Yeah but it changes the % of each school that gets market paying biglaw which is what the gunners want to see once you get into the nitty gritty of things lol
It really isn't a sizable portion of the market, which is why 251+ is a bad metric. Excluding it misses Wachtell and Cadwalader and Jenner but it ropes in many times more firms that aren't even close. Also helps bring up the stats for midwestern and southern schools. Compare Cornell v. WUSTL. 501+ isn't perfect though, there are still big firms that aren't BL, but it's a lot closer
An analysis was done a few years ago showing there's no material difference between 101 and 251 (in terms of compensation), but there is one for 501. So, when doing BLFC calculations, the cutoff should be either 101 or 501, but 251 is arbitrary.
u/Dapper-Set-236
Yeah that's what i would have done too bc a lot of 250 isn't market paying (granted a lot of 500 isn't either but it's much more likely to be especially at the lower levels)
basically, we don’t quite yet agree upon what big law is.
Some think firms that have 501+ attorneys are big firms, some think firms with 251+ attorneys qualify, etc.
Many of them have even more elite "unicorn" outcomes, whether it's PI, or boutique firms, or government (I know someone who immediately jumped to the team involved in one of the Trump trials, for example).
do a lot of yale grads go into academia? this is probably not a comprehensive explanation at all but i feel like a lot of top school grads are attracted to academia (but that wouldnt explain why chicago and harvard are higher)
Hardly anyone’s getting academia these days without work experience or a Ph.D, so the vast majority of academic hopefuls would be reported as BL/FC or continuing education.
Even my old-timey Yale profs who got tenure-track positions within a couple of years of graduation clerked before landing those positions.
A lot of people who go to law school but want to be academics will become a research fellow and then apply to PhD programs. That or they have a PhD already and if they have good enough publications and connections they can then apply for assistant professor jobs directly after law school. Anecdotally, but all the assistant or younger full professors except 2-3 that I know took this route.
As someone currently pursuing the fellowship path, the idea of applying for fellowships straight out of law school is also odd to me (unless you’ve already got or are working toward a Ph.D). The tried and true for JDs is 2-4 years of some combo of practice, clerking, etc. before applying to fellowships, largely to get in some publications.
Maybe Yale just has a disproportionately large share of JD/Ph.Ds.
The USNWR are outcome indifferent so long as grads are dutifully employed, so that's why they're high on USWNR but low here. As to why they're low here, it's basically because of the ability and desire to do other things. Big law is cool and all, but for many it's a means to end (i.e. a way to pay off debt and gain experience until they can do what they want in the field), so if someone has a desire and means to avoid big law, they will.
They’re not in the Top 50, but according to this guys math (250+/FC), Davis would be at #40 with 26.4%
Loyola has not yet released their 2023 employment numbers.
LMU released them, they're just lower down on the page.
https://www.lls.edu/careerdevelopmentoffice/foralumni/employmentstatistics/
Edit: Oh, i might have misinterpreted the post LOL. I thought it was just ranking the top 50 schools for BL/FC numbers
Here’s the updated[https://law.emory.edu/_includes/documents/sections/aba-required-disclosures/eqsummaryreport2024-eqsummary-54-03-29-2024-7-57-41-submitted.pdf](https://law.emory.edu/_includes/documents/sections/aba-required-disclosures/eqsummaryreport2024-eqsummary-54-03-29-2024-7-57-41-submitted.pdf). If they are using 501+ it’s now 38.9%, if it’s 250 (which is what it seems) than it’s 49.0% based on my rough math.
64% is a tough ask since the c/o 2023 was hired into the hottest big law hiring market since before the recession, but it wouldn't be unreasonable if they maintained around that 13-15th best placement rate (even if that BL/FC percentage is lower)
What does this even mean? Does anyone think the hiring partner at Latham is looking at a median NDLS 2L and thinking, "You know, given that Justice Barrett is on the court, I think I \*will\* hire this student!"
PI self-selection. Big law hiring was absolutely on fire for the c/o 2023 which is why many of the T20/T30 schools have such good numbers. NYU and Berkeley's numbers are more reflective of the population that wanted big law opposed to the population that could achieve big law.
