Thanks to the new granular employment data reported by law schools to the American Bar Association, we can try to evaluate student outcomes by a variety of metrics. I thought I'd try to rank schools by "elite employment outcomes" from the Class of 2012 data.

This ranking looks at two employment figures: full-time, long-term bar passage-required employment in firms of 101 or more attorneys; and federal clerkships.

No ranking is perfect, and this one is no exception. There are plenty of "elite" jobs that are not at law firms of more than 100 attorneys, particularly elite public interest positions, financial sector or other JD-preferred positions, or academic positions for those with a joint JD-PhD. There are "elite" boutiques with 100 or fewer attorneys. Not all federal clerkships are created equal. But this is at least a rough metric of two objective elements.

One additional complicating factor is the existence of school-funded positions. I opted to discount the employment rate by the school-funded rate for all full-time, long-term, bar passage-required employment. Unfortunately, schools do not report the size of the firms for students receiving school-funded positions, and it may be that there are fewer school-funded positions at larger firms than smaller firms. But, with the metrics I have, I opted to include the rough discount across the board and accept the lack of precision.

Finally, I decided to visualize the rankings, because sometimes numerical rankings don't indicate the gaps in performance. There are fourteen schools that had over 50% of their students obtain elite employment outcomes; the fifteenth-ranked school was below 40%, which is demonstrated in the gap in the visualization below. I included in the graphic all schools with at least 20%; in the ranking, I included the forty-two schools with at least 15%. (Also of note: fifteen schools had less than 1% of their graduates obtain elite employment outcomes.)

 
 
 
 
 
 
  Class
  of 2012 data
  Class
  101+
  Less funded
  Fed clerks
  Total
 

  PENNSYLVANIA, UNIVERSITY
  OF
  270
  180
  175.1
  28
  75.2%
 

  STANFORD UNIVERSITY
  181
  85
  82.9
  51
  74.0%
 

  HARVARD UNIVERSITY
  590
  316
  306.2
  105
  69.7%
 

  COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
  469
  301
  274.9
  37
  66.5%
 

  CHICAGO, UNIVERSITY OF
  215
  121
  110.9
  31
  66.0%
 

  YALE UNIVERSITY
  222
  71
  66.7
  77
  64.7%
 

  CORNELL UNIVERSITY
  190
  110
  109.3
  12
  63.9%
 

  DUKE UNIVERSITY
  225
  115
  114.4
  29
  63.7%
 

  CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY,
  UNIVERSITY OF
  312
  167
  167.0
  21
  60.3%
 

  NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
  482
  287
  249.1
  27
  57.3%
 

  NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
  295
  145
  144.4
  19
  55.4%
 

  VIRGINIA, UNIVERSITY OF
  364
  174
  146.7
  45
  52.7%
 

  CALIFORNIA-IRVINE,
  UNIVERSITY OF
  56
  13
  13.0
  16
  51.8%
 

  MICHIGAN, UNIVERSITY OF
  388
  168
  166.4
  33
  51.4%
 

  GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
  626
  245
  223.1
  23
  39.3%
 

  VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
  196
  56
  56.0
  20
  38.8%
 

  CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES,
  UNIVERSITY OF
  333
  114
  110.7
  16
  38.0%
 

  SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA,
  UNIVERSITY OF
  221
  68
  68.0
  15
  37.6%
 

  TEXAS AT AUSTIN,
  UNIVERSITY OF
  373
  100
  99.3
  31
  34.9%
 

  FORDHAM UNIVERSITY
  486
  148
  147.5
  14
  33.2%
 

  BOSTON UNIVERSITY
  273
  74
  74.0
  13
  31.9%
 

  NOTRE DAME, UNIVERSITY OF
  196
  44
  43.0
  18
  31.1%
 

  BOSTON COLLEGE
  260
  66
  66.0
  6
  27.7%
 

  EMORY UNIVERSITY
  266
  60
  54.8
  17
  27.0%
 

  GEORGIA, UNIVERSITY OF
  229
  40
  40.0
  20
  26.2%
 

  WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
  300
  69
  67.7
  10
  25.9%
 

  GEORGE WASHINGTON
  UNIVERSITY
  575
  157
  116.9
  22
  24.2%
 

  ILLINOIS, UNIVERSITY OF
  213
  47
  44.5
  4
  22.8%
 

  NORTH CAROLINA,
  UNIVERSITY OF
  256
  42
  41.1
  12
  20.7%
 

  WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
  142
  22
  22.0
  7
  20.4%
 

  WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY
  156
  23
  23.0
  7
  19.2%
 

  HOUSTON, UNIVERSITY OF
  262
  47
  47.0
  3
  19.1%
 

  ALABAMA, UNIVERSITY OF
  172
  14
  14.0
  16
  17.4%
 

  SOUTHERN METHODIST
  UNIVERSITY
  293
  42
  42.0
  9
  17.4%
 

  MINNESOTA, UNIVERSITY OF
  230
  31
  29.6
  10
  17.2%
 

  HOWARD UNIVERSITY
  151
  23
  23.0
  2
  16.6%
 

  WILLIAM AND MARY LAW
  SCHOOL
  204
  26
  19.9
  12
  15.7%
 

  WASHINGTON AND LEE
  UNIVERSITY
  130
  14
  14.0
  6
  15.4%
 

  VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY
  256
  34
  34.0
  5
  15.2%
 

  TULANE UNIVERSITY
  269
  27
  26.8
  14
  15.2%
 

  CALIFORNIA-HASTINGS,
  UNIVERSITY OF
  443
  59
  59.0
  8
  15.1%
 

  KENTUCKY, UNIVERSITY OF
  147
  17
  17.0
  5
  15.0%
 

  
  
  
  
  
  
 

UPDATE: Brian Leiter has included his thoughts here.

I should add that the table includes both the total number in "large" law firms, as well as a discount based on the percentage of full-time, long-term, bar passage-required positions (which is what I use in the underlying percentages). I concede that at many schools, school funding is only available to individuals in government or non-profit work. But I do not have that data. A sound case could be made for an alternative ranking that included all the big law firm employment without any discount.

Ranking law schools by elite employment outcomes

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