Law Schools

The Best Way To Pick The Best Law School For You

First and foremost, take advantage of the information available to you. 

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Over at the Above the Law podcast “Thinking Like a Lawyer,” Elie and Joe have spent recent episodes addressing the quandaries some are facing in determining where they should go to law school.  If you are an aspiring law student fortunate enough to have been admitted to multiple law schools, there are a myriad of issues that should factor into your decision including cost, curriculum, etc.  But with final deposit deadlines rapidly approaching, I wanted to use this week’s column to explore how best to choose a law school from an employment perspective.

First and foremost, take advantage of the information available to you.  As I have mentioned, ad infinitum, in this space, much of what fills the time of Career Services Office staff revolves around gathering and reporting a sizable amount of data, much of which focuses on employment outcomes for a school’s graduates. The good news is that much of this information is available to the general public, including prospective law students.  The American Bar Association Employment Reports are available online going back to 2010.  Not only do these ABA reports provide basic information such as the number of students employed (defined by the ABA as employment ten months after graduation, i.e., March 15, 2018 for the Class of 2017), they also include an important amount of second level analysis, such as the types of jobs held by graduates. If your goal is to start your career in Biglaw and the ABA report reveals an inordinate number of that school’s graduates are in “J.D. Advantage” positions—jobs in which, as the term suggests, having a law degree can be advantageous, but being admitted to the bar is not required, likely because no actual legal work is being done—a siren should ideally begin to sound from whatever electronic device you are using.

If you have a strong geographic preference for post graduate employment, the ABA report lists the top three states/jurisdictions in which members of that graduating class worked. While a single year of this data can be valuable, there can be instances where abnormal aspect of a particular class, e.g., an large number of students hailing from a state like Texas and who want to return their after graduation, can skew the figures.  Instead of focusing on a single year, take a look at multiple years.  If the state in which you want to practice is repeatedly not listed, or conversely, states in which you know you would never want to live are present time and time again, that particular school might not be the best for you.

While information regarding the employment of a school’s graduates is greatly important, you should also research, and subsequently factor in, what your experience will be with Career Services during the actual three years (or longer) of law school. Ask the admissions offices for information about the structure of that school’s CSO, or better yet, have them arrange for someone in Career Services to talk to you about what your interaction with CSO might entail—let admissions facilitate a connection rather than you blindly reaching out to a school’s CSO. Here at Vanderbilt, all 1Ls (as well as 2L transfers) are assigned a counselor with whom they will work with over their entire time at the law school. Other CSOs will have a different counselor for a student each time they come into the office—not to mention smaller schools which have a single person CSO. No one particular method is necessarily best, but a particular method may either suit you or chafe.

If your interests lie in the public service realm, ask about the employment opportunities available and what sort of institutional support exists for those pursuing that track. Dig into the process of how OCI works at a particular school. Is it all lottery?  All based on firm selections?  A mix?  The differences in these selection processes could greatly impact your interview opportunities, depending on your grades.  As the recruiting cycle continues to push forward into the summer, ask what sort of pre-OCI opportunities are available.  Ideally, by the time you are introduced to your school’s CSO in October of 1L, you will already know the ins and outs of the office, though you should still go to CSO events and listen to the staff.

Picking a law school is a momentous decision that can have a tremendous impact which will continue to reverberate through your life for years, if not decades.  While there are a multitude of factors to be considered, if you plan on ever actually practicing law, or even being employed in any sector after law school, the employment opportunities afforded by a particular law school should occupy a prominent spot in your decision making.

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Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at abovethelawcso@gmail.com.

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