How Employers Really Rate The Law Schools?
Q: It is expensive to live here. It is especially expensive to spend a summer here if one cannot find a short-term lease through a NYC law school. But, that aside, the numbers suggest that many in the 2L class landed the best paying jobs in the city. I thought that was a useful contrast to some of the anecdotal evidence Todd provided about some JDs (2 and 3L) he knows who have not secured employment yet. Anyone have thoughts on how the job market will be next year and the year after? Trends? I think the law market in NYC might follow the DJIA or another stock index quite well. What creates a need for a large law firm to expand? What creates demand for the services of a large firm?
A: Well, I am not sure about the grading curves. I would guess that other top but very large law schools tend to have more grade differentiation. This may not hold for Harvard but I suspect that Columbia and Georgetown have less forgiving curves. I am not sure but that has always been my impression. Yale (at least the first year) is graded on a pass/fail basis but that is somewhat deceptive. Students can receive a high pass or an honors pass, I believe. Roughly translated, a high pass is an A, a pass a B and a fail a C/D. If distributed similarly in most classes, then the policy can be viewed as a type of grading. Given the rigorous entrance requirements, however, I doubt most law firms carefully consider the ratio of high passes to passes on an applicant's transcript. Yeah, I really do not know enough about the job market to add insight to the conversation. My first impression is that hiring at different size firms might not be affected by the exact same market forces. If true, a school which places more students in the more insulated market would be less affected by a downward overall trend in lawyer hiring. I do not know if this adds