU and a couple of other objectively better schools (than ND) that lack lay prestige.

okay we get it dude, you go to harvard. give it a rest.

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pacifica wrote:

fatduck wrote:okay we get it dude, you go to harvard. give it a rest.

I don't... I'm sorry if you misinterpreted my intentions, but I am grateful for the feedback I've gotten so far. No need to be snippy though.

Like I had guessed and some of the previous responders have mentioned, there are different reasons for different people to value a law school's reputation. What I consider obvious ones are job placement (which several people have mentioned), but it's really interesting to hear the discussion about how people value the mother university's prestige as well. Thanks all again for the replies.

Here's something I think about (it's sort of dumb and I'll probably be mocked but I'll say it anyways). How is the dynamic different for a law school that is generally more selective than the undergrad population (NYU, say) vs. worse than the undergrad population (ND)? Like I know it probably doesn't affect day life but it might just change the way you feel on the campus. Not like it matters but still haha.