David’s recent pitch to prospective law students encouraging them to turn down invitations to enroll where I teach and accept invitations to enroll where he teaches reminds me of this pretty good essay on the complex relationship between law school rank and career success. VC readers who are in the happy position of choosing among various acceptances to law school should take a look.
My own take is that going to a higher-ranked, more established, and more prestigious school tends to open some types of career doors more easily; the higher up the ladder your school, the less a student has to achieve once enrolled to benefit from those open doors. This does not mean that students necessarily should go to the “best” school that admits them. Law school is a three-year commitment, and considations such as location, cost, “feel”, and specific career interests and priorities need to factor into the decision. Any or all of these can outweigh prestige and rank. Also, some perceived distinctions in prestige are too small to make any real difference; students should not get hung up on the details of the latest US News ranking. At the same time, I think most lawyers would say that the presumption should be in favor of going to the “best” school that admits them assuming that there are substantial differences in the rank/prestige of schools they are considering. Of course, as David notes, actual mileage may vary.
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