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Choosing Your Law Schools  

Reputation

Shouldn't I go to the school with the best reputation?

No, of course not!  Suppose the "best" school you can get into is  the University of Georgia -- but you don't drive or own a car. Athens, GA has virtually no public transportation, and life without a car would be pretty rough. Suppose the "best" school is Cornell -- but you grew up in New York City and too much quiet makes you nervous.

All other things being equal, a better reputation will mean more job opportunities after you graduate. But first, all other things -- what you want from the location, student body, etc. -- have to be equal.

Why is UNC's reputation slipping so much?   It's not even in the top 25 any more.

UNC's  -- Case Western's -- Wisconsin's -- Duke's -- reputation is not slipping. It is ranked highly by academics and practitioners, according to U.S. News and World Report. Its ranking is slipping, because it has not invested as much money in facilities as many private schools have, or because its graduates are not competing in places like New York, where the high cost of living drives salaries up, or simply because it's not in the highly popular urban meccas along I-5 or I-95.  

The U.S. News ranking is based partly on reputation, but it is not the only criterion. Other organizations rank law schools using different criteria, and get different results. The Gourman Report has ranked graduate and professional schools for many years; its rankings reflect a more traditional measure of reputation than do the U. S. News rankings. Chicago-Kent Law Review ranks law school faculties by the extent to which they publish. Each of these will give a different view of a law school's reputation.  Judge Thomas Brennan, a retired Michigan Supreme Court Justice, has ranked law schools by 50 different criteria -- and come up with 50 different "#1" schools!

For the most comprehensive list of rankings I've seen anywhere, the web page of grad student and apparent genius John Wehrli was absolutely #1.  Unfortunately, he seems to be out of circulation.  If any one finds him anywhere, email me!

What's In a Ranking?

One of my students was very interested in NYU because of their top ranking in intellectual property.  When he looked at actual courses, however, he found that their specialty is in entertainment and the arts, while his interest is in bioscience.  He did some fast rethinking before seat deposits were due.  This is yet another example of how a USNWR ranking without further info can be misleading.  

Halo Effect

Specialty rankings are often influenced by the halo effect.  What's that?  It's the influence an external or indirect factor has on the quality being measured.  Here's a great example:

"A few years ago someone conducted a poll to determine the public’s perception of the quality of law schools in the United States. Survey respondents were asked to name the 10 best law schools in the country. When the answers were compiled, the survey found that the law school at Princeton University always placed near the top. The problem is, Princeton doesn’t have a law school. But Princeton does have one of the best undergraduate programs anywhere, and that fact creates a halo which ultimately enhances the public’s perception of the quality of the university as a whole."   (From a speech at USC -- web source no longer active)

Halo effect is part of why universities invest money in sports teams and give honorary degrees.  Anything that gets a school's name into the public eye creates a halo effect.  

What's the bottom line?  No one knows whether reputation correlates to quality in any meaningful way.  Look for the program that's right for you, not the one with the best reputation.  

Won't a better reputation get me a higher salary?

Not necessarily. Salaries are controlled more by the economy of the market in which you work than by the reputation of the law school. For instance, the University of Iowa Law School is ranked in the top 20, yet its graduates make an average salary far lower than graduates of Southwestern U. Law School, a "bottom tier" school. Southwestern grads tend to live and work in Los Angeles, while Iowa grads tend to live and work in Iowa.

Isn't Penn ranked higher than Duke?

Some years -- by one or two places. They've both wandered from 7th to 12th and back again over the years.  These minute differences will not matter -- to your chances of employment, to your salary, or to your ability to impress Uncle Neil when he comes over for Thanksgiving dinner. Within a broad range, schools are comparable. Look for what will make you happy before you worry about Uncle Neil.

Where can I learn about a school's reputation?

The USNWR rankings are the most popular, and the most misleading.  It combines apples, oranges and bananas all in one, which is fine if you want a fruit salad, but not very good if you're trying to analyze data.  I've devoted a whole section just to them.  You can also look at Brian Leiter's ranking for academic excellence, Chicago-Kent's ranking of law reviews, and the Gourman report.  But I think that what you really want to know is ...

"Will They Hire Me?"

One of the commonest misperceptions among applicants is that only people who attend "top" law schools get employed by top firms.  There are two tools you can use to test this assumption.  

• The NALP Directory shows where different law firms will recruit.  Under "Search Employer Info," you can enter the name of a law school and see how many NALP firms are recruiting there.  Alternately, you can choose a law firm and see all the schools where they recruit.
  (If you get an error message, simply enter http://www.nalpdirectory.com/ into the URL.)
  • There are two caveats to this method:
    •  "NALP's membership includes ... more than 800 of the nation's largest legal employers. "  http://www.nalpdirectory.com/faq.asp.  That means that many local recruiters will not be listed.  If you're checking out Harvard, it won't matter; if you're checking out any other school in the Boston area, it will.  
    • "Recruit" and "Hire" are not the same.  Some firms will recruit at the local law schools with no intent of hiring from them, or of hiring only if you're a superstar.
• Martindale Hubbell's Lawyer Locator  shows the biographies of the members of each law firm.  By searching, for instance, large law firms in Boston, and looking at the biographies of the junior associates, you can see who's been hired from where in the last 8 or 10 years.  
  • The drawbacks to this approach are:
    • It limits your research to a relatively few firms, unless you plan to spend a lot of hours online.
    • It can increase your tendency to see the big names and discount the little ones. If you're going to search, write down all the names you see, not just the names you want to see.  

Neither one of these approaches is perfect, but a judicious combination of the two will give you far more information than the nonsense you hear on the e-streets, and far less hype than the law schools themselves will give you.    

A Note on Jobs

When I browsed the NALP Directory website, I noticed that, as with many things about law school, the results were not what one would imagine.  Which school has the most recruiters?  Georgetown.  Next are Harvard, Virginia, Michigan and Duke.  My guess is that the DC area draws both northern and southern recruiters, while places like New York and Chicago don't.  Similarly, Michigan will draw both midwestern and east coast law firms.  

When you look at the number of interviewers as a ratio of the number of students competing for them, the results are even more interesting; Duke has more interviewers per student than any other law school.  Georgetown's astonishing 800 interviewers is just a few more than its number of seniors, especially if you include evening division students.  

You want the data?  Okay, I guess I can do that; it's over here.  

Bad and Good Advice

If your prelaw advisor looks exclusively at a school's USNWR ranking in discussing "reputation," you're getting bad advice.  If the advisor thinks that reputation is the best -- or only -- way to choose a school, you're getting bad advice.  Conversely, if the advisor thinks a full scholarship at a much lower-ranked school is a good deal, you're getting bad advice.

In choosing law schools, I help clients balance reputation against personal needs and likes, including financial considerations.  I explain how a top degree can result in more monetary gain than a scholarship at a much less esteemed school, but that a scholarship at a slightly lower ranked school can be a good deal.  

In looking at reputation, we discuss USNWR academic and lawyer rep as well as Gourman; we consider local and regional rep as well as national.  We find the measure of marketability that best suits the client's needs, and base our choices of schools on that standard.