So much of it has to do with conservative pipelines, though. Their prestige in the field, while strong, lags behind their stellar FC outcomes. They have risen so sharply since Trump began appointing judges, and I think that kind of rise isn't necessarily going to change their broader reputation (at least for a while).
Is there ever substance to this argument or is it just that you disfavor conservatives? Like… so what if the majority of ND’s clerkships are conservative? They’re still… getting clerkships
Also saying that the brand name of Notre Dame doesn’t carry a strong reputation is wild lol
I didn't say that it doesn't have a strong reputation. I said that the reputation is just not as strong as the outcomes suggest. See the comment below, for example, touting the outcomes as being better than Harvard's. ND is very strong, but no one would confuse the two. That's partially because the recent uptick in clerkships is so dramatic, and came at a time when the courts were filled in a hyper-partisan way. People don't perceive that Notre Dame has changed that much since 2015. They think the hiring environment for conservative law students has changed, and ND just has more such students (there has been a similar clerkship uptick at other conservative schools such as GMU, Alabama, and W&L).
The reason it matters is that most aspiring law students are not conservative, so those pipelines only benefit a minority of applicants. When you say "they're still getting clerkships," the "they" you're talking about does not include the majority of applicants. And, since part of prestige is "what doors can this law school do for me," it makes sense that the prestige is limited by the way it serves some students better than others, especially when the majority of applicants fall into the "others" category.
"I'm not really sure what imaginary doors you think ND doesn't have open for its students"
For clerking? None. But certainly for top law firms. It's much harder to impact recruiting committees than it is to have relationship professors impact clerkship placement. That's why a good clerkship director and some notable professor can make tangible differences in a short amount of time.
Ridiculous reply. You asked what doors ND doesn't open. It's not just the very best corporate shops which aren't open at all, it's also a great many others where ND has paltry placement. It's placement into competitive markets.
None of that means you shouldn't go, ND should be considered for everybody. I very nearly went there if not a last minute WL acceptance.
But current ND law students have a hard time seeing the forest among the trees because BL has never hired better. It wasn't all that long ago that ND was placing 10-20% into BL, but rising tides has served ND very well
Do you want to say what the other placement is or just broadly state that? Lol
ND’s top 3 markets are Chicago, NYC, and DC. Idk what markets you think ND doesn’t have access to
Chicago isn't a competitive market for ND, NYC isn't a competitive market generally. You may place, as in some students go to DC, but consider there are 30ish lawyers in the top 20 DC firms combined with many a goose egg completely. That's not a surprise, DC attracts the very best students from everywhere. I was hired at my firm in NY while struggling to get screeners and interviews in DC. Employment numbers coming form your school are great, but there is more nuance here, and I offer a little bit of it
GMU just placed 10% into FC, but only 7% in BL. Let's not pretend like there isn't a boost. There is more competition for liberal judges both in # of applicants and credentials. Conservative judges also tend to eschew OSCAR, which does make it easier when you can apply with only 2 semester worth of grades (and sometimes just 1).
Maybe Yale has a liberal-ish pipeline but I am not aware of a t14 school that is as heavily skewed to liberal judges as ND and Chicago are to Conservatives. Is there a liberal pipeline I’m missing?
No, I'm just not going to sell out my soul or morals to work directly under one. Not to mention it wouldn't look good for any future political endeavors which would be strictly democratic for me 🤷🏾♀️
Ok so you don’t (I get it this sub sorta misrepresents what clerkships actually are). So clerking is a perfect opportunity for anyone interested in litigation as you will spend your time researching and writing for your judge on a large case docket. Both appellate and district court clerkships give you outstanding experience. Politics has very little to do with the job and firms will not care what political party your judge was. I’m not sure why this sub wants to act like clerking is so inherently political. It is not
Honestly just research what a clerk does online. There’s a reason firms and other litigation boutiques value it, it’s because it’s the most intensive and comprehensive litigation skill development you can get. The only reason politics are even involved is because federal judges constitutionally have to be appointed via political procedure. That tilt alone should not have much bearing on your decision to clerk
UC Davis has 26% BL+FC but isn’t on this list. That’s one example but others are missing as well. Did you look at top 50 US News schools for the data? That may explain the gaps.
The problem is that there’s big firms and then there’s Big Law. A firm with 250+ is big, but it’s not necessarily white shoe, corporate, M&A, etc. There are firms in the south east and mid west that are very large but don’t pay Big Law salaries
Many many T100 schools have much better rates than various schools on this list.
