Rankings

Where Did the Fortune 500 CEOs Go to Law School?

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Since 1955, Fortune magazine has published the Fortune 500, a comprehensive ranking of the top closely held and public corporations in the United States as ranked by gross revenue. In the past, we’ve spoken about other Fortune magazine rankings, like its annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, where top law firms have been included year after year.

But it seems that lawyers have pervaded the Fortune 500 rankings as well, because some of the biggest companies in the nation are headed by law school graduates. As we noted in Morning Docket, of the 498 CEOs named on this year’s list, 46 of them went to law school.

But which schools did they attend? Let’s find out….

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Morning Docket: 06.27.12

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* Pay up or shut up: Dewey former partners need to worry about getting our kneecaps busted by the banks that loaned us money to fulfill our capital contributions? [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]

* Senate leaders reached a tentative deal to keep student-loan interest rates at 3.4%. Too bad this only applies to undergrads — law students are still left holding the bag. [Wall Street Journal]

* Your mom probably told you not to be a tattletale, but evidently that kind of behavior really pays off in court. Adam Smith, formerly of Galleon, was sentenced to only two years’ probation for his “very substantial” aid in Raj Rajaratnam’s insider trading trial. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Forty-six CEOs on the 2012 Fortune 500 list went to law school, but only four hold degrees from schools outside the U.S. News Top 100, and just one went to an RNP school. Yikes. [U.S. News & World Report]

* Was this Nova Law professor “mentally deranged enough to engage in a campus shooting rampage”? That’s apparently what members of the administration thought when they fired him. [National Law Journal]

* Anna Gristina, the accused “Millionaire Madam,” was released last night on $250K bond after spending four months behind bars. Looks like it’s back to the world’s oldest profession for this soccer mom. [Reuters]

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Best Law Schools For Biglaw

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If you want to get into Biglaw, it's all about the Ivy.

It’s a list that should mean more than it does: which law schools are best at sending their graduates to large law firms, aka Biglaw?

There are a lot of reasons this question isn’t asked more often: law schools don’t like their supposed professional value to be reduced to placements at top firms, prospective law students don’t like to think that in three years they’ll have a “Biglaw or bust” mentality, and Biglaw placement lists undervalue clerkship appointments (which often turn into Biglaw gigs a year or two later). Intellectually, it feels small-minded to put a heavy focus on whether or not a school sends a high proportion of its graduates straight into Biglaw after graduation.

Except that in a world with ever-rising tuition costs, the ability to place students in Biglaw is more important than ever. Biglaw jobs are pretty much the only ones out there that pay enough money for graduates to be able to manage their ridiculous debt loads. And there are fewer Biglaw jobs than before. Top law schools should be able to place well in Biglaw, or they should be offering tuition rebates to students.

If the kids who are thinking about going to law school refuse to pay attention to life’s realities, maybe the parents who are pushing their children into the legal profession will take note. Here are the top schools for placing in Biglaw. If your kid isn’t getting into one of these schools, maybe you should reconsider co-signing their loans…

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2013 Vault Law Firm Rankings: Prestige Can’t Buy You Money

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The new Vault Rankings are out. It’s a fun day for large law firms — a day when their prestige is matched against that of their peers.

The day is even more significant this year, since it appears that so-called “top” Biglaw firms are now paying bonuses largely in “prestige points.”

Vault ranks the prestige of firms based on nearly 17,000 surveys sent to law firm associates all across the country. Just by looking at the top ten firms, I think we can agree that associates who fill out these surveys have no memory and have really enjoyed this period of salary stagnation.

As I mentioned last week when talking about associate hours, it seems Biglaw partners really know what they’re doing. Whether we’re talking about prestige or associate hours, partners have figured out that associates will take less money and like it….

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Quote of the Day: Don’t Just Flyover, Sit and Stay a While

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Susan Poser

The media and other experts might do well to check out what’s going on with legal education in the vast expanse in the middle of this beautiful country. They might be surprised at what they find.

– University of Nebraska College of Law Dean Susan Poser, criticizing the U.S. News law school rankings in a letter to the editor of the New York Times. (Dean Poser was writing in response to Professor Brian Tamanaha’s recent op-ed piece on how to make law school affordable.)

