Big Firms and Top Law Schools: Exploring the Relationship and Alternative Paths

Description

• Harrison explains that attending a top law school is not necessary to work in a big firm.
• Success in law school and excellent practice areas like corporate real estate can lead to advancement.
• Developing a significant business book can open doors to firms regardless of law school attended.
• Many partners in top law firms did not attend top law schools and transferred later in their careers.
• There is always a way forward in the legal profession, regardless of the law school attended.

Transcript

Transcript:

Absolutely not. Why is that? There are a bunch of reasons. First, if you go to any law school and do really well there, you can work in a big firm. If you don't do well, that doesn't matter either. You can always move up if you're in the excellent practice area. So that would be mainly things like corporate real estate, transactional typically, and then they only care about your law school a little.

Now, even if you need to be in the excellent practice area, most firms will ultimately be open to you if you develop a significant business book. And so that's pretty much how it works. You look at all the top law firms and the partners there and just look at them. They didn't all attend top law schools, and many transferred there later in their careers.

So you can get business and move to an excellent firm much later in your career. It's simple. It's; it happens all the time. There's always a way forward in the legal profession, regardless of what law school you went to. Okay, so I hope that helps.