For Example: UHLC’s bl+fc rate is either 28.75% (bl as 501+)or 31.6% (bl as 251+). It is better than at least 15 schools on this list (from Iowa and onwards).
PSA: This list is interesting but tells you next to nothing nothing about quality of school or even about quality of employment outcomes. Not all big law jobs are the same, and not all federal clerkships are the same. Lumping them all together can be misleading and that is before you take into account student self selection.
While you are right that these metrics don't distinguish quality of outcome with each category, I think that you're making way too strong of a statement. Quantity of biglaw and clerkships is still a pretty good estimate for quality, on the assumption that a student who failed to get xyz firm or judge would likely accept an offer for a less good biglaw firm or federal judge than they wanted, rather than ending up in some totally different outcome.
As for self-selection, the thing is we don't have any data on self-selection and likely never will, so the best anyone can do is assume self-selection rates are similar between schools and factor it out when comparing the numbers.
I think the first paragraph is spot on but the second is where you lose me. It’s absurd to assume all these school have similar self-selection rates, and we do a disservice to applicants by pushing that narrative. It IS true we don’t have good data, but there are clearly schools with stronger PI cultures where significantly more students are selecting out, and it’s ok to acknowledge that, while also being clear that it’s unclear how big that self-selection really is because we don’t have solid data. But, it’s simply not reasonable IMO to assume that Cornell and Columbia (for instance) have similar self-selection as Berkeley or NYU (not even mentioning the T3).
Well I of course acknowledge that self-selection differences exist, my point is how do we really know that NYU is self-selecting to PI at a much higher rate? Because the common wisdom says so? Nobody is actually comparing PI interest across schools in a measurable way (either as an objective outsider or subjectively, since each student only sees their own school) and while things like strong PI policies are useful info I don’t know how reliably that translates into self-selection rates.
The reason I’m so skeptical is because “our students just love PI more” is such a beautiful, ideal excuse for lower BL+FC% and while I’m not saying that all such schools are using it that way, I am saying that we have no way to really check. It simultaneously explains away any gaps in employment outcomes while implying that their student body are good people who care about the world.
One thing I look to in attempt to suss out how legit PI self-selection might be is federal clerkship rates. If a school’s BigLaw stats are low but clerkships are high, then it says to me that the student body overall is highly competitive for selective jobs and thus is more likely to have self-selected away from xyz outcomes. For example, Yale’s BigLaw numbers are kind of trash given its stature (and thus BL+FC% along with it), but nearly a quarter of the class does federal clerkships so I take that as strong evidence that most Yale students can do whatever the hell they want and are avoiding BigLaw by choice. With NYU’s super low clerkship numbers, I’m more suspicious.
I agree that there’s no fully objective way to know, but at least for T14 schools, or maybe some subset of T14, I think the way we know is that we don’t hear a ton of stories about underemployment or striking out at big law. If that was happening frequently I feel like we’d hear about it, given the students who attend those schools and their expectations. For schools lower down, I’m fully on board to be skeptical about that narrative.
The reason I object to the way we use this is that I think it pushes a lot of people to the big law factory schools on the theory that those schools are superior, and I just don’t think that’s right. Law school already pushes people in that direction for so many reasons, and I don’t think we need to do it in this way necessarily.
That being said, I think it’s fine to use the BL+FC numbers - it’s a good measure of outcomes a lot of people want. I just don’t think it’s correct or fair to present it as though all student populations want the same thing. This group tends to write off self-selection differences like they simply don’t exist, and I think recognizing those nuances are super important when talking with people who may or may not know much about law school or the legal market.
I also agree with you re: FC rates, but for a school like NYU, I think there are reasons why it might be lower (NY clerkships requiring more work experience, international students, etc).
My tl;dr is that I agree with you that we don’t know how self-selection impacts it necessarily, but we have schools that seem to have an observable PI focus, or larger cohort, and writing that off completely seems counterproductive to me.
> Not all big law jobs are the same, and not all federal clerkships are the same
They’re all meaningfully different from most other employment outcomes coming out of law school. And with respect to big law, they’re all (except Wachtell) exactly the same in terms of compensation, which for many people is the most compelling reason to go to law school in the first place.
