brownug

Totally hypothetical question, but meant for educational purposes as well:

Would your job prospects be better if you were in the top 10% of your class at a "lowly law school" or bottom 10% at a "top law school."

E.g.

Michigan (bottom 10% of class) vs. Northern Kentucy University -Chase School of Law (top 10% of class)


***feel free to adjust the %'s too...like 5%...15%, etc. if it would make a difference***

amarkov

Top of the class anywhere gives you a pretty good shot at getting a job, and bottom of the class anywhere makes it very difficult. However, lower ranked schools are not easier than higher ranked schools; if you'd be bottom 10% at Michigan, there is zero chance you'd be top 10% somewhere else.

brownug

Good point. But I guess it's hard for me to not at least give some consideration to guy or gal with a Harvard JD....or Columbia JD...Stanford JD....regardless of their rank.....maybe it's a built in bias ...but those big law school program names would really grab my attention if I were an employer looking to hire a JD grad.

Yeah, it would suck to be bottom 10% at Harvard or Stanford law....but SOMEONE HAS to be bottom 10% right? Maybe they're ALL good students, but it's just that someone HAS to be ranked lower/lowest and that the lower ranked grads are actually really smart and would be great lawyers. Sort of like how the WORST NBA player is STILL better than 99.99% of the population. That bad player beat out all his HS and college peers to make it into the NBA where only the best of the best play. So being the worst of such an ELITE club does not mean one is necessarily bad at something. Just "bad" relative to the BEST of the BEst of the VERY VERY BEST.

Likewise, ...could we argue that someone HAS to be the best at the "lower ranked" law programs? Maybe these are all "not-so-bright" law students, but ONE of them or SOME of them had to be top of the class or top 10%, right?

But I guess your logic is that law is still tough even at these lower ranked schools and so to be the best means that one would have to be pretty good still?

Greybeard

Not all of the top law schools rank their classes.

brownug

Hmmmm...do you know which ones?

Secondly, then how do employers distinguish between who to hire from these schools?

Greybeard

BCG publishes a free guide to "the top 50 law schools" that describes their grading policies:http://www.bcgsearch.com/pdf/BCG_Law...Guide_2012.pdf

Berkeley has a gradng system where 10% of each class gets a "high honors" grade, 30% gets "honors," and most of the remainder receive a grade of "pass." There's no class rank. It's designed to make it clear who's at the top of the class, and to be vague about who isn't.

I've never been asked about my grades in interviews for in-house positions (which are all I've applied for in the last fifteen years). I've heard that biglaw firms still focus on grades for senior lateral hires decades after graduation.

cartera45

Transcripts can haunt you for a very long time in your legal career. I have to provide transcripts with every resume I submit to law firms. Many of my in house clients require them too. One of my pickiest clients regarding grades is a corporation. It is very difficult to know who is in the bottom of the class at the top law schools. It is easier to tell who is in the bottom half. As Greybeard said, if you are not in the top of the class, you blend together with everyone else. Since your first job out of law school will have a lot to do with your first year grades, some students make the mistake of slacking off after first year. As long as they never plan to leave their first job, that's fine. It's also very unrealistic. Poor grades will rear their ugly heads when it's time to make a lateral move.

Honors at Harvard Law go to at least the top 40% of the class. If you do not graduate with honors, employers know that there's a good chance you are in the bottom half of the class. I have clients who will not hire from the bottom half of Harvard's class. They won't hire the number one student from a lower ranked law school either.

Greybeard

My experience is that most people who are hiring have a tendency to value the same sources of status where they excelled. People who earned high grades tend to prefer to hire people with high grades; that pattern easily gets perpetuated at firms and corporate legal departments. People who went to top schools but didn't receive top grades tend to be more school-name conscious than grade conscious.

The big firms I interviewed with at law school nearly all asked me about my grades. One interviewer ran into the hall after the interview, and said, "I forgot to ask you about your grades." (Those that didn't ask probably drew their own conclusions from the lack of any information about my grades on my resume.)

There are other ways to establish a reputation. I've known litigators who were much more impressive in the courtroom than they were in the classroom, and have developed reputations that make their talents highly valued. But there's no question that earning good grades in law school makes it a lot easier at the beginning of your career to land a position where you can develop and display other talents.

brownug

That's interesting that law grades still come up so many years later. ...I as told before undergrad that once I got into college that high school grades would never matter again. It's all about college grades when it comes to grad school admissions and even for normal first time jobs after college. They literally don't ask about high school grades.

