US NEWS RANKINGS leak (2011)

[lawschoolbound1]

What do you guys think about Alabama's 8 number drop?  Think that will affect their class this year?  I've heard that people over the median are bailing because they were accepted to better ranked schools (as of this years rankings).  Any truth to this?  Very interesting subject, this rankings bit.  It's unfortunate that it matters, but it does, and it matters a lot.

[cooleylawstudent]

It sounds like your true question is if YOU should cut bait or not. I'd say fuckk the numbers, if you were going to go their anyways and the only thing that changed was their status in the popularity contest, then why give a shitt? If someone is that fickel, screwem' you don't those pricks breathing your air anyways do you?

What do you guys think about Alabama's 8 number drop?  Think that will affect their class this year?  I've heard that people over the median are bailing because they were accepted to better ranked schools (as of this years rankings).  Any truth to this?  Very interesting subject, this rankings bit.  It's unfortunate that it matters, but it does, and it matters a lot.

[lawschoolbound1]

Unfortunately, you have it wrong.  I did not apply there.  I am merely curious, and I find the rumors very interesting.  I do agree that those that are jumping ship because of rankings, shouldn't be there to begin with, however rankings do matter quite a bit. 

[bigs5068]

If no attorney at your firm had heard about Pepperdine, you should take aim for the door, pack your poo, and run as fast as you can.

It was the New York City Law Department pretty massive place.  They just really didn't know Pepperdine  because there are no Pepperdine graduates in New York they just don't go to New York. There is not to many Cardozo grads in San Francisco not to say either school is bad, but when attorney's are in practice from what I saw they really weren't ordering the rankings and seeing what school was ranked where. Obviously, they knew the pecking order in New York and Boston, but they really had no clue in regards to California schools. Although they did certainly take the pecking order into account they hired people there were more important issues in their hiring decisions, than what the school was ranked. If an applicant ranked highly at their school, had a great writing sample, great references, or some work experience they interviewed them. One of the attorneys they hired was in the bottom %50 at Touro she told me, but she had a nursing degree and they put her in the Medical Malpractice Division over people from NYU, because that nursing degree gave her intangibles that a law degree from NYU doesn't give you in Medical Malpractice cases.Obviously, in New York NYU gets an interview a lot easier than Touro does.

Another example of that, would be if you want a job as a legal consultant for the Chinese Embassy they will take someone who speaks fluent Mandarin and graduated from Cooley over someone that doesn't speak Mandardin and went to Harvard. Intangibles  and prior experience really play a huge role in getting employment or at least at the three places I worked in. Cleraly 3 places working as a paralegal is not that much experience and I am far from really knowing what is going on, but you can see how all that makes logical sense. A Chinese guy who gets his Visa screwed over in America and doesn't speak English is not going to be all that impressed with your Harvard degree he needs to be able to communicate. If you went to Cooley and spoke Mandarin your the one he would pay money to talk to. Obviously if you went to Harvard and spoke Mandarin your set, but intangibles really do mean a lot once you get into the real world.

[TheDudeMan]

Clearly you are a 0L with no idea how legal recruitment works.  While your argument (albeit riddled with grammatical errors) is sound, the sad reality is that a Cooley grad who speaks 10 languages is still unlikely to find employment over a Harvard grad.  It just isn't going to work that way simply because most top notch employers aren't even going to LOOK AT the Cooley student's resume.  It will get mailed to the firm, go through HR, and end up in the trash.

Welcome to the legal profession.  I'm not saying it's right, but it's how it is.

[bigs5068]

I am well aware that Harvard is a better school than Cooley, but for the specific job of dealing with the Chinese government in that specific instance, with my 1L common sense I would hire the guy that knows mandarin to deal with people that speak Mandarin.  The Harvard Grad could know every legal theory and nuance and trick in the book, but if you can't communicate with him what good is he for that specific task.

Or even if you wanted to work in medical malpractice if someone has a M.D. and a J.D. from Touro and they want to work at a medical malpractice firm they will have an edge over a Stanford Grad for that specific job.

A Touro grad with no special intangibles v. a Stanford grad with no special intangibles who wins that one?  With my magic ability to use common sense the Standford Grad wins!!!

I know a lot of people in law school have never been outside academia, but there is whole thing called common sense that exists in the real world and a lot of people on this board and in law school should learn about it. 

[TheDudeMan]

Big, you are missing my point.  I agree with you that common sense hiring would make sense, however, it's simply not the way the legal world works.  Legal employers hire resumes, not people. 

You can be bitter about it, or you can accept it and work within it.  Are there exceptions?  Of course there are. However, 99% of the time the Harvard grad with no language skills is going to have more opportunities than the Cooley grad with 10 languages and moonlight's as a super hero.

Simply the facts of life....

[bigs5068]

Yea I agree, unless language is a prerequisite for a specific job that is all I was trying to say.

A Cooley Grad could be fluent in 5 languages and have a M.D. if he goes into competition for a real estate law job with someone with 0 work experience that graduates from Harvard Law, the Harvard Grad will win. This is because speaking 5 languages and having a M.D. are irrelevant to real estate law and Harvard beats Cooley 99.9% of the time..

[cooleylawstudent]

when did cooley start giving out MD's?

Yea I agree, unless language is a prerequisite for a specific job that is all I was trying to say.

A Cooley Grad could be fluent in 5 languages and have a M.D. if he goes into competition for a real estate law job with someone with 0 work experience that graduates from Harvard Law, the Harvard Grad will win. This is because speaking 5 languages and having a M.D. are irrelevant to real estate law and Harvard beats Cooley 99.9% of the time..

[bigs5068]

They obviously would have gotten the M.D. from a different school, before going to law school.