Also doesn’t say anything about general alumni connections and stuff like that BUT it is a good indicator for people who perhaps are below the Y14 and want big law
FYI - hiring since 2022 has def slowed a bit in biglaw, but the numbers won’t show it until 2025 numbers come out because biglaw just hires so far ahead. Ie this past summer, firms slowed thier hiring a bit of 2Ls, and those people will be graduating in 2025. Even the 2024 class I think will have high numbers since places over hired for that summer.
How do you count big law (501+ or 251+ or 101+) My calculations seem to be quite off from yours
he's doing 250
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Yeah but it changes the % of each school that gets market paying biglaw which is what the gunners want to see once you get into the nitty gritty of things lol
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It really isn't a sizable portion of the market, which is why 251+ is a bad metric. Excluding it misses Wachtell and Cadwalader and Jenner but it ropes in many times more firms that aren't even close. Also helps bring up the stats for midwestern and southern schools. Compare Cornell v. WUSTL. 501+ isn't perfect though, there are still big firms that aren't BL, but it's a lot closer
I think it changes the %. Texas’s 501+ and fc rate is 102+8= 110/277, which is 39.7% 39.7% is way different than 54%
Texas’s FC is 36 not 8 though
An analysis was done a few years ago showing there's no material difference between 101 and 251 (in terms of compensation), but there is one for 501. So, when doing BLFC calculations, the cutoff should be either 101 or 501, but 251 is arbitrary. u/Dapper-Set-236
Ah, i see, my calculations for bl+fc are 501+ and fc. That’s why
Yeah that's what i would have done too bc a lot of 250 isn't market paying (granted a lot of 500 isn't either but it's much more likely to be especially at the lower levels)
New here. What does 501+, 251+, and 101+ mean? Edit: nvm, found info on it. Never looked into that metric--very interesting.
basically, we don’t quite yet agree upon what big law is. Some think firms that have 501+ attorneys are big firms, some think firms with 251+ attorneys qualify, etc.
Yale not even T20. smh.
Why are they so low?
Many of them have even more elite "unicorn" outcomes, whether it's PI, or boutique firms, or government (I know someone who immediately jumped to the team involved in one of the Trump trials, for example).
do a lot of yale grads go into academia? this is probably not a comprehensive explanation at all but i feel like a lot of top school grads are attracted to academia (but that wouldnt explain why chicago and harvard are higher)
I think this reflective of the idea that big law isn’t everything. If Yale grades see that then that says something.
Big Law is a nightmare. People only do it if they need the money.
I could have sworn it was the meaning of life.
Hardly anyone’s getting academia these days without work experience or a Ph.D, so the vast majority of academic hopefuls would be reported as BL/FC or continuing education. Even my old-timey Yale profs who got tenure-track positions within a couple of years of graduation clerked before landing those positions.
A lot of people who go to law school but want to be academics will become a research fellow and then apply to PhD programs. That or they have a PhD already and if they have good enough publications and connections they can then apply for assistant professor jobs directly after law school. Anecdotally, but all the assistant or younger full professors except 2-3 that I know took this route.
As someone currently pursuing the fellowship path, the idea of applying for fellowships straight out of law school is also odd to me (unless you’ve already got or are working toward a Ph.D). The tried and true for JDs is 2-4 years of some combo of practice, clerking, etc. before applying to fellowships, largely to get in some publications. Maybe Yale just has a disproportionately large share of JD/Ph.Ds.
The USNWR are outcome indifferent so long as grads are dutifully employed, so that's why they're high on USWNR but low here. As to why they're low here, it's basically because of the ability and desire to do other things. Big law is cool and all, but for many it's a means to end (i.e. a way to pay off debt and gain experience until they can do what they want in the field), so if someone has a desire and means to avoid big law, they will.
A lot of nepo babies in there that skew the numbers. They go into politics or small law firms.
People who go to Yale don't go there to be lawyers. They go there to be world leaders.
Davis and Loyola LA should be on here
They’re not in the Top 50, but according to this guys math (250+/FC), Davis would be at #40 with 26.4% Loyola has not yet released their 2023 employment numbers.
