Excellent Article on Law School Rank/Debt

[DCLabor25]

Well, one way to figure out the whole "how encompassing is the NLJ 250" debate is to take the exact number of students who are earning the big bucks -- it's mentioned in the article -- and figure out exactly how many associates the NLJ 250 hired.  The difference would be how many other people are landing at firms that pay market.  My guess -- and this is just a total guess -- is that the number would be modest, but not too high.....

[countbizaller]

The problem is that many of us are too eager to rely on these second and third and fourth hand stories about situations we hear of and automatically assume that we will be in that same circumstance.

And way too many of us are ready to jump on any survey that has numbers and misread it to be an accurate depiction of the return on our investment.  My example wasn't a fourth hand account with me assuming I'll be in the exact same position.  Mine was numerous talks with actual graduates of a school about their law school experience and career prospects rather than a misconstrued magazine survey.

In any event, it's entirely clear from the data that 50 percent of the UTEXAS class does not get biglaw.   

The data being one survey and "Biglaw" meaning only firms in the NLJ250?  I can't disagree with that. 

[TRad]

I was pleased to see 4 Richmond VA firms on the list of the 250 (and a 5th firm principally based in Atlanta with a large office here).  Also, knowing that URichmond Law has an extensive and loyal alumni base is making UR look much better -- especially if I get some money from them.

Plus, the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran this article recently. http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/search.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-03-31-0026.html

I may well have a W & M (with no $) v. UR (with $) dilemma on my hands.

[DCLabor25]

The problem is that many of us are too eager to rely on these second and third and fourth hand stories about situations we hear of and automatically assume that we will be in that same circumstance.

And way too many of us are ready to jump on any survey that has numbers and misread it to be an accurate depiction of the return on our investment.  My example wasn't a fourth hand account with me assuming I'll be in the exact same position.  Mine was numerous talks with actual graduates of a school about their law school experience and career prospects rather than a misconstrued magazine survey.

In any event, it's entirely clear from the data that 50 percent of the UTEXAS class does not get biglaw.   

The data being one survey and "Biglaw" meaning only firms in the NLJ250?  I can't disagree with that. 

Your of course free to make any decisions or draw any conclusions you want (though I still think a massive data collection is a more accurate way of judging things than talking to a few graduates).  My larger point is this: I just don't think that MOST students who finish at or below the median at non-T14 schools, including Texas, make biglaw OR the type of salaries that immediately justify a $150K investment.  But most law schools feed the notion that everyone can get a BIGLAW job -- and that's just not the case.   

As for a magazine -- for the most part, USNWR drives the law school admissions process, both for students and the schools themselves.  It's why most people pick school A over school B and it's in the back of every admissions rep head when they are admitting people.  And most people make their decision thinking that school A is going to dramatically improve their job prospects based upon a better USNWR ranking -- even if it involves passing up a huge scholarship.  I just think this data provides some perspective about what job prospects really will be at different schools.  In any event, it's a more scientific and robust data caluculation than ANYTHING USNWR gives us and everyone relies on that.....

If you read my other posts on here, I am not knocking any particular school.  I think a lot of tier2 schools actually provide great value, especially if a scholarship is involved.  I've also seen however how most law schools behave on admitted student days and through their mailings and I think some of it is fundamentally dishonest.

[R.P. McMurphy]

tag. great article. wish i would have discovered it a long time ago.

maybe i should have gone to Illinois instead of W&L. too bad the midwest sucks. 

[officeguy]

I was pleased to see 4 Richmond VA firms on the list of the 250 (and a 5th firm principally based in Atlanta with a large office here).  Also, knowing that URichmond Law has an extensive and loyal alumni base is making UR look much better -- especially if I get some money from them.

Plus, the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran this article recently. http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/search.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-03-31-0026.html

I may well have a W & M (with no $) v. UR (with $) dilemma on my hands.

Richmond is a very good T2 to consider. It's often overlooked on this board though. But the city of Richmond itself is normally overlooked...

[officeguy]

Howard does quite well placement wise according to this article.

[OldFart]

All --

Bill Henderson has an absolutely terrific article on law school debt vs. prestige and employment prospects over at NLJ.  He also has worked with NLJ to come up with some terrific charts on real career prospects -- the percentage of students from each school who end up in biglaw, other firms, clerkships, etc.  It's awesome data and much better than blindly relying upon USNWR.

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1207904889498

From the later posts on this thread, it looks like most people were able to access the "regional_rankings.pdf" file that is linked from the main article.  How??  I get a "404 not found" error page when I try to use the link, and more errors when I try to dig it out.  (I'm not sure if this is a subscription issue, since it's not an "access denied" error, it's a "not found" error.)

ETA: I signed up for "free limited access" with no luck.  Is the "rankings" sub-article restricted to full subscribers?

ETA: "nevermind".  One of their servers must have been down yesterday when I was trying to get it.   Thanks for your kind offer, PC!

[AmericanGunner]

Howard does quite well placement wise according to this article.

A school that has hundreds of firms for OCI does well? I'm shocked.

Yes - though the school is never ranked very highly, firms go to Howard because it has a reputation for being able to provide skilled Black lawyers. Diversity wins...

[Boyce Baylor]

so vanderbilt, huh?