NY is not a competitive market, it’s by far the easiest city to get biglaw in. Chicago is second easiest. If you want to talk about pure competitiveness in the sense of difficulty to get a job, then Charlotte, Florida, Nashville, etc. are all much more competitive than NY or Chi because they have so few spots, require extremely strong ties, and are very attractive to candidates due to a number of factors (COL, hours, partnership prospects, etc.Anonymous User wrote:It's too strong of a take, but a lot of the schools mentioned in this thread (Fordham, ND, etc.) place primarily in some of the most competitive markets (NY, Chi, Cal to a lesser extent) rather than in the south.Anonymous User wrote:This is a dumbass hot take.Anonymous User wrote:Call it northern elitism or w/e but I honestly think Duke and Vandy only do so well in employment because no one wants to live and work in the South.
But regardless, students at ND generally have three options if they want biglaw: go to NY, go to Chi, or go to their home market(s). All of those outcomes are possible with good grades/interviewing ability. What ND will generally not allow you to do is break into a market outside of the Midwest that you have zero ties to (e.g. if you’re from GA and want CA with no ties, ND probably won’t be able to get you there). I’ve only known a handful of people at NDLS who have succeeded in breaking into CA, TX, etc. without prior ties to the area.