<p>Posters on all websites I visit stress the importance of attending a "top 14" law school.</p>
<p>Why the emphasis on the number 14 and not top 10, 11, 12, 13, 15,etc.?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Because there are 14 top schools. If there were 15 they’d say top 15.</p>
<p>The correct answer is that everyone of the current ‘T14’ has at one time been in the top 10. They are considered ‘national’ law schools.</p>
<p>So it’s not that there is a big drop from Georgetown to UCLA or Vandy, it’s just that Georgetown has been ranked at least #10.</p>
<p>Nobody really cares whether a school was top 10. The T14 have something no other school has: portability. Consider the difference between GULC and UT, two schools historically next to each other on USNWR. GULC’s employment power reaches into several [url=<a href=“6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers”>6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers]states[/url</a>]. UT, on the other hand, places almost exclusively into [url=<a href=“6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers”>6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers]Texas[/url</a>]. They don’t have that in virtue of once having been a top 10 school on USNWR, they have it in virtue of being longstanding institutions with a lot of name recognition known for tough standards. No employer is ever going to come to you and say, “Oh, your school was once ranked in the top 10? You’re hired!” People tell you T14 or bust because of employment prospects, and they say that because the T14 is in a class of its own.</p>
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<p>Perhaps the former (“portability”) exists because of the latter (top 10 status). :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>…is a state public flagship. IMO, a better example is the private Vandy (#17) or USC (#18) …</p>
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<p>Much more helpful answer than #2. :)</p>
<p>while it is true that the t14 has a more national reach than the schools below it, the t14 really isn’t always indicative of employment statistics. </p>
<p>i posted this in another thread as well:
[Law</a> Blog’s Best Big Law Feeder Schools - Law Blog - WSJ](<a href=“Law Blog's Best Big Law Feeder Schools - WSJ”>Law Blog's Best Big Law Feeder Schools - WSJ)
[THE</a> GO-TO LAW SCHOOLS](<a href=“http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202543436520&THE_GOTO_LAW_SCHOOLS&slreturn=20130023193058]THE”>http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202543436520&THE_GOTO_LAW_SCHOOLS&slreturn=20130023193058)</p>
<p>for example, looking at the data above, if a student KNEW which region they would want to practice (and they wanted big law), simply going to the highest ranked school or a t14 wouldn’t always be the best choice. case in point: if someone wanted LA, i would probably choose USC over cornell, georgetown, or virginia pretty easily (regional advantage and similar or better overall placement). now if a student wanted to practice in a region anywhere else but LA, then i would probably choose the highest ranked school in the t14. so in sum, the t14 distinction is meaningful in some sense, but it depends on an individual’s situation.</p>
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<p>Doubtful for several reasons. First and foremost, no one particularly cares that a school was once ranked in the top 10 of USNWR. That idea was what prompted my absurd hypothetical where someone hires you because of where your school once ranked. Second, the strength of the top schools largely predates USNWR. Third, USNWR is, if anything, derivative of portability, not the reverse. That is, USNWR is based on ranking various factors, and those factors play a large part in determining portability. USNWR recognizes those factors in its rankings, it does not cause them.</p>
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<p>So is Berkeley. But fine, we can look at Vandy or USC, I don’t mind. [url=<a href=“6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers”>6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers]Vandy[/url</a>] puts the substantial majority of its graduates into Tennessee. [url=<a href=“6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers”>6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers]USC[/url</a>] puts nearly everyone into California. The T14, even at the bottom, puts graduates where they want to go. Once you drop into the next level, be it UT, Vandy, USC, or whatever, schools put graduates where the school is located.</p>
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<p>More helpful that #3 too.</p>
<p>@The Brian: To some extent, if location is more important than opportunity, you are better off going to a regional school. So, if someone wanted to live in CA, a GULC graduate will have better options for employment, but they might be elsewhere. A USC grad will have poorer options, but they’ll tend to cluster in CA.</p>
<p>Where is the information about where graduates from particular law schools have gotten offers coming from? I know of recent graduates of Texas being offered jobs paying over 100K in states like Colorado and California, I don’t know how much of an exception these students are to the rest of their graduating class but this suggested to me that a degree from UT was somewhat portable. </p>
<p>I expect that the majority of students going to Texas want to live in Texas and this might account for the majority of their graduates working in Texas. I would expect that a majority of students attending USC and UCLA have a preference for living in California. (I don’t have any feel for Vandy and Tennessee) So, it is not a surprise that the majority of students employed after graduating from these schools work within their state. The question I have is, would this be due to lack of protability or by choice? Are the students from Texas that I know of outstanding for their class or just among the few who chose to leave? Conversely, I would wonder, how good the employment options are to work in Texas even if the school is a T14. (Texans often love Texans). This is really a guess on my part but I wonder if regional preferences over far away T14 schools hold up for states other than NY, DC area, possibly California and maybe a few others that as a whole tend to reign in new blood from around the country and around the world. </p>
<p>This is pertinent to a decision between an upper T30 school vs a lower (and possibly far away) T14. In other words for the student who doesn’t know for sure where they want to work, but has a preference to Southern California or Texas and is less attracted to NY and DC, would they have a better shot going to say UT, UCLA or USC vs perhaps Cornell, or Gtown or Michigan ?</p>
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<p>From the links I posted. You’re welcome to peruse them; there’s an awful lot of information available there. </p>
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<p>This is a fair point. There’s almost certainly some degree of self-selection involved. However, given the portability of T14 degrees, I expect it’s not an overwhelming factor. That is, if you want to live in Texas you could go to UT for its relatively high Texas placement, but if you could also go to UVA you may well be better off because UVA is a much better school that also can place well into Texas. </p>
<p>I am at an east-coast T14 and I got a BigLaw SA in Cali, and so did the rest of my friends who wanted them. Judging by the bios of the attorneys at the firms I did OCI for, 2 sets of students got into Cali BigLaw: T14 students and top regional school students, with a heavy emphasis on the former.</p>
<p>Thank you! I didn’t realize what those links were. That is a really interesting site. It will take a little bit to sort out the information but I had not seen that information any place else that I looked.</p>
<p>@The Brian: To some extent, if location is more important than opportunity, you are better off going to a regional school. So, if someone wanted to live in CA, a GULC graduate will have better options for employment, but they might be elsewhere. A USC grad will have poorer options, but they’ll tend to cluster in CA.</p>
<p>the issue there is that since the recession, the numbers haven’t necessarily indicated that gulc grads will enjoy greater options. the big law numbers in general (irrespective of region) for georgetown in recent years don’t indicate it has a clear advantage in big law hiring over a school like usc. for example, last year usc (barely) placed a higher percentage of students in big law than gulc, indicating that any marginal difference in t14 recognition may not be worth the potential opportunities one may receive in attending law school in the region one wants to practice.</p>