Once upon a time, before a pandemic drove Biglaw firms to put their summer associate programs online or cancel them outright, it could confidently be said that graduates of certain law schools would assuredly land high-paying jobs at some of the largest law firms in the country. Now that the novel coronavirus has taken hold, things aren’t so certain, but it’s still likely that graduates of the very best law schools will get the very best jobs — even if their official start dates are delayed until January 2021.
Today, we’ve got a recently published, unintentional blast from the past when it comes to employment-related law school rankings.
According to U.S. News, based on the 2018 statistics used in the 2021 Best Law Schools rankings, these are the 10 law schools where graduates were most likely to land full-time jobs lasting at least a year at Biglaw firms with more than 500 lawyers.
Can you guess which T14 schools didn’t make the cut?
Stanford University
Graduates employed in law firms: 53.2%
Portion of these graduates employed full time at large law firms: 90%University of Virginia
Graduates employed in law firms: 71.4%
Portion of these graduates employed full time at large law firms: 85.7%Harvard University
Graduates employed in law firms: 63.1%
Portion of these graduates employed full time at large law firms: 84.4%Northwestern University (Pritzker)
Graduates employed in law firms: 76.2%
Portion of these graduates employed full time at large law firms: 84.1%New York University
Graduates employed in law firms: 77%
Portion of these graduates employed full time at large law firms: 83.9%
Click here to see the rest of the top 10 and reminisce about the way things used to be.
Will these law schools still be at the top of the list when it comes to students landing Biglaw jobs after graduation? Almost definitely. But will the percentages be as high? We’re not so sure about that, but we suppose we’ll see in a year or two.
10 Law Schools That Lead to Jobs at Big Firms [U.S. News]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.