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The Hastings Gambit

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This week, the law school press has been focused on the UC Hastings College of Law. Hastings Law Dean Frank Wu announced that his school would be voluntarily reducing its enrollment by 20 percent over the next three years.

The mainstream press has noticed, too. The Wall Street Journal did an article about Wu’s attempt to “reboot” legal education, and the Dean gave a long interview to USA Today.

Hastings isn’t the first law school to reduce enrollment, but the school’s move is more significant because of the rhetoric Dean Wu is putting behind it. Wu is making the philosophical case against huge law school class sizes in this challenging job market.

But is it all about changing the nature of legal education, or is Hastings being pushed into these moves by the familiar forces of disappointing employment statistics, and a desire to climb up the U.S. News rankings? Critics have said that the school isn’t “voluntarily” doing anything.

Then again, if Hastings is doing something objectively good for prospective students, maybe it doesn’t even matter how the administration came to the decision….

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The 2012 Am Law 100: Revenue and Profits Continue To Climb

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As we mentioned last week, the American Lawyer recently released its highly influential, closely watched Am Law 100 law firm rankings. And despite all the doom and gloom permeating the legal profession, as well as the stagnant bonuses for associates lucky enough to make it into Biglaw, partners at large law firms are living just as large as ever.

In a way, the recovery in Biglaw is not unlike the recovery in America in general. If you were already well-off, you’re doing great now. It’s just not trickling down to anybody else. See, e.g., anemic spring bonuses.

Interestingly enough, the division of the world into “haves and have-nots” continues even into the world of major law firms. Partners at super-top-tier firms are putting even more distance between themselves and partners at less high-powered or less profitable firms.

Let’s look at the numbers, shall we?

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The 2012 Top Ten Family-Friendly Firms According to Yale Law

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If you’ve been thinking about having a family while working in Biglaw, most would have these words of wisdom for you: GFL. However, if you’ve decided to “pull the goalie,” then we’ve got some good news for you: at some firms, you can truly have it all.

The Yale Law Women are out with their annual list of the top ten family-friendly firms. We cover this list every year (click here for our posts in 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008). This year’s list has changed dramatically from last year’s — only four firms have returned, with six new firms joining them.

But which firms made the cut? Which firms had the best options available to both men and women? Let’s take a look at the latest ranking for the most family-friendly firms….

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ATL Survey Update: Shiny Happy Firms

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In the nascent spirit of positivity around here, let’s take a look at where, according to our research, Biglaw’s happiest troopers can be found.

To be sure, lawyers are a notoriously depressive lot. Various studies — and presumably Will Meyerhofer — suggest that the characteristics that make a good lawyer actually correlate with clinical depression. Combine these alleged traits with crushing debt, an oversaturated job market, and an uncertain future, and the industry seems mired in malaise.

But what about those fortunate ones who’ve managed to snag a coveted Biglaw gig? Why, not only are they employed, but they have a realistic chance to pay off their loans. Are they any more upbeat than the industry’s rank-and-file? Our own survey data strongly suggests the answer is definitely maybe.

Respondents to our ongoing ATL School & Firm Insider Survey give their “firm morale” a mean rating of 6.81 out of 10. (By the way, if you haven’t yet, please take the survey here.) For context, lawyers rate morale a bit higher than “hours” (6.55) and bit lower than “training” (6.88). So, generally speaking, firm morale is not conspicuously singled out by lawyers as a negative.

But which are the happiest firms? And the unhappiest? Let’s have a look at the Biglaw shops getting top marks for esprit de corps….

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The Most Influential Lawyers in the World: Attorneys on the Time 100

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Of course HRH - 'Her Royal Hillaryness' - made the list.

Earlier this week, Time magazine released its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, the Time 100. For lawyers, there’s good news and there’s bad news.

The good news: lawyers represent over 10 percent of the Time 100. The bad news: many of the law-degree-holding honorees were not recognized for their work as lawyers.

So which legal eagles soared into the Time 100 this year?

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