<p>Caveat: this post is not meant to cause a fight about which is the best school, nor is it intended to offend Stanford people. </p>
<p>Im just curious how it came to be that Stanford is regarded as one of the very best, if not the best, law school in the country. I understand that Harvard and Yale are in a league of their own in that their representation in academia, top judicial positions, politics, law firms, and the layman's conciousness are unmatched (though I think even this gets to be overstated....the top students at say Columbia have about the same opportunities as those from Harvard, and if you're in the bottom 1/3 at either school you are not going to be eligible for the most prestigious of the post-law school opportunities). </p>
<p>Stanford is no doubt a very excellent school and the top choice of many of the top law students, so perhaps that alone indicates that it should be considered as competitive as any school. But it just seems odd to me that its so highly regarded on discussion boards without question. I'm a law student (and don't go to any of the above named schools, so I'm not trying to plug my school here), and I have read many law review articles from Harvard/Yale at the direction of my Profs. And I have been taught by many law Profs from Harvard/Yale (and Chicago). But I don't think I've ever been assigned a Stanford Law Review article and only one of my Profs went to Stanford. I think the number of Stanford SC justices is comparatively small (though I haven't really checked this) and top firms which I have checked out don't seem to have nearly as many senior/name partners from Stanford as from other schools (other than the west coast). Again, I'm not disputing that it is a great school, but how did it come to be so resoundingly praised above so many others? What opportunities are available to Stanford grads that the CCN crowd, for instance, isn't getting?</p>