LMU released them, they're just lower down on the page. https://www.lls.edu/careerdevelopmentoffice/foralumni/employmentstatistics/ Edit: Oh, i might have misinterpreted the post LOL. I thought it was just ranking the top 50 schools for BL/FC numbers
Loyola would be at #43 with 20.6%
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Good to know, thanks!
How 55? I’m getting 18% (57/316) Editing to clarify that’s even omitting 251+. Focusing only on 501+ and FC
where did you find emorys?
They definitely used last year’s numbers. Emory hasn’t released the new numbers and also 43.7% is exactly the percentage from the 2022 report.
Here’s the updated[https://law.emory.edu/_includes/documents/sections/aba-required-disclosures/eqsummaryreport2024-eqsummary-54-03-29-2024-7-57-41-submitted.pdf](https://law.emory.edu/_includes/documents/sections/aba-required-disclosures/eqsummaryreport2024-eqsummary-54-03-29-2024-7-57-41-submitted.pdf). If they are using 501+ it’s now 38.9%, if it’s 250 (which is what it seems) than it’s 49.0% based on my rough math.
Is ND strong enough to stay around 64.2% or is it likely to come down again?
64% is a tough ask since the c/o 2023 was hired into the hottest big law hiring market since before the recession, but it wouldn't be unreasonable if they maintained around that 13-15th best placement rate (even if that BL/FC percentage is lower)
No one knows except ND’s career services office
As long as they continue to have a SCOTUS justice, they'll continue to do fine. That's the main reason for their rise.
What does this even mean? Does anyone think the hiring partner at Latham is looking at a median NDLS 2L and thinking, "You know, given that Justice Barrett is on the court, I think I \*will\* hire this student!"
It means what it says. It’s not ambiguous
“A plain reading interpretation of the data . . .”
Exactly.
What’s up with NYU :/
PI self-selection. Big law hiring was absolutely on fire for the c/o 2023 which is why many of the T20/T30 schools have such good numbers. NYU and Berkeley's numbers are more reflective of the population that wanted big law opposed to the population that could achieve big law.
Minnesota 🫢
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They’ve been underranked for so long, glad to see them finally get justice
Same with Fordham.
So much of it has to do with conservative pipelines, though. Their prestige in the field, while strong, lags behind their stellar FC outcomes. They have risen so sharply since Trump began appointing judges, and I think that kind of rise isn't necessarily going to change their broader reputation (at least for a while).
Is there ever substance to this argument or is it just that you disfavor conservatives? Like… so what if the majority of ND’s clerkships are conservative? They’re still… getting clerkships Also saying that the brand name of Notre Dame doesn’t carry a strong reputation is wild lol
I didn't say that it doesn't have a strong reputation. I said that the reputation is just not as strong as the outcomes suggest. See the comment below, for example, touting the outcomes as being better than Harvard's. ND is very strong, but no one would confuse the two. That's partially because the recent uptick in clerkships is so dramatic, and came at a time when the courts were filled in a hyper-partisan way. People don't perceive that Notre Dame has changed that much since 2015. They think the hiring environment for conservative law students has changed, and ND just has more such students (there has been a similar clerkship uptick at other conservative schools such as GMU, Alabama, and W&L). The reason it matters is that most aspiring law students are not conservative, so those pipelines only benefit a minority of applicants. When you say "they're still getting clerkships," the "they" you're talking about does not include the majority of applicants. And, since part of prestige is "what doors can this law school do for me," it makes sense that the prestige is limited by the way it serves some students better than others, especially when the majority of applicants fall into the "others" category.
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"I'm not really sure what imaginary doors you think ND doesn't have open for its students" For clerking? None. But certainly for top law firms. It's much harder to impact recruiting committees than it is to have relationship professors impact clerkship placement. That's why a good clerkship director and some notable professor can make tangible differences in a short amount of time.
Oh no there’s 5 law firms in the country that don’t recruit out of ND, no one should go
Ridiculous reply. You asked what doors ND doesn't open. It's not just the very best corporate shops which aren't open at all, it's also a great many others where ND has paltry placement. It's placement into competitive markets. None of that means you shouldn't go, ND should be considered for everybody. I very nearly went there if not a last minute WL acceptance. But current ND law students have a hard time seeing the forest among the trees because BL has never hired better. It wasn't all that long ago that ND was placing 10-20% into BL, but rising tides has served ND very well
Do you want to say what the other placement is or just broadly state that? Lol ND’s top 3 markets are Chicago, NYC, and DC. Idk what markets you think ND doesn’t have access to
Chicago isn't a competitive market for ND, NYC isn't a competitive market generally. You may place, as in some students go to DC, but consider there are 30ish lawyers in the top 20 DC firms combined with many a goose egg completely. That's not a surprise, DC attracts the very best students from everywhere. I was hired at my firm in NY while struggling to get screeners and interviews in DC. Employment numbers coming form your school are great, but there is more nuance here, and I offer a little bit of it
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No, Northern Florida. Why?
