Northwestern University Tops Law-School Ranking (2009)

[WSJ Law Blog]

Congrats to Northwestern University, which has the top-ranked law school in the country.

At least according to one measure: success at placing graduates in BigLaw jobs.

The National Law Journal today published its annual ranking of schools based on which sent the highest percentage of graduates to first-year jobs at the country’s largest firms.

Forget faculty-student ratios, student satisfaction, a school’s reputation or any other measure of greatness. What counts most these days is a school’s ability to deliver the bacon. So Sayonara, Harvard and Yale, which failed to crack NLJ’s top 10.

Which schools did make the cut?

Here are the Top 10 in the NLJ ranking followed by the percentage of grads who landed first-year positions at the nation’s largest firms.

1. Northwestern University School of Law - 55.9 percent
2. Columbia Law School - 54.4 percent
3. Stanford Law School - 54.1 percent
4. University of Chicago Law School – 53.1 percent
5. University of Virginia School of Law – 52.8 percent
6. University of Michigan Law School – 51 percent
7. University of Pennsylvania Law School - 50.8 percent
8. New York University School of Law – 50.1
9. UC Berkeley School of Law – 50 percent
10. Duke Law School - 49.8 percent

Not surprisingly, NLJ noted a decline in the rate at which grads landed plum jobs. In last year’s report, Colubmia led all schools, placing 70.5% of its grands in big-firm jobs. “Our list shows just how tough it was for many to move from law schools to first-year jobs,” David Brown, editor-in-chief of NLJ said in a statement.