newbie question

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>what are the overall top law firms by prestige, selectivity, and quality?</p>

2

<p>All of those answers will come when you are in law school. It varies by city and by practice area. Pretty much from the moment that you become a 1L, you will hear about the various law firms from your classmates, from your career planning and placement office and from various guides that are used for planning your career. </p>

<p>Are you a law student? If so, in what area of law are you interested in practicing? Where do you want to practice law?</p>

3

<p>I’ll be a freshman (undergraduate) at Wharton this fall. I’m thinking of corporate law in the NYC/Boston area.</p>

4

<p>Oh that question will only result into broad answers. Your question certainly depends on city of practice and area of practice. But in terms of quality, I’m going to assume you mean the various practice areas in one firm. If that’s the case then I’d say Baker and McKenzie</p>

5

<p>Daaaaang! Congrats on your admission and enrollment to the Wharton; I feel so mediocre. :p</p>

6

<p>For what field are you mentioning Baker and Mackenzie? They may be big, but they aren’t really one of the firms you hear mentioned very much in New York, and they don’t even have a Boston office. Like I said, please let’s leave a discussion of the best law firms for once someone gets into law school.</p>

7

<p>studentforever, I am a corporate lawyer. Please feel free to send me a private message if you want to discuss this further or you would like some more information.</p>

8

<p>What do you mean by selectivity? I don’t think law firms list their acceptance rate</p>

9

<p>Following up with another newbie question…to grads of the top 16 take all the jobs in the public sector (ADAs, AUSAs, Public Defenders, Govenors counsel, ect) urban areas or are these jobs usually considered lower/not worth the pay?</p>

10

<p>here are Vault’s rankings:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.vault.com/nr/lawrankings.jsp?law2006=1&ch_id=242[/url]”>http://www.vault.com/nr/lawrankings.jsp?law2006=1&ch_id=242&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

11

<p>If the OP is thinking of corporate law, league tables and ratings of firms in economic and business journals will be the most valuable information for the OP.</p>

<p>Just for example:</p>

<p>Here is global information from an M&A league table for the first half of 2006:</p>

<p>Leading M&A Law Firms by Value of Deals, first half of 2006</p>

<ol>
<li> Sullivan & Cromwell, 73 deals, $279.0 billion value, 2005 rank #1</li>
<li> Skadden Arps, 112 deals, $220.8 billion value, 2005 rank #7</li>
<li> Freshfields, 125 deals, $201.2 billion value, 2005 rank #5</li>
<li> Linklaters, 114 deals, $179.6 billion value, 2005 rank #22</li>
<li> Weil Gotshal, 80 deals, $163.5 billion value, 2005 rank #9</li>
<li> Clifford Chance, 150 deals, $157.0 billion value, 2005 rank #6</li>
<li> Wachtell Lipton, 35 deals, $153.9 billion value, 2005 rank #2</li>
<li> Osler Hoskin & Harcourt, 34 deals, $145.3 billion value, 2005 rank #21</li>
<li> Cleary Gottlieb, 57 deals, $131.2 billion value, 2005 rank #3</li>
<li> Fried Frank, 27 deals, $129.3 billion value, 2005 rank #73</li>
</ol>

<p>You have to know what you are looking for, and the folks in career planning once you get to law school will know where to find this information. Speculation on this board from non-lawyers or non-law students is really just not very helpful.</p>