Columbia Law School scores the highest percentage of 2016 graduates hired by large law firms (BigLaw), according to the National Law Journal. 57 percent of its recent graduates are already working at large law firms.
That's 8 percent higher than the University of Chicago Law School, which has placed 48.84 percent of its recent graduates in associate jobs of large firms. Meanwhile, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, has ranked third on the National Law Journal's list, placing 47.58 percent of its recent graduates in the BigLaw market.
The National Law Journal has also revealed that the top three law schools last year were Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Chicago. Meanwhile, among the top 50 ranked law schools, 24 percent of recent graduates had BigLaw jobs, which is up one percent over the previous year.
The Top 50 Go-To Law Schools has ranked the top 50 law schools according to the percentage of their 2016 law graduates who took BigLaw jobs at the largest 100 firms. The complete set of ranks can be found in TaxProf.
Also, the country's top 100 law firms have hired 3,521 new associates in 2016, which was up by 3 percent from last year. The selection of those 100 law firms are based on lawyer count as derived from the NLJ 350, The National Law Journal's annual survey that identifies the nation's largest law firms.
Meanwhile for many graduates of a law school, a job in a BigLaw is like the holy grail - the dream job. It can be true that BigLaw associates make a very respectable living, particularly outside in the high-cost living areas such as the New York City or San Francisco.
Most of these associates work hard for that money. However, despite the demanding nature of working as a BigLaw associate, its cannot be denied that the job pays well and looks good on a resume, so law school graduates are still lining up for the jobs.
