In a Tight Job Market, Northwestern Is Top Feeder School for BigLaw Firms
A legal publication’s list of go-to law schools highlights how bad the job market is for first-year associates.
The National Law Journal determined which law schools send the highest percentages of graduates to the nation’s top 250 law firms. Topping the list for 2009 is Northwestern University School of Law, which sent 55.9 percent of its grads to top law firms. The number includes deferred associates.
That percentage pales in comparison to figures from the previous year. In 2008, the top ranked school sent 70.5 percent of its grads to top firms, the NLJ says.
The top five feeder schools sent between 50 percent and 56 percent of their grads to big law firms. The NLJ says they are:
1) Northwestern University School of Law.
2) Columbia Law School.
3) Stanford Law School.
4) University of Chicago Law School.
5) University of Virginia School of Law.
Other NLJ lists shows the firms that hired the most judicial clerks (Covington & Burling comes out on top), and the law schools with the most graduates making partner last year (Stanford tops the list). A separate list shows top law firms and their favorite law schools for first-year associate hires.