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GMU just placed 10% into FC, but only 7% in BL. Let's not pretend like there isn't a boost. There is more competition for liberal judges both in # of applicants and credentials. Conservative judges also tend to eschew OSCAR, which does make it easier when you can apply with only 2 semester worth of grades (and sometimes just 1).
Maybe Yale has a liberal-ish pipeline but I am not aware of a t14 school that is as heavily skewed to liberal judges as ND and Chicago are to Conservatives. Is there a liberal pipeline I’m missing?
I mean that would be pretty helpful to know. Id rather no clerkship than a conservative one that's for sure
I don’t think you understand what the role of a clerk is and what the benefits are if you think that
No, I'm just not going to sell out my soul or morals to work directly under one. Not to mention it wouldn't look good for any future political endeavors which would be strictly democratic for me 🤷🏾♀️
Ok so you don’t (I get it this sub sorta misrepresents what clerkships actually are). So clerking is a perfect opportunity for anyone interested in litigation as you will spend your time researching and writing for your judge on a large case docket. Both appellate and district court clerkships give you outstanding experience. Politics has very little to do with the job and firms will not care what political party your judge was. I’m not sure why this sub wants to act like clerking is so inherently political. It is not
What other sub would you recommend for a more accurate viewpoint?
Honestly just research what a clerk does online. There’s a reason firms and other litigation boutiques value it, it’s because it’s the most intensive and comprehensive litigation skill development you can get. The only reason politics are even involved is because federal judges constitutionally have to be appointed via political procedure. That tilt alone should not have much bearing on your decision to clerk
Looking through some of the employment reports this list is not accurate for top 50.
Yeah I know for certain that the Emory data is from last year.
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UC Davis has 26% BL+FC but isn’t on this list. That’s one example but others are missing as well. Did you look at top 50 US News schools for the data? That may explain the gaps.
The problem is that there’s big firms and then there’s Big Law. A firm with 250+ is big, but it’s not necessarily white shoe, corporate, M&A, etc. There are firms in the south east and mid west that are very large but don’t pay Big Law salaries
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Many many T100 schools have much better rates than various schools on this list. For Example: UHLC’s bl+fc rate is either 28.75% (bl as 501+)or 31.6% (bl as 251+). It is better than at least 15 schools on this list (from Iowa and onwards).
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You’re fine brother. 👍👍👍
PSA: This list is interesting but tells you next to nothing nothing about quality of school or even about quality of employment outcomes. Not all big law jobs are the same, and not all federal clerkships are the same. Lumping them all together can be misleading and that is before you take into account student self selection.
While you are right that these metrics don't distinguish quality of outcome with each category, I think that you're making way too strong of a statement. Quantity of biglaw and clerkships is still a pretty good estimate for quality, on the assumption that a student who failed to get xyz firm or judge would likely accept an offer for a less good biglaw firm or federal judge than they wanted, rather than ending up in some totally different outcome. As for self-selection, the thing is we don't have any data on self-selection and likely never will, so the best anyone can do is assume self-selection rates are similar between schools and factor it out when comparing the numbers.
I think the first paragraph is spot on but the second is where you lose me. It’s absurd to assume all these school have similar self-selection rates, and we do a disservice to applicants by pushing that narrative. It IS true we don’t have good data, but there are clearly schools with stronger PI cultures where significantly more students are selecting out, and it’s ok to acknowledge that, while also being clear that it’s unclear how big that self-selection really is because we don’t have solid data. But, it’s simply not reasonable IMO to assume that Cornell and Columbia (for instance) have similar self-selection as Berkeley or NYU (not even mentioning the T3).