And then asking my professors about graduate school, many (if not all) said that grades in their Ph.D. programs didn't matter much (as long as they passed) and are never asked about in the scholarly community for jobs. Instead, they more or less all said that publications are what define you. If you publish good articles in well respected journals or had a really great dissertation, then that's what mostly matters.

Whereas a person with top grades in a Ph.D. program, but who had a mediocre dissertation or publication history would not fare as well as someone with the reverse credentials. .....Maybe that's just for certain Ph.D. fields....I'm not sure. I mostly asked people in the humanities and social sciences. But it makes sense how you get judged....grades are not really the best measure of aptitude in the scholarly community. They really reflect one's ability to master a specified set of material in a structured learning environment within a given amount of time...and the rigor and content is set by the instructor. ....A person's effort may play a lot into it....and study habits...etc. ....but ultimately for professors...they have to prove their worth in research (actually DOING and APPLYING that knowledge rather than just acing some prescribed exam or curriculum). ...But yeah, I actually had a professor tell me that if I went to grad school for a Ph.D. that it's really about publications more than grades ....and class rank means more or less nothing in the academic world. YOu can be top of the class grade wise, but if your publications aren't influential, then you will be worse off than the person who does have good pubs. You do have to make sure you pass your classes, of course, lol.

I wonder if there's any parallels with law where grades may not reflect a person's true ability? Or perhaps the way law students are tested more closely measures real world law skills and so grades are, in fact, good reflections of a person's ability? ...I dunno...just asking.

Also, ....like are the grades completely open to the public to view in law schools? Like could I go to Harvard or...Upenn, etc. and ask who is ranked whatever? Is that what they mean by law grades and rank being made public? Or are they only made "public" to those within the actual school?

cartera45

That's definitely not it. You really don't learn much of anything in law schools that represents "real world law."

I should add that my clients are mostly large law firms and smaller firms that spun off from large firms. Grades are always important to these firms. Some of it certainly is as Greybeard described - members of the firm seek those with similar backgrounds similar to their own. Some of it is boasting rights. Firms like having all those "magnas" and "summas" on their website.

I'll add that, for litigators, writing continues to be important too. Firms will ask for writing samples and a poor writing sample will stop a hire in its tracks.

Greybeard

When I was litigating, I probably averaged eight hours of writing time for every hour I spent in courtrooms.

As an in-house transactional attorney, I probably spend a third of my time writing email messages.

Writing that made me reflect on how attorneys spent their time before email; my conclusion is that email displaced a lot of time previously spent drafting formal letters and formal memos.

cartera45

You're right. I have a client who will accept emails as writing samples since they realize that a lot of solid legal analysis is contained in emails now, rather than formal memoranda.

cbreeze

That's really good. My SonIL is a 5th yr litigator in a big law firm, he works at least 12 hours a day and I think his percentage of courtroom time is much lower than yours.

zoosermom

Neither the student at the top of the class of a lowly school nor the student at the bottom of a top school will get an interview in Big Law unless he or she is a minority. And probably not down the employment food chain, either.

Transcripts are always reviewed before deciding to invite a candidate to interview.

Neonzeus

This is depressing, but it seems accurate. I'm glad I graduated nearly 100 years ago from my lower ranked school, since I was able to have a great career with middling grades. At this point I get solicited by headhunters based on my credentials in my area of practice, and no one has asked for grades yet. I've always assumed that there are more of "us" than "them." I hire "them" (biglaw/top law schools) on occasion. Some are good lawyers, and some are disappointing.

IMO, getting top grades is always going to improve your prospects but alumni can make a big difference too. Getting top grades from a lower ranked school will appeal to alumni of that school, but a hiring manager may also look more favorably on a lower ranked student from his or her own school.

I agree with Zoosermom's posting about biglaw (and probably also mid-law) employment. If a firm interviews at two or three schools, it will establish interviewing criteria. Those criteria will be limited to students in X percentile, students on law review, etc. The firm will also be selective about the schools where it interviews, so the lower ranked schools won't see some of the firms at all. This selectivity applies to summer internships, which used to be the source of the biglaw job offers.

Considering the glut of law students and entry level lawyers, this process means that being a higher ranked student at a higher ranked school is the only way to ensure the widest range of possible opportunities. Anything less results in diminishing chances of employment.