<p>Just for kicks,
in your opinion whats the best law school (overall) after Harvard Yale and Stanford?</p>
<p>Columbia?
NYU?
Chicago?
Penn?</p>
<p>just look at USNews but I think a lot comes down to individual preferences.</p>
<p>I think you're really splitting hairs if you need to rank those. Those are very, very different schools - not enough factors to line up. If I wanted to be a law & economics professor after law school, I would go to Chicago. If I wanted to do tax law, NYU. Patent law, Columbia. Business with a possible MBA joint degree, Penn. </p>
<p>I think that you would have the same job opportunities in NYC coming from Columbia or NYU. Penn grads tend to live along I-95 from DC to New York. Chicago grads dominate that market. Now, yes, I know that all of those schools do place nationally; however, please look at the data and understand that there is some geographic element to placement. Some of it is because people who want to work in Chicago may go to school there instead of in NYC and vice versa.</p>
<p>You could make a decision - if such a decision were yours to make - based on geography, cost, special programmes, availability of journals and moot court competitions that interest you, and the intangible "feel" and have it be a better decision than basing it on rankings</p>
<p>georgetown or columbia</p>
<p>For the "law and economics" crowd, and in a world where all schools admitted all applicants (i.e. if I could go anywhere I liked), would you still recommend Chicago, even over HYS?</p>
<p>If you want to work in NYC after law school, is it most advisable to attend a law school in NYC? I am sure though HYS can get you a job in any state, right ?</p>
<p>t14 should be able to place throughout the nation, it's only that sometimes people go to NYC schools with the goal of practicing in NYC and in turn the geographical placement may seem a bit inflated.</p>
<p>KIDS!</p>
<p>Yes, you can practice law anywhere in the country if you graduate from HYS. I would, however, suggest that your first skill for law school would be to put questions in their appropriate places. You wouldn't ask a torts question in contracts class; why ask about HYS on a thread devoted to Chicago, Penn, NYU, and Columbia? </p>
<p>Yes, the T14 schools place nationally. HOWEVER, for those of you in the cheap seats, there is still a fairly significant geographic issue. If you don't believe me, don't argue with me... mosey over to your closest Barnes & Noble and acquire a copy of the US News & World Reports, graduate edition. Rip out, shred, and burn the rankings. Then, turn to the back. There's a huge section that lists every law school and stats about it, such as median private sector income of graduates; percentages who go into private practice, gov't, academia, etc; median debt load; and geographic distribution of graduates.</p>
<p>In law, it's often easiest to do what everyone else is doing, and people tend to not look down on you for it. My point was that you would be much, much better making that decision based on geography and quality of specialised programmes than on, oh, arbitrary rankings.</p>
<p>Yep, outside of the Ivy League law schools, geography is a major consideration in job placement. Even law review graduates from places like Washington & Lee, U of Virginia and Georgetown don't effortlessly waltz into job offers from west coast firms.</p>
<p>Yeah, geography is does come into play, but if you attend a Top Tier law school, all major firms know of your school. For example, UVA is 1 of only 2 law schools in the country with at least 1 grad in all of the top law firms nationwide. The other is Harvard, Yale or Chicago. I forget.</p>
<p>Ok how about the bottom tier of the top 14, which would you say is the best:</p>
<p>Georgetown
Duke
Cornell
Northwestern</p>
<p>UVa too.....</p>
<p>Georgetown</p>
<p>Best law school after HYS: Columbia (biglaw) or Chicago (academia and clerkships)
[quote]
For the "law and economics" crowd, and in a world where all schools admitted all applicants (i.e. if I could go anywhere I liked), would you still recommend Chicago, even over HYS?
[/quote]
No, HYS are still better. Y is the undisputed king of the law world and its economics program isn't too shabby, while H and S are on par with Chicago in economics.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you want to work in NYC after law school, is it most advisable to attend a law school in NYC? I am sure though HYS can get you a job in any state, right ?
[/quote]
Again, HYS still beat Columbia and NYU, even in NYC.</p>
<p>It really depends on what you want to do. If you want to clerk for the 7th circuit or for one of the many judges who are Chicago Alumni, Chicago is definitely a contender with Stanford (which seems rather regional in its placement).</p>
<p>If mention of UVA above is read to imply that it is in the "bottom tier" of the top 14, that is clearly wrong. UVA is consistently a top 10 law school, tied for 8th in the US News rankings for 2007 with Berkeley and Michigan, just behind Penn and followed closely by Duke and Northwestern and well ahead of Georgetown, which places 14th. (In fact it ranks ahead of Penn on the important "peer assessment" score.) Those rankings seem about right to me:
Yale
Stanford
Harvard
Columbia and NYU tied
Chicago
Penn
Berkeley and Michigan and UVA tied
Duke
Northwestern
Cornell
Georgetown
UCLA
Texas
USC and Vanderbilt tied
Then a big drop off to lower ranked schools.
Only change I would make would be to place Harvard ahead of Stanford.</p>
<p>Here's an updated site that you might find helpful re. post-law school job placement. </p>
<p>I once considered going to law school with the intention of getting a joint JD/MBA. My top choices where HYS. However, I don't intend to pratice law. But rather use that background to go into management consulting of IB. The other option I considered was writing TV pilots and screen plays on the Federal court system with a twist.</p>
<p>But I decided not to follow this path and instead focus my time on finishing my undergradate degree and go into IB(M&A) as an analyst for two years and jump into management consulting as an analyst for another two years before going into business school for the elusive MBA. I'll leave law school to the experts!</p>