These 20 Schools Produce the Most Big Law Firm Partners

Summary: A new study found that geographical proximity to major legal markets is a factor to making partner at a big law firm.

While U.S. News and World Reports’ law school rankings still reign supreme, another study has emerged that has shown that the pedigree of big law firm partner academics do not matter as much proximity to major legal markets, The New York Times reports.

The new study analyzed 33,000 lawyers at the country’s 115 law firms. While there was a correlation between U.S. News’ top dozen ranked schools and the number of alumni who made partner, the study also found that some schools had a large discrepancy between ranking and number of alumni partners.

Edward S. Adams, a University of Minnesota law professor and co-author of the study, gave examples. For instance, Suffolk University Law School in Boston is not ranked nationally, but it has 167 alumni who are partners. This number trails behind powerhouses like Harvard and Yale, but its number shows proximity to a big legal market is a predictor of Big Law success, he said. Overall, Adams said the study “highlights the power of geographical proximity.”

Alumni who are partners in New York hale (in order) from Columbia, Harvard, Fordham, Georgetown, Brooklyn, Yale, and University of Pennsylvania.

Law schools with the most partners in Washington D.C. graduate are Georgetown, Harvard, George Washington, University of Virginia, and Catholic University, respectively.

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The Top 20 Law Schools with the Most Big Law Firm Partner Alumni

1. University of Chicago
2. Harvard
3. Yale
4. Columbia
5. Northwestern
6. University of Virginia
7. Penn State Law
8. New York University
9. Stanford
10. University of Michigan
11. Duke University
12. Cornell
13. Georgetown
14. George Washington
15. Berkeley Law
16. Vanderbilt
17. University of Illinois
18. Boston University
19. Boston College
20. Notre Dame

Source: The New York Times