I know these are the top three law schools, yet am also aware of how law schools rank students and typically the better students get the better jobs.
But at the top three, is there a guarantee that you’d get a good job?
Like what would be the “worst” possible outcome of graduating with a HSY law degree?
Failing the Bar exam. It happens!
@TomSrOfBoston is correct; I worked with a HSY alumnus who failed the bar exam several times and was thus terminated.
To answer the question, unless you do something like get sick during every interview or get fired from all of your summer associate positions, yes, a HSY degree does result in a “good” job upon graduation: a job with a large NYC/DC/LA/SF law firm or a top-tier firm in another city, if you want it.
They also can lead to great public interest or government work. You should check the debt forgiveness terms for your school of choice if you go into public interest law or government work.
IF you are socially awkward and cannot connect to people or act like a jerk in the workplace, a HYS degree will not change that. As previously mentioned, if you can’t pass the bar, a HYS degree will not change that. If you go to your internship and the firm does not feel that you are a good fit or you don’t do good work, a HYS degree will not change that.
While most HYS grads land on their feet, there are no guarantees that every one will land on their feet.
Any of the top 14, and more, can set you up well. But it’s not some cakewalk offering six-figure salaries to anyone who matriculates: you have to work and network. And, obviously, pass the bar exam.
Any fully accredited law school will open doors in a specific market. What separates the T14 and maybe the rest of the top 25-30 is that those degrees are portable: you can get the JD at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, UChicago, NYU, Cal, Michigan, Georgetown, Penn, Cornell, Virginia, Northwestern, Duke, and some others probably… and that JD can land you a job where’er you wish to thrive.
I would disagree with prezbucky and sybbiey719 somewhat.
Pretty much EVERYONE at HYS who wants a now-$180,000/year associate job in a large NY law firm, or a job with a similarly-situated firm in another big city, can have one.
Since there are slews of law firms coming to campus for interviews, and since pretty much everyone who takes a law firm job gets it through on-campus interviewing, all it takes is showing up for on-campus interviews and then doing another round of callbacks in those firms’ offices. I regularly volunteer with a student group at my HYS law school, and I am heavily involved at alumni events, and it’s not as easy now as when I was coming through, but everyone gets one of those jobs if desired, still.
The exception is if you have such a massive defect that a HYS degree cannot overcome it: being fired from a summer associate job (and having your name in an article in Above the Law) or having atrocious interviewing. Even then, all it usually takes is more interviewing than normal in order to get one of those jobs.
One of my classmates was banned from law school for a few years due to a very serious incident that showed some huge character defects, but I Googled the person recently and see that the person not only landed in a large law firm after returning to law school, but he has done very well.
After that first job, a HYS degree certainly won’t result in an easy path on a career, but (1) everyone I know of from my law school (which was one of those three) has done just fine, ranging from a fine middle-class living (for those who chose public interest careers) to extremely wealthy (for those who chose to work at Goldman and ended up as managing directors), and (2) no matter how battered one’s resume or interviewing skills may be, a degree from HYS will, by itself, allow at least some huge flaws to be ignored. I have seen people with HYS degrees get hired, and repeatedly get hired, even though their resumes would have otherwise made them unemployable due to various flaws.
I recall reading in Forbes or Fortune or a similar magazine that Harvard Law School alumni have the second-highest mid-career median salaries of alumni of any school in the US, after HBS. So there’s the evidence that a HYS degree is a ticket to doing well, overall.
Note: again, a degree from HYS will not by itself result in an easy career path or the ability to get whatever job you want. There’s no easy way, and it takes a ton of work and, at times, hardship and frustration, but a HYS degree means that you can get whatever TYPE of job you want upon graduation, and it means that you’ll always have a decent job somewhere in your career that follows, doing the TYPE of work that you want to do.
I didn’t say that HYS wouldn’t yield a high-paying job out of the gate. My point was that they aren’t the only three schools likely to yield such offers. My main point was that the top 14 – the 14 law schools comprising the top 14 spots since the advent of the USNews law school ranking, which I listed – confer, probably, the most portable JDs.
@prezbucky, absolutely, I agree with you. What I was disagreeing with (and sorry for not being clearer) was that in my experience, you don’t have to network at all for high-paying jobs at graduation; you just sign up for on-campus interviews, don’t barf during the interviews or the like, and have multiple offers to chose from. It’s that simple.
Fair enough. I must say, I am an MBA, not a JD holder. I work as a marketing director. But I understand what you’re saying: though the education quality may be similar at any number of schools, some do better at landing their graduates prime jobs.
Answer: No. There are no guarantees.
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Agree with the general sentiment here. As a holder of 2 T14 law degrees: there are no guarantees; however a HYS degree best positions you post graduation for $180 K positions (if that’s what you want) and for federal clerkships (an important post-grad credential omitted thus far in the discussion). Also, a T 14 law degree helps with obtaining a clerkship, and is far more portable than a local law school degree in the law-firm marketplace; but in this market there are no guarantees.
I do note that the question was about HYS, not the rest of the top 14.
I would say that there HYS (and likely Columbia) are in the “guaranteed $180k/year job if you want it and don’t completely screw up” category; others in the top 14 don’t have the same virtual guarantee, although from all of the top 14, you should have a strong shot at a “good” job.
I see that if you’re in the bottom part of the class at UVA or Georgetown or even Duke, it might be a rough ending, but school-funded “bridge” programs will hopefully help make the transition to a large firm when the job market further picks up.