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Choosing Your Law Schools
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Regional Supply and Demand		Law Schools I've Visited
Job Market	Population		Politics

Job Market

Conventional wisdom says that the higher a school's reputation, the broader its job market.  As with most generalizations, it's true sometimes, but not nearly as often as you might think. Before we dive into the data, however, I feel that some caveats are in order:  

• All the data here was printed in the 2009 USNews, published in April 2008.  I have not verified the pattern over multiple years.  
• Some placement is self-selecting. It's not a coincidence that Berkeley, Texas, and NYU have a higher-than-average number of grads who stay local. Texans, Californians, and New Yorkers are the three most loyal groups of residents I know of.  
• Defining a job market is tricky: is Pittsburgh best counted as "Atlantic," or should it be grouped with the Midwest? Is Connecticut part of New England 's or New York's placement range? And should DC be counted as the South Atlantic or Middle Atlantic?

There is no easy answer to these questions, and I've used my judgment, departing from the reported data whenever I felt that doing so would give a more accurate picture. Here is the resulting list of:  

Schools placing more than half their graduates outside of the school's surrounding region

As you can see, about half the expected "national" schools place more graduates out of region than they do in the home region.  But a number of lower-ranked schools also share this honor, while a number of top schools don't.  

Schools that place between 50% and 75% of their class in the home region are still sending a substantial portion out of the area.  At most state schools, 75% in state and 25% out will closely mirror the preference of the student body, many of whom chose that school precisely because it was in the state where they want to find a career.  As with the group above, many of these schools are surprises.

Schools that place more than 25% of their graduating class outside of the school's surrounding region

In this "substantially regional and arguably national" group, there is again representation from the top to the bottom of the USNews rankings.  One can argue that New Yorkers want to stay where they grew up; but so do the graduates of Washington & Lee, most of whom would hate living in New York.  Conversely, who would expect Tulsa or Valparaiso to place a substantial number of graduates out of region?  

The two charts above list 66 law schools, or about one-third of all ABA-approved law schools; but it is not the top third.  So if you're worried about where you can work after you graduate, bookmark this page.