Out of curiosity: where you live and work, which of the top law schools are pretty much invisible (meaning that they have no or few alumni in your circles)?
When I was looking at law schools, I never really thought of the importance of alumni networks for getting jobs and getting clients. Now that I’m in the working world, if I were picking a law school again, I’d certainly consider how many alumni worked in the area where I planned to live and work.
In NYC, I almost never meet anyone from Stanford, the University of Chicago or Duke. Those are certainly top-tier schools and if a resume with any of those names on it crossed my desk, I’d be impressed. I just almost never meet anyone from those schools, perhaps because they’re small and outside the Northeast.
I have an uncle who is an alum of UChicago law who has had a successful decades-long career as an attorney and a friend who is an alum of Duke Law who has had a successful biglaw IP career…both in the NYC area.
There were also plenty of alums of both of those law schools populating the biglaw firms I’ve worked for(as a non-legal staff(IT)) or other biglaw firms friends worked for/currently work.
Stanford and Uchicago are very visible in all top NY firms. Graduates of Chicago. Stanford, Yale, Columbia and Harvard really have their pick. But remember that Chicago, Yale and Stanford are much smaller than Harvard and Columbia. Therefore, they are less numerically visible.
Don’t forget that there is a lot of self-selection for those matriculating to Stanford and Boalt. For example, nearly every one accepted at Stanford is also into HLS, but they choose the west coast instead. (I know its hard to believe for a New Yorker, but not everyone wants to live/practice there!)
Ditto, Berkeley Law. Undoubtedly, some/many? accepted into Boalt also receive offers from one of the NYC schools, but decline those offers.
I guess it depends what type of firm and what type of practice you have. We know many Berkeley, Stanford, Chicago, and Duke grads at the large firms in NYC.
I know many graduates of such firms. Boalt is typically on the recruiting list of every top law firm.
It also depends on which firm you are talking about here in New York. There are always alumni connections and networks. I once worked at a firm that had a huge presence from UVA, which was unusual across NYC law firms, but this firm had a giant alumni network. I’ve worked at a couple with large Duke networks.