Columbia is No. 1 on list of law schools with highest BigLaw placement; Yale isn't among top 10
For those who hope earning a juris doctor degree will be a ticket to a high paid job as a BigLaw associate, a new National Law Journal survey points to 10 well-known law schools that send the highest percentage of their graduates to the nation’s elite law firms.
Columbia Law School is number one on that list, having placed 66.24 percent of its recent graduates at the 250 largest law firms in the country, according to the Careerist and the National Law Journal (sub. req.).
Following Columbia are the University of Pennsylvania Law School (63.67 percent); the University of Chicago Law School (61.14 percent); New York University School of Law (59.92 percent); Harvard Law School (55.63 percent); Cornell Law School (52.88 percent); Northwestern University School of Law (49.48 percent); Duke University School of Law (48.84 percent); the University of Virginia School of Law (46.70 percent); and Stanford Law School (45.45 percent).
The top-10 list does not include one of the nation’s most prestigious law schools, perhaps because of the high percentage of Yale Law School graduates who wind up in judicial clerkships and academic positions, among other coveted positions outside BigLaw.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Columbia Law School Ranked Best for Career Prospects”
ABAJournal.com: “Yale tops law school rankings; Duke moves into the top 10”
ABAJournal.com: “Yale tops Above the Law’s rankings; focus is on employment outcomes”
