A US News and World Report survey of law firm hiring partners about where they prefer to get their students from placed Harvard in the top spot, above Yale and Stanford, tied for second.
The list looks like most other law school rankings, with Columbia, Michigan, NYU, UVA, Cornell, Duke, Northwestern, Berkeley and Chicago rounding out the rest of the top 10 (er, top 12, due to ties). The list provides less of a shake-up than the National Law Journal's report on which schools send the highest percentage of grads to Big Law. Chicago and Cornell topped that list at 59% and 58%.
While a list of where people actually go may seem more useful than just the feelings of recruiters, the US News rankings may still be of value. Consider that top schools like Harvard, Yale and Stanford send grads to positions even more competitive than Big Law, such as clerkships with Supreme Court feeder judges. Harvard sends only 50% of its students to Big Law, Stanford 42%, and Yale only 34%. The US News ranking seems to indicate they could easily get the Big Law jobs, they just don't want them.
[US News]
