Sometimes the debate we get in the comments section is infinitely more interesting than anything I could come up with. A case in point is a comment we recently received to an old post from a commenter who used the name “UMN LAW ’09.” Like Pip in the Dicken’s novel, this particular individual seems to have great expectations and a pretty strong sense of self-entitlement. In this case, the feeling come from having attended a law school that is nationally ranked by U.S. News and World Report magazine. Our young Pip is pretty dismissive of the other three law schools in town, finding it significant that the U. has a bar passage rate a full eight points above the state average. The post almost immediately generated a resounding rebuttal from a William Mitchell grad, which I link to after pasting in the commenter’s post below.
Somewhat late to the game here, but “Helping Anonymous Understand” is the one who needs some help.
UMN’s superior ranking isn’t due to “tax subsidies” – it’s due to the fact that UMN’s entering classes possess substantially higher GPAs and LSAT scores than any of the other three schools. The difference between a 165 median and a 156 median may sound like a mere 9 points, but that gap actually represents approximately 30-40 percentiles. We’re talking performers above the 90th percentile versus LSAT takers in the 50-60 percentile range. No contest here. And last I checked no one needs to prove “their right to exist.” What does that even mean?
He/She asserts righteously that there’s no gap in bar passage rates (Uhh – UMN’s passage rate is around 98% while the average in the jurisdiction hovers around 90%. What does that tell you?) and that there’s no “achievement gap” between UMN grads and the other schools. Let me know when Billy Mitchell starts placing grads as faculty members at Tier 1s or when Hamline starts getting SCOTUS clerkships. Or hell, even legal employment for the bottom half of the class at UST, WM, and Hamline would be a good start towards your claim that there’s “no achievement gap.”
Anyhow. Not sure that the original poster was the one who didn’t know what was going on. WM/Hamline/UST are the ones that should feel ashamed of their willingness to take $100,000 and turn it into a degree with little to no employment prospects.
– UMN LAW ’09
Click here to see the full rebuttal posted by Savage attorney John Murphy. Here’s what I thought was the money quote:
I clearly could have been a UMN law student. I wasn’t, I went to Mitchell. Know why? Arrogant younger students and no diversity/maturity of the student mix. I suspect you are under 30. I was a returning student at the age of 37, after running a multi-million dollar business for more than a decade. I’d put the wisdom of my choice of school against your hype for the U any day.
Now I feel obligated to point out that not all U students have the same attitude as young Pip above. And I suspect even Pip will one day regret posting something like that after gaining a little more life experience or suffering some sort of comeuppance. If Pip’s ambition is to practice in Minnesota (and, given Pip’s attitude about the rankings, why else attend the U rather than somewhere ranked higher?), I am sure the chief justice of the high court (Mitchell grad) or the president of the state bar (Hamline grad) would love to hear at some cocktail party how they wasted their time by going to law school somewhere other than the U.
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William mitchell and Hamline may be low ranked law schools, but the U is nothing special. Its a large public university that most attorneys around the country have never heard of. It may be the highest ranked school in minnesota, but that is not saying much. When the U starts placing attorneys in Wachtell or gets a Supreme Court justice on the bench, then I’ll be impressed. Until then, the U is just another state law school ranked in the 20-30 range.
As for closing a law school, I don’t think it would have any effect on the market. The big firms in town are not hiring from Hamline or mitchell anyways, so closing one of these schools would have no real effect. The top firms will keep hiring from the U, St. T and the east coast schools.
HLS alum.
HLS Alum must know about some hidden UST grads working at the “top firms”…
A quick count of the number of attorneys at each firm from the Minnesota law schools at the four (the Briggs website does allow you to search for attorneys by school) largest Minneapolis firms (from Lawmoose):
Faegre: 84 UMN, 32 WM, 14 Ham, 5 UST
Dorsey: 80 UMN, 35 WM, 6 Ham, 7 UST
Fredrikson: 83 UMN, 33 WM, 9 Ham, 1 UST
Lindquist: 55 UMN, 36 WM, 7 Ham, 3 UST
HLS,
You are very misinformed if you think the “Big Firms” don’t hire William Mitchell grads as compared to UST grads. True, the average WM grad needs to be in the top 10% of his/her class to land a “Big Firm” position, but I challenge you to do a survey of the “Big Firms” and compile the data of the last three summer associate classes…my guess is 4:1 WM v. UST, at a minimum.