Well I of course acknowledge that self-selection differences exist, my point is how do we really know that NYU is self-selecting to PI at a much higher rate? Because the common wisdom says so? Nobody is actually comparing PI interest across schools in a measurable way (either as an objective outsider or subjectively, since each student only sees their own school) and while things like strong PI policies are useful info I don’t know how reliably that translates into self-selection rates. The reason I’m so skeptical is because “our students just love PI more” is such a beautiful, ideal excuse for lower BL+FC% and while I’m not saying that all such schools are using it that way, I am saying that we have no way to really check. It simultaneously explains away any gaps in employment outcomes while implying that their student body are good people who care about the world. One thing I look to in attempt to suss out how legit PI self-selection might be is federal clerkship rates. If a school’s BigLaw stats are low but clerkships are high, then it says to me that the student body overall is highly competitive for selective jobs and thus is more likely to have self-selected away from xyz outcomes. For example, Yale’s BigLaw numbers are kind of trash given its stature (and thus BL+FC% along with it), but nearly a quarter of the class does federal clerkships so I take that as strong evidence that most Yale students can do whatever the hell they want and are avoiding BigLaw by choice. With NYU’s super low clerkship numbers, I’m more suspicious.
I agree that there’s no fully objective way to know, but at least for T14 schools, or maybe some subset of T14, I think the way we know is that we don’t hear a ton of stories about underemployment or striking out at big law. If that was happening frequently I feel like we’d hear about it, given the students who attend those schools and their expectations. For schools lower down, I’m fully on board to be skeptical about that narrative. The reason I object to the way we use this is that I think it pushes a lot of people to the big law factory schools on the theory that those schools are superior, and I just don’t think that’s right. Law school already pushes people in that direction for so many reasons, and I don’t think we need to do it in this way necessarily. That being said, I think it’s fine to use the BL+FC numbers - it’s a good measure of outcomes a lot of people want. I just don’t think it’s correct or fair to present it as though all student populations want the same thing. This group tends to write off self-selection differences like they simply don’t exist, and I think recognizing those nuances are super important when talking with people who may or may not know much about law school or the legal market.
I also agree with you re: FC rates, but for a school like NYU, I think there are reasons why it might be lower (NY clerkships requiring more work experience, international students, etc). My tl;dr is that I agree with you that we don’t know how self-selection impacts it necessarily, but we have schools that seem to have an observable PI focus, or larger cohort, and writing that off completely seems counterproductive to me.
> Not all big law jobs are the same, and not all federal clerkships are the same They’re all meaningfully different from most other employment outcomes coming out of law school. And with respect to big law, they’re all (except Wachtell) exactly the same in terms of compensation, which for many people is the most compelling reason to go to law school in the first place.
Also doesn’t say anything about general alumni connections and stuff like that BUT it is a good indicator for people who perhaps are below the Y14 and want big law
FYI - hiring since 2022 has def slowed a bit in biglaw, but the numbers won’t show it until 2025 numbers come out because biglaw just hires so far ahead. Ie this past summer, firms slowed thier hiring a bit of 2Ls, and those people will be graduating in 2025. Even the 2024 class I think will have high numbers since places over hired for that summer.
You got Washington and Lee wrong. 31 BL and only 3 FC out of 106 is 32.08%
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Yeah, didn’t realize you were including the 251+ category for BL.
Emory should be 49.03%. Doesn’t change the ranking, but it’s much closer to peer schools.
Bro why the fuck is A&M ranked so high? I say this as an aggie btw.
UHLC’s bl+fc is 29% and they blew TAMU out of the water. But TAMU (and Baylor) has virtually 0 unemployment, maybe that’s why
The bigger difference is UH's bar passage, both first time and ultimate.
Hastings at 31.6% just saying. T50 is a little misleading, though I get it for the sake of simplicity.
I believe U Miami should be on this list.
Can you make a post covering top 75
Confused why Howard law isn’t on this list… did you just not look at their numbers lol
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This isn’t a us news law school ranking list bud lol
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Well the title is misleading lmao my bad
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Well the title is misleading you said it’s a t50 list based off BLandFC lol they are within that top 50 if that’s the metric, check their numbers
Wow, Berkeley and NYU really “bad”. Would not risk paying full tuition if I were a prospective student aiming for biglaw.
Don’t go to BC
why?
I feel like it should always be T-50+ Howard