Best schools for BIGLAW?

[challandler]

A-'s?

Your new avatar is frightening now, btw.

I got one grade higher than I expected and one exactly as I expected.  I like the new (temporary) avatar becuase it can be interpreted in so many ways.  Is he frighteningly happy?  Is he trying to mask his obvious rage with a smile?  Has he simply done so poorly that evil tactics formerly beneath him are now the only thing on his mind?  Or did he do so well that he's grown to despise the stupidity of his classmates and is now unabashedly gunning?

[Denny Crane]

Or did he do so well that he's grown to despise the stupidity of his classmates and is now unabashedly gunning?

TITCR

[.....]

The best schools for biglaw are the following:
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1168423325385

I hate this article precicely because students like miller think it represents.  There are several flaws in taking it as a ranking.  One has already been pointed out - the students at elite schools who choose not to work in firms are not doing so becuase they are unable to get a job with one.  That makes it unfair to compare Yale, where less than 50% of grads go the firm route immediately, with Columbia, where more thn 75% of grads choose the firm path.  Second, the article treats placement at any of the 250 largest firms as equal.  Some firms are simply more desireable to most students, and, if I were interested in biglaw, I would want a ranking that accounted for the quality/prestige of the firms where grads are working.  Finally, the size of the firm is based on the number of associates nationally.  Most national firms have an office in three or four major cities.  As a result, these rankings are going to have a bias towards graduates from law schools in major cities.  This is a little misleading.  We can easily imagine a graduate of Minnesota working at an office in Minneapolis that has as many attorneys and pays as much as the NYC offices of national firms, but which doesn't count among the 250 largest law firms becuase it is one of two offices for that firm, rather than one of 8 for the NYC firm. 

I second that emotion.

[Lindbergh]

Are the US News Rankings a fair indicator of the best schools to become a corporate whore from? For example, Yale from what I gather is a great place to go for clerkships and stuff like that, but are they also number 1 for BIGLAW? Is there a site (or thread, I'll admit, I'm too lazy to search... I'm a paralegal, it's in my blood) that is fairly reputable that lists this ranking? Thanks, LSD!

The T14 are the best schools to get Biglaw from, roughly in the order indicated.

[bamf]

lol thank you for moving this to the top, this is such a n00b post from JSHM

[n/a]

sweet bump

[Zenith Electronics Corp.]

this thread is approved.

[«ě»]

Law firms are probably the biggest prestige whores of all.  So, yes, I think USNWR should generally give you a good idea of the best schools from which to get BIGLAW.  However, keep in mind coast bias: You might have a slightly easier time getting a job in NYC or DC coming from Stanford than from Harvard, due to supply and demand.

Having recently had a talk with a lawyer at Wachtell that was involved in interviewing candidates he admitted that they gave a very minor (and he emphasised very minor) boost to candidates from Harvard and Yale (the guy in question is a Harvard UG, YLS grad so figures), and Stanford, Columbia, NYU and Chicago were collectively ranked as the second tier for them. To what degree this translates to other law firms, I know nothing about.

[Lindbergh]

If we want to get specific...

The conventional wisdom is that HYS (harvard yale stanford) are all the best places to go for pretty much anything, including Biglaw. 

After that, CCN (Chicago, Columbia, and NYU) have the best placement in large firms.

Schools like UVA and UM have a traditional reputational advantage over the remaining T14 schools, and slightly more national placement (I believe).  Penn does will in biglaw given its location in the northeast, where most biglaw firms are (as, presumably, does Cornell.)

The remaining T14 will all place well in Biglaw, although Georgetown, due to its large size, may be less secure near the bottom of the class. 

If you don't get into one of these schools, you should look at strong regional programs like UCLA, USC, Fordham, GW, etc. 

And, of course, if you finish at/near the top of your class at most schools, you may also have a shot at larger firms.

[«ě»]

Credit goes where credit's due; Columbia totally owns the V100 market. That may be self-selection, it may not - impossible to find out. But no other school, HYS included, places anywhere near as many graduates in V100 firms as CLS does.