<p>From my experience, going to a top law school doesn’t help much at all with employment outside Biglaw/ clerkships.</p>
<p>For small/ mid-law firm jobs or many of government jobs, connection is probably #1 factor, followed by your fit/ experience to that employer’s specialty, followed by grades, and followed by your demonstrated interest/ interviewing skills. School rank may factor in, but it’s not a dominant factor in hiring for such employers.</p>
<p>Or else, we wouldn’t see any T14 JD’s who end up unemployed, or ending up at 1-year school funded fellowships. </p>
<p>For the record, from talking to some of 3L’s at my school are struck out at OCI and are still looking for jobs, this seems to be the consensus nowadays. Even if non-biglaw employers give hiring preferences to T14 JD’s, that small edge probably doesn’t justify the fact that much more debt was incurred by going to a T14 JD over lower ranked schools.</p>