<p>I've been surifng these boards for a while and have a few questions about career placement opportunities for the top 14 schools.</p>
<p>It's well-known that the better your grades the better your chances for top clerkships and public service slots. </p>
<p>What if you know you're not that particularly bright. Would it be better to go to a slightly lower ranked school where the competition would be easier, for example Duke versus Harvard, in order to have a slightly easier time getting on law review and being more easily able to make good grades in order to get a good clerkship? </p>
<p>If you go to a top law school and only do ok, like a B, B+ student or only passes, is it still possible to work your way up to a top clerkship (i.e. Supreme Court or 7th circuit of Appeals) or will your options still be limited even after some work experience.</p>
<p>If you are working your way up by alternating between private practice and clerking, how does this affect your compensation? For example: lets say you hypothetically work for Cravath for 2 years (yes, this is very hypothetical), leave for a clerkship for 2 years, and then come back to them. Are you compensated the same amount as if you ha stayed with them for 4 years? What are the types of public jobs that can actually increase your attractiveness as an employee in the private workplace?</p>
<p>Clerkships go to students who graduate high in their law school class. Also, they generally go to students right out of law school except the US Supreme Court often takes them from other clerkships, e.g., a judge from that court may hire a clerk who is finishing a clerkship from a federal appellate court. The route is seldom to go to a law firm first and then to clerkship and you should not expect to get a federal clerkship that way. When law firms hire clerks, the firms usually give them credit for the years of the clerkship.</p>
<p>Choosing a lower level law school over a top law school (if you can get into one) does not mean you are going to have that much less competition to be in the top at the lower school. Also, you should not assume there is a direct relationship between being tops in college and then being tops in law school. The law school rolls of flunk outs and drop outs are full of straight A college students. With a top law school, you have a better chance of being hired by the big law firms. Finally, any assumption you have that Duke may be easier than Harvard is incorrect.</p>
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What if you know you're not that particularly bright. Would it be better to go to a slightly lower ranked school where the competition would be easier, for example Duke versus Harvard, in order to have a slightly easier time getting on law review and being more easily able to make good grades in order to get a good clerkship?
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<p>I think a better example would be to use Yale instead of Harvard. That's because of Yale's policy of not ranking its students and not assigning law review spots based on grades. You could graduate last in your class at Yale Law, and it wouldn't be that easy for a prospective employer to determine this. Even if that employer demanded to see your transcript, the employer would not have as easy of a time determining that you graduated last from Yale as they would if you graduated last from Harvard where your class rank is displayed explicitly. A highly discerning and circumspect employer would be able to determine that you didn't do all that well, but certainly it's not easy for them to know that you graduated last, whereas if you graduate last at Harvard, that fact is clearly shown by your class rank.</p>
<p>Let me clarify. Harvard divvies up its students by percentiles. That is basically a form of class rank right there. Furthermore, Harvard hands out various levels of honors, including Law Review spots, according to ones grades. Yale does not. </p>
<p>No, it doesn't. It does give Latin honors at graduation that distinguish the top 10% and top 40% of its graduates. Everyone has a job by that point anyway, but even to the extent that it matters, your statement that "if you graduate last at Harvard, that fact is clearly shown by your class rank" is just plain wrong, not in need of "clarification." At most, an employer who knew the meaning of the various Latin honors (a big assumption) could determine that you were in the bottom 60% of the class, which is a big group and not exactly a stigma. Just as an illustration, I was in the bottom 60% with no journal, and I got a clerkship on the 7th Circuit. (BTW, my sister, who went to YLS, applied in district courts but did not get a clerkship at all.)</p>
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<p>including Law Review spots, according to ones grades.</p>
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<p>14 out of the 40+ law review slots each year are assigned in PART based on grades; your writing competition score is still heavily weighted. The majority of slots awarded have nothing to do with grades. I don't dispute that it's easier to get on YLJ than HLR, but that's because of the nature of the exam (bluebooking vs. writing & editing), not because of the grade-on slots.</p>
<p>It's not impossible to get a clerkship from a law firm. One of our associates did that at the federal court of appeals level a few years ago. But it's not common.</p>
<p>Fine, Hanna, it was too strong a statement. Nevertheless the take-home point is, Harvard's grading system is far far more transparent than is Yale's. What I should have said is that if you get poor grades at HLS, then that fact is far more visible than it is if you get poor grades at YLS. By that I mean that the HLS transcript is far more explanatory and revealing than a YLS transcript is.</p>