<p>Commodore 15, </p>
<p>Thanks for the thoughtful comments. Just a quick note of comparison between Duke amd Stanford law will show that the academic quality of the student body is about equal and the faculty consists of many long-termers at both schools. Duke has its big time faculty members (Walter Dellinger former acting SG) and so does Stanford (Deborah Rhode for example). </p>
<p>But right now, in terms of law school prestige, there is Harvard and Yale and then everyone else grouped together in the rest of the Top 14. All the big law firms recruit at the Top 14 schools, and so I think the best measure of law school prestige is Supreme Court clerkships, where both alum’s and faculty are heavily invested in getting their charges opportunities. In that regard, it is H&Y and then everyone else, with H&Y earning 1/2 of all SCt clerkships since 2005 (NYT article). Stanford is in the next grouping with Columbia, Virginia, and Chicago (in no order, but a combined 1/4 of the clerkships together), and then Duke (2 currently) and NYU (three currently) are fairly close behind.</p>
<p>When O’Connor and Rehnquist (the only two Stanford S Ct alums) served togteher on the SCt for many years, Stanford regularly received at least one and sometimes two clerkshisps frome each judge. This moved it up the prestige meter so that a decade ago you would be right that Stanford was a peer of Y & H. But no longer. Since their retirement, Stanford has fallen back into the pack.</p>
<p>This is not to say Stanford is not a terrific law school, it is and has many illustruous alums. But right now it is not even close to H&Y in the ultimate prestige game – SCT clerkships and it is much closer to the rest of the Top 14 including Duke.</p>