After being on this site, and seeing it elsewhere, it seems to be the consensus that to get a good job as a newly-minted lawyer you need to go to a Top-14 law school. Recently, I looked on a top law firm’s (in terms of revenue) website, and looked at the education of the associates. Just on the first page I saw Suffolk University, Notre Dame, Brooklyn Law School, Miami, Fordham, and St. John’s.
None of these are ‘top 14,’ and yet these lawyers got a good job at a major firm making major money.
Perhaps this is an outlier, but it doesn’t seem like it’s absolutely necessary to go to Harvard or Yale to get a job at one of these big firms, why is it made out that way?
It’s all about the odds of success (if Big Law is your goal). U-Miami only places 10% of its graduates into Big Law. In contract, Penn Law places 7 times that number, or 70% of its class, into Big Law, with another ~10% into (prestigious) federal clerkships. Thus, at a minimum, 80% of Penn’s grads have excellent outcomes.
If you are absolutely certain of being in the top decile at Miami, you can get to big law, but you would be foolish to assume that most of the rest of the class does not also expect to graduate in the top 10%.
@bluebayou Thank you, I didn’t really look at it that way. I think the constant repetition of ‘top 14’ engrained in my mind that you were essentially barred from big law if you didn’t attend a top school.
Look at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Cravath Swaine & Moore. Those are the pinnacles of Biglaw.
I had friends who were hired at both firms. They weren’t on Law Review or at the top of the class. Both firms certainly have lawyers from places like St. John’s, but a St. John’s grad has to be near #1 in the class to be eligible.
look up schools individual school at Law School Transparency. It breaks out the grads that go to large firms & federal clerkships. It also breaks out the % of the grads that get jobs paid by the school.
Your chances of being hired by a top law firm is higher if you graduated from a top tier law school or if you are ranked at the top (i.e., 10%) in the next tiers of law schools. Also, if you have experience in a specialized area (that is limited where only a few have that experience), you have a good chance in being hired by a top law firm.