<p>I'm thinking about law school, but I'm 99% sure I DO NOT want to work for a large corporation. I was wondering if there were certain types of jobs that were open to law graduates of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, that wouldn't really be open to grads from other schools. I know that your chances of clerking for a judge are higher, but are there others?</p>
<p>Going to one of those schools (and excelling there) improves your odds of getting a job as a law professor, or as an investment banker. But there are no jobs that I have ever heard of that are open only to graduates of those schools.</p>
<p>hmm, I never associated law school with investment banking. why would a company doing investment banking want a law grad over a business grad?</p>
<p>No job I know of has absolute cutoffs as far as what schools they'll hire from. But the most elite law schools give you a very substantial edge in clerkships, academia, competitive public interest fellowships and jobs (ACLU, etc.), and certain competitive government jobs (e.g., DC federal public defenders).</p>
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hmm, I never associated law school with investment banking. why would a company doing investment banking want a law grad over a business grad?
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<p>The same reason why many Ibanks would prefer to hire a Harvard undergrad who studied History over somebody who majored in business at a no-name school. </p>
<p>The truth is, what you learn in business school (or any other educational setting) isn't all that useful because most of what you learn, you will never use. What banks are looking for are raw talent, work ethic, and a big name-brand school that they can then pitch to their clients. It's easier to nab clients if you can say that your team consists of a bunch of Harvard grads than a bunch of grads from no-name schools. Whether you think that's fair or not fair, that's how it is. </p>
<p>Case in point - Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury, graduated from Yale Law and worked for Cleary Gottlieb for a couple of years before jumping to the risk arbitrage department of Goldman Sachs. He eventually became co-Chairman and co-Senior Partner of Goldman before getting tapped to join the Clinton administration. In fact, he freely admits in his autobiography that he didn't know why he was going to law school and he was quite sure he didn't want to be a lawyer. He just thought that law school would be useful for whatever he ended up doing.</p>
<p>A certain very large west coast law firm used to regularly interview only top 10% graduates from about 10 law schools. Once they hired the editor in chief, number one in his class from a top 25 law school and practically considered it affirmative action.</p>