Biglaw, Law Schools, Rankings

The Best Law Schools For Getting A Biglaw Job (2016)

Use these rankings wisely -- or ignore them, at your peril.

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Being employed is the best!

Being employed is the best!

Rankings season is upon us, and many publications are rolling out their best offerings for readers’ perusal, in advance of the release of the 2017 U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings and the latest edition of the Above the Law Top 50 Law School Rankings.

For about a decade, the National Law Journal has published a list of the best law schools to go to if you want to work in Biglaw after graduation. The NLJ refers to these institutions of higher education as the “go-to law schools,” and this year, they’re ranked by the percentage of 2015 graduates who took associate positions at the 100 largest law firms based on lawyer headcount.

Before we get to the list of the go-to law schools, it’s worthwhile to speak about the landscape for entry-level employment in the legal profession. While offer rates were sky-high this summer, hiring percentages from America’s top law schools are still dramatically different than they were during Biglaw’s heyday. But things continue to improve from the doldrums of the recession. The National Law Journal has more info:

Overall, large-firm hiring held steady in 2015, with 23 percent of graduates from our top 50 Go-To law schools taking new associate jobs at the biggest 100 firms — the same percentage as last year. Those 100 firms hired a total of 3,412 law school graduates from the class of 2015. At the same time, the 50 law schools most popular with large firms sent slightly fewer graduates into the job market than in 2014, although that 1.8 percent decline compared with 2014 was smaller than the 4 percent drop the previous year.

That said, things are looking up for the NLJ’s Go-To Law Schools. Here are the Top 10:

  1. Columbia Law School
  2. University of Pennsylvania Law School
  3. University of Chicago Law School
  4. Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
  5. Duke Law School
  6. New York University School of Law
  7. Cornell Law School
  8. University of Virginia School of Law
  9. Stanford Law School
  10. University of California, Berkeley School of Law

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You can access the full list of the Top 50 Go-To Law Schools by clicking here.

With more than 50 percent of its graduates heading to Biglaw firms after graduation, Columbia has ruled this ranking for the past three years. Penn and U. Chicago held steady in their second- and third-place finishes, but there was some movement in the rankings further down the list. Northwestern is now in fourth place after finishing in the #7 slot last year, knocking NYU down two slots. UC Berkeley is back in the Top 10 after disappearing from it last year, knocking Harvard out of the picture entirely. (It should be noted, however, that Harvard sends many graduates directly into clerkships, and those placements aren’t considered in this ranking. That’s likely why Yale barely made it into the Top 20 on this list, and why Stanford’s placement in the Top 10 is so low.)

The National Law Journal also has a list of “Firm Favorites,” noting the law schools that specific firms recruited most heavily from. Here are some highlights from that list:

Skadden Arps: Columbia and Harvard (21 from each school)
Paul Weiss: Columbia (16)
Kirkland & Ellis: Chicago and Northwestern (14 from each school)
Latham & Watkins: Georgetown and UVA (13 from each school)
Jones Day: NYU (10)
Gibson Dunn: Columbia and Stanford (9 from each school)

Things still aren’t where they used to be, but they’re getting better each year. More notable than these numbers are the tuition figures appended to this year’s rankings. While the total costs aren’t wildly different, the employment percentages are. Why pay $58,000 to go to a school that sends 25 percent of its graduates to Biglaw when you can pay the same amount to a school that sends 52 percent of its graduates to Biglaw?

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Either way you slice it, this list is incredibly useful. It’s a great way for law students, both current and prospective, to gauge their employment prospects in a still-recovering market. Use the National Law Journal’s rankings wisely — or ignore them, at your peril.

The 2016 Go-To Law Schools [National Law Journal]
The Top 50 Go-To Law Schools [National Law Journal]
Columbia, Penn and Chicago Prove Most Popular [National Law Journal]
Firm Favorites [National Law Journal]

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