We looked at the US News and World Report Law School rankings a few times over the past 2 months, as well as a new system of rankings by The Jurist. Of course, there is much to say about how these rankings are decided and the pros and cons of each. One key factor used in both rankings is employment data: the number of students who have full-time jobs after graduation.
Paul Caron, a Straus Distinguished Visiting professor at Pepperdine University of Law looked at the US News rankings and crunched numbers with respect to seeing which schools had good employment statistics. A few different categories were examined including: full-time jobs requiring a law degree, full time jobs in law schools or university funded positions (long term and short terms), big law firm hires, clerkships, solo practitioners and a few other categories.
The University of Virginia Law School, tied for 7 on the list appears to be the number one school for full-time, bar passage required, employment. A follow-up survey conducted by Derek Muller of Pepperdine, reveals that almost 95% of University of Virginia graduates had this type of employment; perennial number 1 school Yale was 7th on this list with about 88% of its graduates employed in full time, bar passage required jobs. Number 2 on the US News List, Harvard University, ranked higher than Yale on this list, coming in at number 4 for full time employment. Interestingly, about 17% of the University of Virginia’s grads were employed full-time, long term in law school/university funded positions; here too the contrast with Yale- only about 10% of Yale grads were in these positions.
The list for full-time employment in big law firms was headed by Columbia University – roughly 61% of Columbia grads were in long-term positions in elite firms with over 100 full-time lawyers; Columbia earned the number 4 rating on the US News list. Yale did top both lists in one category – the percentage of students who earned Federal Clerkships. In addition, the numbers are crunched for law school graduates who are not employed or who are employed in non-legal positions
Of course, a key factor for entry into any of the top ranked law schools is a high LSAT score. But as students begin to start their LSAT prep, or consider offers from different law schools they should take a look at these numbers. Yet – as the saying goes, individual performance may vary and a top law student at a school that is lower in the employment ranks may nonetheless secure a great job.
For more information or to see the full list of rankings, see the full blog entries.