Largest: UST 2:1 WM
Unfortunately true.
Come on folks, let’s try not to validate the things people say about our profession. You can’t take it with you, after all.
What does Largest: UST 2:1 WM mean? The above challenge was to compile the data for the “Big Firms” in Minnesota, not just the largest firm. Let’s see what the numbers are for the past three summers at the largest 10 firms in MN?
Seems like everyone is just getting riled up at a comparison of the various TC law schools. The UMN guy quoted (in response to an earlier post) objective numbers that seem pretty much in line with my Google. If you don’t like it, well, it is what it is.
The only personal, ignorant, and condescending opinion came into the debate when John Murphy decided to brag about his LSAT, GPA, and family job; then claimed with no evidence that the U suffers from “Arrogant younger students and no diversity/maturity of the student mix.”
The author of the post in question is quoted out of context in this post title.
The blog post title — “Recent U grad: Other law schools should be ashamed of themselves” — is drawn from the following sentence in the original post:
“WM/Hamline/UST are the ones that should feel ashamed of their willingness to take $100,000 and turn it into a degree with little to no employment prospects.”
Anonymous,
I understand that levelling my personal statistics at UMN appeared arrogant and condescending, and for that I apologize. It was meant to give UMN a taste of his own medicine, and I clearly didn’t take the high road. I figured however, that without revealing such stats, UMN would dismiss me as a “wannabe.” My goal was merely to illustrate that not every person who goes to an alternative law school in this town does so because they aren’t qualified demographically to go to the U.
Having taught LSAT courses, and personally worked every problem myself multiple times in over 20 LSAT exams (again mentioned only for qualification of my opinion), I don’t put stock in that test as the determiner of who should be considered “elite” as a law student. But that is what, anecdotally, I hear from prospective students and from my interactions with UMN grads, amongst others.
There is an old saw that says that when judges are first appointed they know that it is because, in addition to being qualified, they are in the right place at the right time with the right connections. Later, they somehow believe it is because they are better suited to be judges, forgetting they weren’t anointed by God.
While that is hyperbole at best, the kernel of truth is people forget that perhaps there are others in the world that are equally qualified, who make different choices.
I’m glad UMN takes pride in his school, and I think all students should do so. Arrogance about it or somehow discounting others’ choices is a ridiculous leap however.
As to evidence of my assertion about age and diversity, again I must apologize. Statistics show that both UMN and WM are within 2 years of each other in average age, however, UMN’s range is more concentrated around that average age; WM has a high end age approximately 10 years older than UMN. I hope the U has diversity of life experience; it would, in my opinion, enrich the students’ overall education. I didn’t get that vibe from UMN students I have met, but I haven’t attended there, so i can’t speak to it personally.
I think that we can all learn from this “debate” that (1) there are many paths to becoming a lawyer, (2) most are expensive, and (3) law students/attorneys can be arrogant and self-righteous, myself incuded.
JM
“The top firms will keep hiring from the U, St. T and the east coast schools.”
What ridiculous flame this is.
St. Thomas tries desperately to associate itself in any way with UMN, thereby making up the yawning gap between itself and WMCL and Hamline in terms of objectively identifiable alumni success.
If anything, St. Thomas is veritably indistinguishable in terms of student “quality” (and I use that term very liberally) from WMCL and Hamline. If you could’ve gone to one, you could’ve gone to all three.
The other HLS grads I know agree.
The traditional rule of thumb is a student in the top 10 percent at an ABA-approved school has a decent shot at a job with a big firm (though maybe in this economy it’s more like top 5 or 7 percent). You get a little more leeway with a “nationally ranked” school such as the U. (say top 25 percent get a decent shot). A ‘top 5′ school such as HLS greatly expands the odds.
Of course, not everyone in the top tier wants to go to a big firm. And of course the statistics mean that the vast majority of the grads at all four local law schools don’t get a job at a big firm (even if they wanted it). So I am really not sure what all this haggling is about. Does it really matter if 12 percent of UST grads go to Big Law and 8 percent of WMCL grads get big firm jobs — or if it’s vice versa? How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?
