T14 for West Coast (LA) Forum

[BioEBear2010]

Makes sense. Either way, H/C/S are all essentially the same for SCOTUS clerkship placement. I don't know what Kurama's talking about.

[crackberry]

Makes sense. Either way, H/C/S are all essentially the same for SCOTUS clerkship placement. I don't know what Kurama's talking about.

Yeah I hope he'll respond to my post.

[Tangerine Gleam]

I'm going to impatiently re-pose the question I asked a mere page ago.

How would these rankings differ for someone who SPECIFICALLY wanted a Bay Area job (not necessarily BigLaw)?

I'm going to do my own very rough (and surely inaccurate) list rife with semi-arbitrary groupings I cannot support through any data OR anecdotes.

My 0L Wisdom

1. YHS
2. Boalt
3. Columbia/Chicago/Michigan
4. NYU/Penn/UVA/UCLA
5. NU/Duke/Georgetown/Cornell

[crackberry]

I'm going to impatiently re-pose the question I asked a mere page ago.

How would these rankings differ for someone who SPECIFICALLY wanted a Bay Area job (not necessarily BigLaw)?

I'm going to do my own very rough (and surely inaccurate) list rife with semi-arbitrary groupings I cannot support through any data OR anecdotes.

My 0L Wisdom

1. YHS
2. Boalt
3. Columbia/Chicago
4. NYU/Penn/UVA/UCLA
5. Michigan/NU/Duke/Georgetown/Cornell

I think that's about right, though I would move Michigan up to Tier 3. UM grads do inexplicably well in California.

[Tangerine Gleam]

I learn something new every day. Dully noted and corrected.

[Space_Cowboy]

I'm going to impatiently re-pose the question I asked a mere page ago.

How would these rankings differ for someone who SPECIFICALLY wanted a Bay Area job (not necessarily BigLaw)?

I'm going to do my own very rough (and surely inaccurate) list rife with semi-arbitrary groupings I cannot support through any data OR anecdotes.

My 0L Wisdom

1. YHS
2. Boalt
3. Columbia/Chicago
4. NYU/Penn/UVA/UCLA
5. Michigan/NU/Duke/Georgetown/Cornell

I think that's about right, though I would move Michigan up to Tier 3. UM grads do inexplicably well in California.

+1. I think its an age thing. The partners at my firm think the world of Michigan. Associates, not so much. Not sure why.

[kurama20]

I'm going to impatiently re-pose the question I asked a mere page ago.

How would these rankings differ for someone who SPECIFICALLY wanted a Bay Area job (not necessarily BigLaw)?

I'm going to do my own very rough (and surely inaccurate) list rife with semi-arbitrary groupings I cannot support through any data OR anecdotes.

My 0L Wisdom

1. YHS
2. Boalt
3. Columbia/Chicago
4. NYU/Penn/UVA/UCLA
5. Michigan/NU/Duke/Georgetown/Cornell

I think that's about right, though I would move Michigan up to Tier 3. UM grads do inexplicably well in California.

+1. I think its an age thing. The partners at my firm think the world of Michigan. Associates, not so much. Not sure why.

US News.

[crackberry]

US News.

Feel like responding to my post on the previous page, kurama?

[los blancos]

I'm going to impatiently re-pose the question I asked a mere page ago.

How would these rankings differ for someone who SPECIFICALLY wanted a Bay Area job (not necessarily BigLaw)?

I'm going to do my own very rough (and surely inaccurate) list rife with semi-arbitrary groupings I cannot support through any data OR anecdotes.

My 0L Wisdom

1. YHS
2. Boalt
3. Columbia/Chicago
4. NYU/Penn/UVA/UCLA
5. Michigan/NU/Duke/Georgetown/Cornell

I think that's about right, though I would move Michigan up to Tier 3. UM grads do inexplicably well in California.

I think it has something to do with Mich being practically the only T10 without a major market within a 3 hour drive (Chicago = 3.5 ), so it's more likely to disperse geographically. But I would love to know if there's another reason why West Coast firms seem to love it so much. Its CA placement is one reason why its so high on my list.

[postitnotes]

I'm going to impatiently re-pose the question I asked a mere page ago.

How would these rankings differ for someone who SPECIFICALLY wanted a Bay Area job (not necessarily BigLaw)?

