I believe that Penn is at least not worse than the above mentioned universities. For example I would never go to NYU due to the size of the LL.M.-program. Furthermore you are not allowed to take classes with the JDs.
Last but not at least it is far more difficult to get admitted to Penn than to Columbia (250 students) or NYU (400 students). According to my latest information there are 1,400 applications for the 90 places in next year's LL.M.-class!
I believe choice of law school depends (apart from finance) on (1) quality of education and (2) perception. All the abovenamed schools (incl. UPenn) have no doubt excellent infrastructure and faculty and the difference in that is marginal. In such cases perception assumes importance.
Of course, not being an LLM from any of the abovementioned I have no choice but to accept your word that the quality of education / teaching at UPenn is no worse than the others. And certainly the institution is more selective than NYU (which has accepted applicants with the most outrageous grades and backgrounds!). Nevertheless with my few years of experience and before that as an undergrad the perception I have always got from my profs, seniors and bosses is that NYU and CLS are superior to UPenn. As a matter of fact the only six people I know to have accepted the latter had confessed (while joining) that they did so in the absence of offers from the rest and not because UPenn was their first choice (leaving out Yale, Harvard and Stanford).
