Law Students

What are the Most Liberal and Most Conservative Elite Law Schools?
Download PDF
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading...

 

harvard_law

Summary: We have a list of the most liberal and most conservative elite law schools in today’s post. 

  
What
Where


In an effort to determine which elite law schools are conservative and which ones are liberal, FiveThirtyEight Politics used two sets of data that included current and former law clerks and justice ideology.

Those who work as clerks for justices typically earn roughly $75,000 per year performing multiple duties. These duties include culling thousands of petitions for certiorari and help with the research and drafting of opinions.

To read more about clerkships, click here.

Get JD Journal in Your Mail

Subscribe to our FREE daily news alerts and get the latest updates on the most happening events in the legal, business, and celebrity world. You also get your daily dose of humor and entertainment!!




But, those who clerk for justices typically acquire signing bonuses of $300,000 when moving to big law firms.

The top 11 law schools based on the number of clerks produced shows that clerkships are concentrated in a handful of the country’s elite law schools.



The top six law schools on the list account for a little more than two-thirds of all the clerkships with the United States Supreme Court.

The law schools at Harvard and Yale account for more than 42 percent of all the clerkships listed in this table.

The other data set is from Andrew Martin at the University of Michigan and Kevin Quinn at the University of California, Berkeley. The two men are political scientists. They created the Martin-Quinn scores, which quantify the ideologies of the Supreme Court justices on a spectrum of left-right politics. The justices are graded based on the opinions they submitted during their tenure.

To read more about the Supreme Court, click here.

The data pretty much says what Justice Clarence Thomas has said in the past, “I won’t hire clerks who have profound disagreements with me. It’s like trying to train a pig. It wastes your time, and it aggravates the pig.”

According to the data compiled by FiveThirtyEight Politics, Berkeley is the most liberal law school among the elite group. The most conservative law school among the elite is that of University of Virginia.

The top 11 law schools that produced the most clerks are as follows:

  1. Harvard: 432 clerks and 19 Supreme Court justices
  2. Yale: 316 clerks and 10 Supreme Court justices
  3. Chicago: 136 clerks and 0 Supreme Court justices
  4. Stanford: 116 clerks and 2 Supreme Court justices
  5. Columbia: 98 clerks and 7 Supreme Court justices
  6. Virginia: 93 clerks and 2 Supreme Court justices
  7. Michigan: 72 clerks and 3 Supreme Court justices
  8. Berkeley: 45 clerks and 1 Supreme Court justice
  9. NYU: 42 clerks and 0 Supreme Court justices
  10. Northwestern: 37 clerks and 2 Supreme Court justices
  11. Penn: 37 clerks and 1 Supreme Court justice

Do you agree with the most liberal and most conservative law schools based on the data provided? Use our poll to share your thoughts.

Do you agree with the schools named most liberal and most conservative?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Image credit: Harvard Law School



 

RELEVANT JOBS

Associate Attorney

USA-PA-Exton

ASSOCIATE ATTORNEY McKenna Snyder LLC, a law firm in Exton, PA has an immediate opening for an ex...

Apply now

Attorney

USA-MI-Sturgis

Qualifications: HaasCaywood is seeking associate attorneys for our Coldwater and Sturgis, Michiga...

Apply now

Attorney

USA-MI-Coldwater

Qualifications: HaasCaywood is seeking associate attorneys for our Coldwater and Sturgis, Michiga...

Apply now

Insurance Defense Trial Attorney/ Senior Counsel

USA-CA-San Francisco

Job description Trial Attorney - Personal Injury Defense Full Job Description Hickey Smith ...

Apply now

BCG FEATURED JOB

Locations:

Keyword:



Search Now

Education Law Attorney

USA-CA-El Segundo

El Segundo office of a BCG Attorney Search Top Ranked Law Firm seeks an education law attorney with ...

Apply Now

Education Law Attorney

USA-CA-Carlsbad

Carlsbad office of a BCG Attorney Search Top Ranked Law Firm seeks an education law attorney with 4-...

Apply Now

Education Law and Public Entity Attorney

USA-CA-El Segundo

El Segundo office of a BCG Attorney Search Top Ranked Law Firm seeks an education law and public ent...

Apply Now

Most Popular

SEARCH IN ARCHIVE

To Top