It's less helpful to look to specific professors when choosing a law school.

It's all about job hunting after graduation. The simple fact is that HR managers don't care which professor is teaching at which law school. they only care about the ranking and which law school is more difficult to get in.

For placement in "elite" law firms CLS has the clear lead.

http://www.leiterrankings.com/jobs/2008job_biglaw.shtml

wolla, the leiter ranking doesn't really indicate much. the statistics are deceiving.

nyu has great job placement at big firms, but they also have a much better and bigger public interest program than columbia. nyu actually gives students several thousand dollars for pursuing public interest internships.

so maybe the reason why CLS ranks "higher" in big firm placement is because CLS students pursue big firm jobs more readily than other comparable schools...not necessarily because they are more capable of getting them compared to someone from NYU, HLS, SLS, YLS. and is that a good thing? personally, i would rather attend a school where people have more diverse interests.

the leiter report is misleading because it is more a reflection of what students choose to do with their law degree. i'm sure YLS, NYU, HLS, SLS students could land a big firm job if they wanted to.

But perhaps students from these schools care more about making money at big firms than CLS.

bill clinton (YLS), barack obama (HLS), rudy guiliani (NYU), ed koch (NYU) are all examples of people who have not chosen the big firm route on purpose, not because they couldn't land a job!!!!

the statistics are misleading since you are comparing apples and oranges if CLS students are more interested in sitting behind a desk for 100 hours a week rather than pursuing less lucrative, but perhaps more meaningful careers in the public sector.

Four NYU students started Wachtell, the most prestigious law firm in the world. It seems like NYU students are doing pretty well in the big firm and public interest world.

Shippen makes a fair point - in that it really depends on your inclination. Although I might also add that though I do think a Columbia LLM is seen as more prestigious than an NYU one (and my own admittedly anecdotal observations suggest that CLS LLM graduates have better private sector job opportunities) outside the US, and I do think the insinuation that CLS grads are more private-firm oriented than any of the other institutions does not appear to be a fully fair one, I think any reference to the stats at Leiter's blog may be of little utility anyways for this board since it is made with reference to the JD not LLM.

As for wakaz's point, it is perfectly valid if we are considering whether to enter NYU's LLB class of more than 50 years ago (which is the era in which the Wachtell founders left law school, when the JD didn't even exist!) and is as useful as pointing out that Mr Herbert Wachtell, i.e. the "Wachtell" of top Wall Street law firm fame, actually did an LLM at HLS imediately thereafter as evidence of the LLM's utility in the private sector in the US or to argue that the fact that the President of the United States has a JD from Harvard (i.e. not useful at all) is evidence of a HLS LLM's effectiveness in the public sector (i.e. similarly not useful at all to anything thinking of applying for an LLM there).

I should emphasize again that I am not, have never been, and will never be a student in either of the schools that are the subject of this debate - what I think would be useful for the people who come to this board for advice is a frank and useful debate that is led more by objective observations or fair insights rather than the over-zealous advocacy of an institution by people who are self-interested in the school's rep. Far too much of that has gone on over the past couple of days, if you ask me.

It's less helpful to look to specific professors when choosing a law school.

It's all about job hunting after graduation. The simple fact is that HR managers don't care which professor is teaching at which law school. they only care about the ranking and which law school is more difficult to get in.

Let's get objective here, a high level source tells me that another leading international law professor is joining NYU, announcement to be made soon: http://www.law.nyu.edu/index.htm

Perhaps you mean Prof. Jose Alvarez. it's already on the site. cheers.