Comments on: It's All About the Rankings

By: Max Drax

Max Drax — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:46:08 +0000

Having graduated from a “2nd-tier” law school, I understand very well the elitism that accompanies legal hiring processes. But I really can’t say I have much of a problem with it. Resources are limited; one’s law school generally serves as a pretty good indicator of how smart that person is and his performance at that law school generally gives a pretty good indication of what his work habits are like.

But Justice Scalia highlighted one thing that compounds the problem. Law school does virtually nothing to actually train students to practice law. As Scalia said, even if the law school teaches badly, he knows he’s still getting the smartest kids. So much of what is taught in law school is utterly irrelevant, so it really makes no difference how it’s taught. Just fall back on the name of the school and kid’s GPA. They all learn the same thing anyway.

I would disagree with one of your statements, however. After you get past the top 15-20 schools or so, your career prospects are very similar wherever you go (until you get to the third tier, anyway). So I’m not sure the rule of going-to-the-better-ranked-school always applies. One’s career prospects can actually be better at a lower-ranked school, depending on where that school is located.

For example, the University of Denver’s law school is ranked 32 spots lower than American University, well out of the top 50. But if you want to work at a good firm in Denver, you are MUCH better off going to DU.

I tell people that if they’re not going to a national (i.e., Top 14) school, pay just as much attention to location as you do to ranking. Both are important.

By: G

Tue, 12 May 2009 01:30:14 +0000

One way to look at it is that it’s unfortunate that so many variables boil down to your LSAT and therefore the school you attended, the grades you got there, and the judge who hired you as a clerk, and whether he or she regularly sends clerks to the Court.

On the other hand, we’re talking about a very rare credential being offered. There are 37 Supreme Court Clerkships every year. As a comparison, there are 192 players drafted into the NFL each year, and there are 20-25 MacArthur “genius” awards. At least in the law there is a fairly determinate way to get these positions. If you have a perfect score on the LSAT you can go to HYS. If while there you do better than anyone else, and edit the law review, you will get a Supreme Court clerkship. That’s not the only way, but it is a way. Yes, it might be better if the Justices somehow could gauge whether you chose the best school for your individual needs and excelled to the best of your ability, and then could compare their holistic view of you with all the others who applied to determine the very best candidates, but they are humans with, frankly, more important things to do.

If anything, the tragedy is that so many think that they need the equivalent of being drafted into the NFL or a MacArthur genius award to be successful.

By: DAG

DAG — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:04:20 +0000

Having been one of the few (perhaps the only?) to have attended classes at *both* Moritz and Harvard, all I can say is that there is ridiculously little difference.

By: PG

PG — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:55:59 +0000

I’m skeptical that I got a substantively better education at a highly ranked law school than I would have gotten at a lower ranked one (and I’m pretty sure I would have learned more law if I’d gone somewhere without open-book exams), but like you I advise people to go to the most highly ranked school they can.

There are people who will do just as well ignoring that advice. One of my friends dropped a top 5 and a top 10 school in favor of a top 25 one, and is doing enormously well there as EIC of the law review, getting job offers at all the same firms that would have been open to her at the Ivies, etc.

But it’s just prudent to go to the higher ranked school and give yourself a cushion against the possibility that you won’t be the rockstar LR EIC type. My cousin currently is deciding between UMD and UConn — she’s nervous about living in Baltimore, and I’m trying to subtly impress upon her that she’s better off having her car stereo stolen once or twice and being at the higher ranked school

By: Siobhan

Siobhan — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:19:53 +0000

I agree. The mainstream, commercial version of legal career success is essentially an elitist racket. I would only stress that that is only one definition of success add that it is possible to craft a “successful” legal career surrounded by a less intense brand of elitism and thus controlled by elitism to a far lesser extent. (The entire system is elitist to some degree or other, of course, from muni court to SCOTUS. It is simply the nature of the beast.) Of course, this equates to a legal career that does not include success markers such as BigLaw, clerkships, or lifetime federal appointments. Then again, that works for some (myself included). I chose OSU for its educational character, not ranking, and my career has followed in that vein. Successful by mainstream legal standards? HA! But within my own system? Certainly.