<p>I'm curious about the rankings of the best california law schools. i definitely do not plan on leaving california, because i plan on looking for work in LA/Irvine, etc. Basically my home area. I'd like to know which schools are most favored, and if they favor gpa or LSAT more, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone!</p>
<p>1) Stanford (Weights GPA relatively more than peer schools do, but not by much these days).
2) Berkeley (Weights GPA relatively more than peer schools do).
3) UCLA
3) USC
4) Hastings?</p>
<p>I mean I don’t know the rest of the hierarchy.</p>
<p>SLS>>>>>>>>Berkeley>>>>UCLA=USC>>>>Hastings</p>
<p>thank you, that’s very useful!</p>
<p>flowerhead, you are such a flowerhead.</p>
<p>firstly, UCLA>USC; not by much but notably and fairly consistently so. </p>
<p>secondly, i think uc davis has a very good law school (not sure but i think about equal to hastings) and uc irvine’s law school looks promising.</p>
<p>i’m in a similar position with the op; only applying to CA law schools.</p>
<p>Haha… yeah I only really know about SLS and Berkeley. I won’t dare touch the USC vs. UCLA thing.</p>
<p>If you are asking about USNews current rankings:</p>
<p>3 Stanford
6 Bekeley
15 UCLA
18 USC
35 UC Davis
39 Hastings</p>
<p>No other California law schools are in top 100. For any law school, LSAT is the most important factor followed by GPA as the second most important (with anything else being far behind those two in the weight given to it).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is true. However, the gap between them is much smaller in California than it is anywhere else. GPA matters a great deal to CA schools. By contrast, it’s not particularly critical at most of the other “top 10” schools.</p>
<p>I think SLS changed their index formula this year, so the LSAT is weighted a bit more heavily. Don’t know how much that changes the above, though.</p>
<p>As for the UCLA v. USC debate, I think they are pretty even for job prospects. The most recent data (for class of 2009) showed that USC placed more into NLJ 250 firms than UCLA did. Even when you take into account clerkships, USC outplaced UCLA that year. But overall, I’d say they are pretty even. </p>
<p>Here’s the link for corporate NLJ 250 law placement, keeping in mind that you should also take into account clerkship placement (so schools like HYS are going to be at the top, obviously). (Also remember that the NYC market reacted earlier than other markets to the recession, so certain schools that fed primarily into NYC were affected more that year during 2007 OCI which is why the data may appear different from previous years (in particular Columbia).) If you want more info, I have other data I can link that includes both clerkships and NLJ 250, but some of them are on other forums so I don’t know if I can do that. </p>
<p><a href=“http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/law%20schools_charts_page12.pdf[/url]”>http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/law%20schools_charts_page12.pdf</a></p>
<p>Also, if you want big law firm work in CA, clerkships, or prestigious PI, consider researching/looking at top 14s that are outside of CA. OCIs have become somewhat more regional since the recession, but people do study OOS for law school and return home afterwards. It depends on what you want, but the top 14 OOS schools are better for working in CA firms, clerkships, PI, etc. than a ton of the schools in CA. My point is that location doesn’t really compensate for job prospects when a certain school is worse than another.</p>
<p>Also, another caveat about the link. The market’s worse than it was back then (OCI for 2009 was probably the worst ever everywhere) so the numbers aren’t exactly an accurate description of the current market but this is the most recent data we have.</p>
<p>oh, okay! didn’t realize that. but i’m big on staying in state because my family & long term boyfriend are here. but i suppose i’ll apply everywhere just to see my options!</p>