Tom Petty said it best when he sang that “the waiting Is the hardest part.” So we’re here to ease your pain and offer a preview of Law.com’s 2019 Go-To Law Schools report, which ranks the 50 law schools with the highest percentage of recent graduates to snag associate jobs at the nation’s largest 100 law firms. Our full report will publish on Friday, but we’re trickling out the results over the course of the week. Here are school’s 41-50 on our list to kick off the fun.
50. The University of Tennessee College of Law gets the ball rolling on our Go-To Law Schools list, landing at No. 50 by sending 9.85 percent of its 2018 graduates to Big Law. As if that isn’t good enough, the Knoxville school is the most affordable on our list with tuition running just shy of $20,000. Go Vols!
49. The University of Wisconsin Law School has a lot going for it: Graduates don’t have to take the bar exam to practice in the state and they also have a good shot at large firm careers. Of the latest crop of juris doctors, 9.68 percent are in Big Law. Foley & Lardner hired six.
48. The Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota Law School are new additions to our Go-To Law Schools list this year, sending nearly 10 percent of its 193 graduates in 2018 into associate jobs at the largest 100 firms.
47. At this spot, New York City makes its first appearance on our list this year. Brooklyn Law School slipped one spot from last year, but the school actually sent a slightly higher percentage of 2018 graduates to large firms at nearly 10 percent.
46. Utah isn’t exactly a Big Law hotbed, but that didn’t stop Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School from sending a respectable 10 percent of its most recent graduates to large firms. It’s BYU’s first appearance on our Go-To Law Schools list since 2014.
45. The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law dropped 14 spots on our list this year, but still sent more than 10 percent of it 2018 class to Big Law. Five of its 17 Big Law first-year associates are at Jones Day.
44. We’re moving out to The Golden State for our No. 44 school: Santa Clara University School of Law sent 22 recent grads to Big Law, many at Silicon Valley powerhouses including Morrison & Foerster and Cooley.
43. St. John’s University School of Law may not have a tony Manhattan address, but Big Law still makes it out to Queens to recruit and hire its students. Among the 2018 J.D. class, 10.62 percent are now working as first-year associates.
42. We’re staying in the Big Apple for our No. 42 school: Yeshiva University Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Like Brooklyn Law School just across the East River, Cardozo fell one spot this year yet sent a slightly higher percentage of recent graduates to Big Law, at 10.66.
41. The University of California, Davis School of Law may not be as high profile as the law schools at UC Berkeley or UCLA, but it still manages to send quite a few graduates into Big Law. The school, outside Sacramento, had 10.73 percent of the class of 2018 go onto associate gigs at large firms, including Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.