<p>I would LOVE to get into BIGLAW but the problem is I dont know which school to choose?</p>
<p>With my gut feeling:
Cornell: top 10 %( journal, review...)
Harvard: great school would graduate top 50 %( nothing)</p>
<p>Which would be more appreciated to the BIGLAW perspective?</p>
<p>I am not yet at this level of getting accepted yet but thinking ahead. I always do these things, since high school with college choices, I had a hard time so I learned my lesson.</p>
<p>Cornell's a T14 school. As such, you certainly don't need to be a super-star to land a BIGLAW job. I wouldn't be able to pin down a specific number, but rest assured, a far larger percentage than 10% of Cornell's graduating class will be able to land BIGLAW. As for Harvard, top 50% is also far too small a number. When I was in Cambridge for an admitted student weekend, current students told me that literally anyone from HLS can land BIGLAW if they want it. This may have been an exaggeration, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were close to the truth.</p>
<p>stacy posted a great link on the thread called "Impact of a T14 school..." that has a graphic about where each school sends their grads, it's definitely worth checking out if biglaw is your goal.</p>
<p>Cornell is a very good school. According to the NJL, something like 62% of Cornell grads for 2007 were hired by NJL-250 law firms (which I think is a good benchmark for "biglaw"). So as previous posters have said, you definitely don't have to be in the top 10% to get biglaw from Cornell. The numbers seem to indicate that you're in good shape as long as you're in the top 2/3 of the class.</p>
<p>Unless you have a full scholarship at Cornell there is really no reason to even consider taking it over Harvard. Post the same question at lawschooldiscussion . org if you want more input.</p>
<p>crnchycereal, </p>
<p>are you a student at Harvard LS?</p>
<p>I applied to HLS this past fall and was accepted. However, I'm taking a year off before I enroll so I can travel to Taiwan and enroll in a Mandarin language program for half a year. I'll be starting at HLS in fall of 2009.</p>
<p>for Cornell:</p>
<p>Placement Facts</p>
<p>Starting Salaries (2004 Graduates Employed Full-time)</p>
<p>Private sector (25th-75th percentile) $125,000 - $125,000
Median in the private sector $125,000
Median in Public service $51,348</p>
<p>Employment Details</p>
<p>Graduates known to be employed at graduation 96.8%
Graduates known to be employed nine months
after graduation (including 25 percent of those
with unknown status)
98.4%</p>
<p>Practice Areas</p>
<p>Graduates Employed at Percentage (%)
Law Firms 76%
Business/industry(legal) 1%
Business/industry (non legal) 0%
Government 2%
Public interest 2%
Judicial clerkship 13%
Academia 3%
Unknown 4%</p>
<p>oh wow, congratulations crnchycereal
would you mind posting your stats?</p>
<p>2004 stats are quite old, particularly in light of the increase in biglaw salaries over the past couple of years. </p>
<p>I've taken this from Cornell Law's website, and given this high number of graduates employes in private practice, I would venture a guess that the salaries are now higher than those reported in the 2004 data:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Class of 2007: Permanent Employment as of February 15, 2008 </p>
<p>Percentage of respondents employed: 99%</p>
<p>Practice Settings</p>
<p>Private practice: 78%
Judicial Clerkship: 15%
Government: 3%
Public Interest: 2%
Business: 2%
Geographic Distribution</p>
<p>In New York State: 65%
Outside New York State: 34%
Employed outside U.S.: 1%
Number of states in which employed: 24 </p>
<p>Second Summer Employment: Class of 2008</p>
<p>Practice Settings</p>
<p>Private practice: 87%
Public Interest: 5%
Government: 4%
Other: 4% </p>
<p>First Summer Employment: Class of 2009</p>
<p>Practice Settings</p>
<p>Private Practice: 25%
Government: 19%
Judge's Chambers: 14%
Public Interest: 22%
Study Abroad: 8%
Research for Faculty: 8%
Corporation: 2%
University: 2%
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In reply to post #9:</p>
<p>Major: Political Science
LSDAS GPA: 3.92
LSAT: 180
ECs: Some music groups for all four years, a couple of other minor things</p>
<p>Sounds pretty hum drum, but I'm not providing too much detail ;).</p>
<p>crnchycereal, thanks for the reply.
Extremely strong numbers!@</p>
<p>My D's friends, both just graduating from CLS, were offered and accepted jobs at biglaw firms starting at well over $200,000. So the figures stated above appear to be outdated.</p>
<p>Morris, really? No offense, but I find that somewhat hard to believe. It's my understanding that the standard starting base salary for BIGLAW junior associates is $160K. If there were firms out there paying $200K+, I'm sure we would've heard about it. Perhaps the figure you're citing includes end-of-year bonus, but even then, it would presume both that the firm in question pays a bonus of $40K+ and that the recent grads were billing well over 2000 hours a year...</p>
<p>I don't know of any firms starting at over $200k.</p>
<p>I stand corrected. The salaries are $160. This does not include end of year bonus. Perhaps I was originally given "wishful thinking." Anyway, my point is that Cornell is very competitive for the job openings.</p>
<p>Yes, most firms do start out at $160K base salary. Arguably one of the most elite and prestigious firms, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz (WLRK), starts out at $165K for junior associates and has paid 100% bonuses for many years now. Therefore, WLRK's starting salary is essentially $330K.</p>
<p>Most firms do not pay $160,000 starting salaries. The biggest firms in the country generally do, though that is certainly not true in every instance. If I had to make an educated guess, I would estimate that there are probably around 30 law firms nationally that pay these starting salaries. These firms generally have hundreds, if not thousands, of lawyers working there and they are located in big cities like NYC and Los Angeles (for example, even Chicago lags behind NYC and LA in starting salaries). </p>
<p>In addition, many of these firms that pay $160,000 starting salaries are not actually on parity with the highest paying law firms (WLRK is, and has always been, on a pay scale of its own for bonuses) in terms of total compensation including bonuses, or in terms of salaries after the first year. There are entire websites devoted to discussing the base salaries, bonuses and other perquisites of working at these law firms, and morale at some law firms paying $160,000 starting salaries lags because associates at similar firms are paid more overall for approximately the same amount of work.</p>
<p>sallyawp is correct. I misspoke when I said "most firms"; what I really meant is many of the premier BigLaw firms start out at $160K, with WLRK being an obvious notable exception. It truly is amazing how WLRK is so far ahead of its competitors when it comes to pay scale; it's not even close.</p>
<p>Yet "money isn't everything" and I suspect that many associates at other lesser-paying firms have a better quality of life than WLRK associates.</p>