| Topic Name: |
Tiers |
| Message Name: |
USNWR |
| Date Posted: |
07/10/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
Please explain the 'tiering' concept w/r/t law schools. I am an undergraduate junior to be, and am trying to get going w/ grad school plans.
I understand 'Top 5'. After that, though, where does Tier one end and 2 begin? I've heard that Georgetown U Law Center is the last school in the first tier, but that doesn't jibe w/ US News, which I thought was the be-all/end-all of ranking systems.
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| Message: |
The tiers refer to USNWR which ranks law schools in 4 tiers.
The USNWR rankings mean a LOT in the law field. Much more important than the USNWR rankings of MBA programs (where everyone knows that Stanford, Harvard and Wharton are the best no matter what USNWR says).
There are 14 schools that stand above all other schools. And also a top 6 and a top 3. No top 5 or top 10 or top 15. They don't fall into rankings that are neatly divisible by 5.
A top 14 school will get you a job in BIGLAW. A top 6 school will get you a job at a super-prestigious BIGLAW. If you want to clerk for the US Supreme Court, you want to go to top 3. To be a law professor, you want to stick with top 6.
Anything in approximately the top 30 will get you government jobs.
Below the top 30, job prospects really deteriorate fast. The bottom ranked "tier 1" schools according to USNWR aren't really much better than "tier 2".
Before going to law school, realize that most people who graduated from law school are unhappy with their career prospects. A career in law means you can never move out of one state, because of bar licensing issues, and because half of your value as a lawyer is knowing the ins and outs of practice in your locality. Once you move out of that locality you've just erased half your value.
Of course, if you work at BIGLAW and went to a top 14 school, then you'd probably have some geographic mobility--I guess this reinforces the fact that the better the ranking of your law school, the better your career prospects.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
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