I think local law students and grads out there are all pretty much in the same boat in this economy. There’s no need to get all “Lord of the Flies” about it.
It is unfortunate the LSAT evaluates neither Humility nor Civility.
I appreciate Mark’s note above. I know that WM is refocusing on solo/small as career probability early on. They have been asking small/solos to participate in new panels and interviews to present to their incoming students and 1L’s.
I think this can only be positive, since the vast majority of those 800+ grads each year will never have a chance at biglaw. Nor is biglaw a panacea that people make it out to be. It is one of many paths.
John brings up a good point–the vast majority of law graduates will not work in NLJ250/V100 firms. In that respect, WMCL is wise to engage with smaller firms and educate students about the dynamics of that kind of work.
However, that’s only one piece of the puzzle. What about public service? And I don’t just mean at the state and county level, but also in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the DOJ. In my experience, too few students from WMCL explore those options and the school should do whatever it can to promote them.
WMCL ’08,
My wife (a fellow Mitchellite) is an Assistant County Attorney, her perfect job. She didn’t have any difficulty finding resources in support of that goal that at WM.
However, unlike what I am told of the “old days” when public service jobs had to beg for candidates, a recent applicant pool for an Attorney I position in a nearby semi-rural county pulled over 200 applicants.
She also trains the law clerks for her office, and they have a steady stream of interested students. I think the issue has now become one of lack of opportunity in these public service areas. During my time at Mitchell, I knew at least eight students personally working at PD or county offices, and most continued those jobs afterwards.
I can’t say too much about U.S. Attorney or DOJ, a few classmates of mine tried for these positions and failed to get them. I imaginethere is a lot of competition from bigger “name” schools for these spots.
I am a WMCL ’99 and spent the majority of the years since graduation as a federal special agent. Its been my observation that most graduates (regardless of the law school attended) that whine about the career prospects available to them (due to their school’s ranking, reputation etc) exhibit the same lazy, self-entitled attitude as the original poster. Very few of these individuals show the initiative to explore “alternative” options whether in the practice of law or on the periphery (as in my case). I can only shudder to think of them representing my interests on any matter.
As for U.S. Attorney’s or DOJ opportunities for graduates of the “less elite” schools (of which I include UM when outside of Minnesota), I have encountered graduates from many tier three and four schools in these positions. Not saying this is the norm, but it does go to my earlier point of what one can accomplish with a little initiative.
WM has some public interest orgs that come to the school. I don’t think there is much deisre by the student body though. Most of us want firm jobs, but realization is starting to set in that those jobs arent out there. WM career services doesn’t do much to help us out in our situation, but what really can they do.
As for the public offices, UMN and St. Thomas feed fairly well into the AG’s office and the local county attorney’s offices through co-operative internships. I have some friends at both schools that have done this. WM has a public service type job fair, but there aren’t many opportunities provided by our Career Services Office, which should go by another name.
As for the three lower ranked schools, I think they are all fairly similar. While I was waitlisted at St. Thomas, I don’t think it is all that much harder to get into. And Hamline, while easier to get into than the other three, doesn’t make it any lesser of a school.
I think the point is here is that all 4 schools have problems. The U of M has issues of its own; while it certainly will always dominate the other 3 schools in Minnesota, it does not live up to its US News #20 ranking. More Chicago and NYC firms recruit at Madison, Iowa, and other lower ranked schools. Nobody outside of Minnesota cares about U of M law school (a similiar problem with Carlson and St. Thomas MBA schools). Whoever is running the show over at the U of M career center should probably be replaced with somone who has some contacts in larger markets. Any U of M law students that think their degree is on par with a top 14 school are kidding themselves.
As far as the other three schools in Minnesota go, their career development offices spend most of there time catering to the top 10 firms in Minnesota, while a whopping 5% of their graduating class actually gets offers from these top Minnesota firms (me happening to be one of them). In my opinion, the three law schools need to stop pretending what they are not, and help the other 95% of their graduating students find jobs to pay the 100K is tutition they have charged. While I can’t speak to Hamline or St. Thomas, I know Mitchell has developed a pretty good local reputation for IP law and has at least attempted to fill a nitch in the profession. Maybe the career development people at these three law schools should try and bring in smaller firms or come up with a better stategy then bringing in a few big firms to OCI and then calling it good. But what do they care, they know the top 5% of the class will likely make up 90% of the donations back to the school in the future anyways.
