Whats the difference between a first-tier law school and a second-tier law school?
You will have a wider variety of job opportunities open to you the better the law school that you go to. For example, large law firms hire most of their people from top law schools. Ditto for landing a federal clerkship. The precise “tiers” depend on who you ask, however. For maximum flexibility, you want to stay in the top 50 law schools, although the second half of that group will also limit your options a bit. Of course, it depends on what you want to do. Certainly most graduates of even third-tier law schools get jobs — just not typically the same jobs as first-tier graduates.
There is a noticeably large gap between the top schools (the so-called “t14”) and even the 15th-ranked school. Consider Brian Leiter’s, a fairly well-known and respected law professor, rankings. He looks at the performance of top schools at placing their graduates at “biglaw” firms. The difference between Harvard (top 3) and UCLA (top 15 or so) is astounding. Harvard consistently places graduates in top firms in large numbers and has them scattered at all of the top firms. UCLA, by contrast, is far more regional and only places graduates in around 1/4 of the firms that Harvard does. And that’s going from top 3 to top 15 or so. While you can obviously succeed as a graduate of UCLA’s law school, you will have to be in the top 10% or so of the class to do so: and everyone plans on doing that when they get there. At least at Harvard or Chicago or NYU you can be in the top 25% and still get the kind of job you’d get at a 2nd tier law school for being a gunner in the top 10%. It may even be
Well unlike med or dental school there is a huge glut of law schools. There are much more people graduating law school than there are available jobs. The simple answer is that the higher tier the law school the more chance and I do say chance you will get a decent job out of law school. Lawyers are a dime a dozen, go medical. Heck, there is a shortage of pharmacists and their median wage is $98,000K well above lawyers. Dentists 180,000K median and there is a shortage, and of course a shortage of MDs. From US News, Poor careers for 2006 Attorney. If starting over, 75 percent of lawyers would choose to do something else. A similar percentage would advise their children not to become lawyers. The work is often contentious, and there’s pressure to be unethical. And despite the drama portrayed on TV, real lawyers spend much of their time on painstakingly detailed research. In addition, those fat-salaried law jobs go to only the top few percent of an already high-powered lot. Many people go
