The Top 10 Law Schools For 'Job Accessibility'

How would you rate your law school's “job accessibility” score?

Everyone knows that the all-important 2016 U.S. News Law School Rankings are going to drop at the beginning of next week. While law school deans are uttering solemn prayers to Bob Morse, the God of Rankings, prospective law students are getting ready to send out seat deposits to the law school with the best score.

While you impatiently wait to see if your law school has risen to or fallen from glory, why not take a look at a set of brand-new rankings?

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Super Lawyers to the law school rankings scene. Back in 2013, Super Lawyers surveyed outgoing third-year law students and recent alumni to compile a list of the Top 10 Law Schools for Value and Quality of Education. At the same time, Super Lawyers surveyed managing partners and lawyers who were included on the 2013 Super Lawyers Top 100 lists to compile the Top 10 Law Schools for Highest Caliber Graduates Most Prepared to Practice. Together, these rankings will purportedly assist would-be law students in ranking “Job Accessibility” based on their alma maters.

As you may have been able to guess, as with most rankings that include a student survey component, there are some law schools at the top of these lists that are virtually incompatible with hard data that we’ve got on job accessibility in the real world, courtesy of the American Bar Association. First, and just for the hell of it, we’ll take a look at the Top 10 Law Schools for Value and Quality of Education. Then, we’ll take a look at the list that actually matters, because it was based on the opinions of law firm managing partners: the Top 10 Law Schools for Highest Caliber Graduates Most Prepared to Practice.

Without further ado, here are the Top 10 Law Schools for Value and Quality of Education:

  1. Columbia Law School
  2. Florida International University College of Law
  3. New York University School of Law
  4. Quinnipiac University School of Law
  5. Texas Tech University School of Law
  6. UCLA School of Law
  7. University of California Berkeley School of Law – Boalt Hall
  8. University of Chicago Law School
  9. University of Michigan Law School
  10. University of Virginia School of Law

What happened here? Are we talking about the intrinsic value of the degree itself, or its value in cold, hard cash? If you’re like us, you may be wondering how Columbia Law (ranked #4 by U.S. News and ATL) is followed on this list by Florida International (ranked #100 by U.S. News; not ranked by ATL). Sure, Columbia Law has the highest tuition in the country, but according to a representative from the school, “a Columbia Law School education is an excellent investment in a bright future.” The school’s representative may have been correct: Columbia is definitely the leader on this list when it comes to both the intrinsic and monetary value of the law degrees it’s peddling — after all, Columbia usually tops the list when it comes to graduates’ full-time, long-term employment as lawyers.

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Let’s compare these law schools, and you tell us which one had the better “value”: 60.8 percent of the class of 2013 at Florida International were employed in full-time, long-term jobs as lawyers nine months after graduation, while 95% of the class of 2013 at Columbia were employed in full-time, long-term jobs as lawyers nine months after graduation. Moreover, about 75 percent of the class of 2013 at Columbia found jobs at Biglaw firms, while only 13 graduates of the class of 2013 found Biglaw jobs out of FIU. At least Columbia Law graduates are being placed in respectable jobs (read: ones with $160K starting salaries) to compensate them for their insane debt “investment in a bright future.”

That being said, here are the Top 10 Law Schools for Highest Caliber Graduates Most Prepared to Practice (FYI, there are 11 schools listed because there’s a tie somewhere):

  1. Columbia Law School
  2. Duke University School of Law
  3. Georgetown University Law Center
  4. Harvard Law School
  5. Stanford Law School
  6. Temple University Beasley School of Law
  7. University of Michigan Law School
  8. University of Texas School of Law
  9. University of Virginia School of Law
  10. Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
  11. Yale Law School

On a list based completely on the opinions of law firm partners and other elite Super Lawyers, it’s no surprise that the vast majority of these law schools hail from the T14 of the U.S. News rankings. Texas (ranked #15 by U.S. News and ATL), Wash U (ranked #18 by U.S. News; ranked #26 by ATL), and Temple (ranked #61 by U.S. News; ranked #44 by ATL) each managed to sneak onto a list dominated by the heavy hitters of the legal academy. Our congratulations go out to Temple Law: for a law school that doesn’t come close to the Top 20 in either the U.S. News or ATL rankings, your graduates stand out pretty prominently in the minds of those who matter — potential employers.

(It’s too bad that these potential employers didn’t think as highly of Temple Law grads when it came to actually hiring them. Sixty percent of Temple Law’s class of 2013 were employed in full-time, long-term jobs as lawyers nine months after graduation.)

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Did your law school make either of these lists? Regardless of whether or not it did, how would you rate your school’s “job accessibility” score? Please, tell us how you really feel.

Can You Get A Job After Graduation? [Super Lawyers]