What Are 'The Top 50 Go-To Law Schools'?

Check out the top 10 "go-to" law schools. What does it mean to be a "go-to" law school? Find out.

Rankings season is almost upon us! While we know the only rankings that matter are the ATL Top 50 Law Schools — which focus on the full spectrum of post-graduate outcomes, instead of how many books are in your library — there are still other alternative rankings out there.

One belongs to the folks at the National Law Journal, who annually regale us with their assessment of the Top 50 “Go-To” law schools. And what makes a program a “Go-To” law school in the eyes of the National Law Journal is your likelihood of making your money back by getting a Biglaw job.

We’ve ranked the top 50 law schools by percentage of 2014 juris doctors who took jobs at the largest 250 firms by lawyer head count—as identified in The National Law Journal’s annual survey of the nation’s 350 largest law firms.

Fair enough. If you’re a prospective law student banking on a Biglaw job at the end of the rainbow — and not walking in planning to be a “constitutional lawyer” — this is a valuable resource. It’s a snapshot of where firms are hiring right now. So what are the top 10 go-to schools?

1. Columbia Law School
2. University of Pennsylvania Law School
3. University of Chicago Law School
4. NYU School of Law
5. Harvard Law School
6. Cornell Law School
7. Northwestern University School of Law
8. Duke Law School
9. University of Virginia School of Law
10. Stanford Law School

The full list of the top 50 is available here.

For those like Professor Leiter who desperately dream of “hot takes” that traffic in the myth that you shouldn’t go to Yale, well, here’s the ranking for you! Yale doesn’t come up until number 14. But even the authors of this ranking would balk at telling a prospective student to walk away from Yale so they can snap up that Cornell degree. Yale grads may not be piling into Biglaw offices after graduation, but that’s because they’re too busy clerking. But many Yalies also have different long-term aspirations like becoming judges and professors (or, dare we add, authors? (affiliate link)), and the value of a Yale education could never be summed up by a “how many Biglaw jobs do students get after graduation” score anyway. This is a ranking with a limited, but valuable purpose: do you want a Biglaw job when you walk out of school? Use these numbers accordingly.

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Another public service provided by the National Journal rankings is a look at which law schools did the best job moving associates into cushy partner gigs this year. Well, maybe not “best job,” since it’s a raw numbers game with no consideration of the original class size. If you’re thinking long-term, these are the partners who will be making the hiring decisions of the future, so this list may help make that old boys and girls club work for you. Here’s the top 10 (topped by HLS and GLC, two very large law schools):

1. Harvard Law School
2. Georgetown University Law Center
3. New York University School of Law
4. University of Michigan Law School
5. University of Texas School of Law
6. University of Virginia School of Law
7. Columbia Law School
8. George Washington University School of Law
9. University of Chicago Law School
10. Northwestern University School of Law

This complete list is available here.

So here are some rankings. Digest, mull over, and await the next shoe to drop: U.S. News is right around the corner.

The Top 50 Go-To Law Schools [National Law Journal]
The Go-To Law Schools: Associates To Partner [National Law Journal]
Columbia Again Tops The Go-To Law Schools [National Law Journal]

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Earlier: ATL Top 50 Law Schools