Derek Muller is a professor of law at Pepperdine. He is also a colleague of the TaxProf Blog founder and fellow Pepperdine law professor Paul L. Caron. Muller decided to sift through the data released by U.S. News in the 2014 U.S. News Law School Rankings to create a bunch of top 10 lists of law schools in various categories. The lists were published at the TaxProf Blog. He came out with two days worth of top ten lists and from the first day, we found these two lists to be very interesting. The two lists are Giving Up (unemployed, not seeking) and More Debt, Please (graduates pursuing a graduate degree full-time).
Giving Up (unemployed, not seeking):
1. Santa Clara University 15.9%
2. Willamette University 11.6%
3. University of the District of Columbia 11.5%
4. Chapman University 11.3%
5. Charlotte School of Law 10.3%
6. Southwestern Law School 9.4%
7. University of Hawaii—Manoa 7.9%
8. Western State College of Law 7.8%
9. University of Washington 7.7%
10. Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School 6.8%
More Debt, Please (graduates pursuing a graduate degree full-time):
1. Gonzaga University 7.5%
2. Pennsylvania State University 7.3%
3. University of Mississippi 6.6%
4. Mercer University 6.2%
5. University of Arkansas—Fayetteville 6.0%
6. University of Montana 5.9%
6. Florida A&M University 5.9%
8. Golden Gate University 5.8%
9. American University 5.6%
10. University of South Dakota 5.5%
From the second day of top ten lists, the two categories that stood out to us are We Take Care of Our Own (Graduates employed in law school/university funded positions) and Big Law, More or Less (Number of graduates employed in law firm / total graduates * graduates employed in law firms consisting of more than 100 lawyers, full-time, long-term).
We Take Care of Our Own (Graduates employed in law school/university funded positions)
1. University of Notre Dame 22.6%
2. Boston University 20.9%
3. University of California—Los Angeles 18.6%
4. University of Virginia 17.0%
5. Phoenix School of Law 16.8%
6. Vanderbilt University 15.7%
7. George Washington University 15.6%
8. University of the Pacific 15.2%
9. Golden Gate University 14.1%
10. Florida Coastal School of Law 13.7%
Big Law, More or Less (Number of graduates employed in law firm / total graduates * graduates employed in law firms consisting of more than 100 lawyers, full-time, long-term)
1. Columbia University 61.4%
2. University of Pennsylvania 58.0%
3. Northwestern University 53.3%
4. Stanford University 49.5%
5. Harvard University 48.7%
6. Duke University 45.0%
7. University of Chicago 44.9%
8. New York University 43.1%
9. University of California—Berkeley 41.6%
10. Cornell University 38.8%