I'm going to do my own very rough (and surely inaccurate) list rife with semi-arbitrary groupings I cannot support through any data OR anecdotes.

My 0L Wisdom

1. YHS
2. Boalt
3. Columbia/Chicago/Michigan
4. NYU/Penn/UVA/UCLA
5. NU/Duke/Georgetown/Cornell

This is probably more or less right, although I'd probably put NYU and Penn above UVA and UCLA, but below the ones ranked in 3.

[atitz]

I'm going to impatiently re-pose the question I asked a mere page ago.

How would these rankings differ for someone who SPECIFICALLY wanted a Bay Area job (not necessarily BigLaw)?

I'm going to do my own very rough (and surely inaccurate) list rife with semi-arbitrary groupings I cannot support through any data OR anecdotes.

My 0L Wisdom

1. YHS
2. Boalt
3. Columbia/Chicago
4. NYU/Penn/UVA/UCLA
5. Michigan/NU/Duke/Georgetown/Cornell

I think that's about right, though I would move Michigan up to Tier 3. UM grads do inexplicably well in California.

+1. I think its an age thing. The partners at my firm think the world of Michigan. Associates, not so much. Not sure why.

+ 1

though I also think Michigan had to be in group 3.

[Dinho]

I'm going to impatiently re-pose the question I asked a mere page ago.

How would these rankings differ for someone who SPECIFICALLY wanted a Bay Area job (not necessarily BigLaw)?

I'm going to do my own very rough (and surely inaccurate) list rife with semi-arbitrary groupings I cannot support through any data OR anecdotes.

My 0L Wisdom

1. YHS
2. Boalt
3. Columbia/Chicago/Michigan
4. NYU/Penn/UVA/UCLA
5. NU/Duke/Georgetown/Cornell

Anyone have any insight as to how much (if at all) this list would change if one wanted only BigLaw? Would UCLA's ranking change?

[studylaw7]

Makes sense. Either way, H/C/S are all essentially the same for SCOTUS clerkship placement. I don't know what Kurama's talking about.

hold on...chicago and stanford are equal to harvard for SCOTUS clerkship placement? I don't remember the data exactly but I recall Harvard was ahead of them by a good margin. H and Y are the best schools for getting SCOTUS clerkships. Y has a lower number in total but per capita it is higher than Harvard, if I recall correctly.

Edit: I see you're only referring to per capita. I don't know if relying too heavily on this is accurate. Relying solely on per capita is incorrect, just like relying solely on total numbers is incorrect. In general I think H and Y are the clear winners if you want to get a SCOTUS clerkship. Think of it this way, if a SCOTUS judge was comparing a H and a S/C grad and both had similar qualifications, who would the judge take? I think H would be the winner.

[crackberry]

While this:

Think of it this way, if a SCOTUS judge was comparing a H and a S/C grad and both had similar qualifications, who would the judge take? I think H would be the winner.

may be true, the original comment I took issue with referenced:

Harvard's mind blowing gap on Stanford in SCOTUS clerkship and Justice production

It is a gross overstatement to claim that Harvard has a "mind blowing gap on Stanford in SCOTUS clerkships" when you look at the per capita numbers.

[studylaw7]

While this:

Think of it this way, if a SCOTUS judge was comparing a H and a S/C grad and both had similar qualifications, who would the judge take? I think H would be the winner.

may be true, the original comment I took issue with referenced:

Harvard's mind blowing gap on Stanford in SCOTUS clerkship and Justice production

It is a gross overstatement to claim that Harvard has a "mind blowing gap on Stanford in SCOTUS clerkships" when you look at the per capita numbers.

I dunno if it's mind-blowing, but it definitely is significant. Remember that just because Harvard has a large class approximately 2.5 times that of Chicago, it doesn't necessarily mean that exactly 2.5 more students from HLS are applying for SCOTUS clerkships compared to Chicago. If this is the case, then dividing by per capita would certainly suggest a greater parity between hls and chicago/stanford in terms of chances of getting a SCOTUS clerkship. Also consider the fact that SCOTUS judges do not have to take as many HLS grads as they currently do. They could cap it at the same number as Chicago/Stanford if they wanted to, but they don't. They WANT to take those extra HLS grads. At the same time, I don't think they can take TOO many from HLS either because of size constraints - at some point there is not enough room for more clerks.