I’m not going to weigh in on the “Great Law School Debate” because it seems to me that enough has been said on that topic. I would, however, like to respond to a previous comment about the career services offices catering to the top students. My experience is that this is simply not true. My experience with career services was that they would bend over backwards to help any student asked. The unsurprising truth is that students at the top of the class tend to have more opportunities than students who are not at the top of the class. While grades are less-than-perfect indicator of a person’s actual lawyering skills, grades will always be a convenient screening tool.
Just as the original poster has no business passing judgment on the education offered at Mitchell, Hamline, and UST, students and graduates of those schools have no business passing judgment on the education offered at UMN. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
I admire many lawyers who are Mitchell and Hamline graduates (haven’t worked with any UST graduates). One’s success or ability (or good manners, it appears) isn’t going to be determined by where one attended law school.
I think to a great degree a debate of “quality” of law schools and the “quality” of students misses the point. It’s not the legal education that makes the good lawyer, but the good lawyer that makes the most of his/her legal education. Abraham Lincoln learned the law reading books by the fire.
I just found out one of the two largest law firms in town is only recruiting locally at the U and UST this year. Kind of supports what many of you have said about Mitchell and Hamline.
Evidence for this, please?
(I don’t think any of the exceptions to hearsay apply in this instance.)
I can confirm the comment above. I think it says more about the firm than it does about the schools. The summer class for the larger firms in town are going to be small next summer. The firms are going to be extremely selective in their hiring process because of this.
Again, evidence for this, please?
Who, when, context, etc.?
Quoting UMN Law ’09:
“WM/Hamline/UST are the ones that should feel ashamed of their willingness to take $100,000 and turn it into a degree with little to no employment prospects.”
Perhaps the U should feel ashamed to graduate students who don’t know the proper usage of “little” versus “few,” but are somehow still arrogant enough to denigrate other law schools without bothering to at least practice law first.
As a practicing Hamline grad, I hope to square off in court against UMN Law ’09 real, real soon.
I went to the U and have always been happy I went there. My experience in the clinical program especially has helped me in my practice. And contrary to assertions above, my class was somewhat diverse — one of my peers was a former doctor in his 60s.
However, just because I think the U is a great school does not mean that the other Minnesota law schools do not turn out great attorneys as well. My best friend is a brilliant attorney and a Hamline law grad. Another close friend went to WM, and is also a great attorney. I certainly do not feel in anyway superior to my friends because I went to the U and they did not. I do think that I have had an easier time finding employment in comparison to my friends, however, this is the only key difference.
Mark Cohen’s advice to “Pip” is spot on and I hope “Pip” heeds this wisdom — rather than feeling superior to grads from other schools, “Pip” should take the time to learn from his/her esteemed colleagues.
Faegre and dorsey are only recruiting at UST and Uofm this year. They are also tapping Iowa and Wiscy.
In my opinion its the U of M that should be ashamed of themselves. The other three schools in Minnesota do a fairly good job of placing their students. Whether we think its an accurate assessment of student quality or not, young lawyers are hired generally based on their GPA and the rank of their school. School rank is generally determined by looking at undergrad GPA and LSAT.
The U of M every year has a graduating class that is roughly 20-26 in the nation based on student quality (GPA/LSAT). In publications, the school is ranked very highly (US News: 18-23, Vault: 16th this year).
Despite that, we never place as well as our academic peers in top law firms or selective government jobs (Notre Dame, WUSTL, Boston College, etc.). The OCI at the U attracts very few firms, according to Brian Leiter we would rank roughly 35-42 in this category. I can tell you that we have a non-existent reputation on the East Coast with employers and have heard similar things about the west coast.
When prospective students who have the numbers to get into the U approach me about the school, I tell them to go out of state to a similar ranked school because your employment prospects or much better or attend one of the other three schools and get a free ride.
Hopefully, the new CPDC director will not be as incompetent as Susan Gainen was.
[...] thought it was worth asking. I have pondered the question before, but have never posted about it. A comment to a prior post (”Recent U grad: Other law schools should be ashamed of themselves”) is [...]