I wouldn't be surprised if they thought of it this way: a) take approx. 'A' number of folks from Chicago and Stanford; b) approx. double 'A' for HLS grads; c) add 'B' number of grads to 'A' to get number from Yale (although Yls, c, and s all have similar class sizes, there's no way in hell SCOTUS is going to take the same number of grads from yls as they do C and S, so they take extra from yls.) I dunno if anyone can deny that HLS' large size is not a great asset in terms of representation.

[crackberry]

I dunno if it's mind-blowing, but it definitely is significant. Remember that just because Harvard has a large class approximately 2.5 times that of Chicago, it doesn't necessarily mean that exactly 2.5 more students from HLS are applying for SCOTUS clerkships compared to Chicago. If this is the case, then dividing by per capita would certainly suggest a greater parity between hls and chicago/stanford in terms of chances of getting a SCOTUS clerkship. Also consider the fact that SCOTUS judges do not have to take as many HLS grads as they currently do. They could cap it at the same number as Chicago/Stanford if they wanted to, but they don't. They WANT to take those extra HLS grads. At the same time, I don't think they can take TOO many from HLS either because of size constraints - at some point there is not enough room for more clerks.

I wouldn't be surprised if they thought of it this way: a) take approx. 'A' number of folks from Chicago and Stanford; b) approx. double 'A' for HLS grads; c) add 'B' number of grads to 'A' to get number from Yale (although Yls, c, and s all have similar class sizes, there's no way in hell SCOTUS is going to take the same number of grads from yls as they do C and S, so they take extra from yls.) I dunno if anyone can deny that HLS' large size is not a great asset in terms of representation.

Of course not. Some of what you wrote makes my head hurt, but I think if SLS or Chicago were the same size as HLS, the numbers would look much closer than they currently do.

[studylaw7]

I dunno if it's mind-blowing, but it definitely is significant. Remember that just because Harvard has a large class approximately 2.5 times that of Chicago, it doesn't necessarily mean that exactly 2.5 more students from HLS are applying for SCOTUS clerkships compared to Chicago. If this is the case, then dividing by per capita would certainly suggest a greater parity between hls and chicago/stanford in terms of chances of getting a SCOTUS clerkship. Also consider the fact that SCOTUS judges do not have to take as many HLS grads as they currently do. They could cap it at the same number as Chicago/Stanford if they wanted to, but they don't. They WANT to take those extra HLS grads. At the same time, I don't think they can take TOO many from HLS either because of size constraints - at some point there is not enough room for more clerks.

I wouldn't be surprised if they thought of it this way: a) take approx. 'A' number of folks from Chicago and Stanford; b) approx. double 'A' for HLS grads; c) add 'B' number of grads to 'A' to get number from Yale (although Yls, c, and s all have similar class sizes, there's no way in hell SCOTUS is going to take the same number of grads from yls as they do C and S, so they take extra from yls.) I dunno if anyone can deny that HLS' large size is not a great asset in terms of representation.

Of course not. Some of what you wrote makes my head hurt, but I think if SLS or Chicago were the same size as HLS, the numbers would look much closer than they currently do.

actually you bring up a good point but I think it is the opposite. If SLS and Chicago had the same class size as HLS, HLS' per capita number would be much, much better in comparison to S/C. Why? Because many more SLS and Chicago grads are going to be turned down in favor of HLS given the size constraints of number of clerkships - this constraint is important. The greater preference for HLS grads is only going to be amplified. Although I can't provide definitive numbers to back this up, if I had one million to bet, I'd put it all on the HLS grad with similar quals as a C/S grad.

[crackberry]

actually you bring up a good point but I think it is the opposite. If SLS and Chicago had the same class size as HLS, HLS' per capita number would be much, much better in comparison to S/C. Why? Because many more SLS and Chicago grads are going to be turned down in favor of HLS given the size constraints of number of clerkships - this constraint is important. The greater preference for HLS grads is only going to be amplified. Although I can't provide definitive numbers to back this up, if I had one million to bet, I'd put it all on the HLS grad with similar quals as a C/S grad.

I was referring to the overall # of SCOTUS clerks, not the per capita number. I think you're right, though, that there is a preference for HLS grads (if only because so many SCOTUS judges went to HLS).