NYU School of Law

Student Rating^? A Alumni Rating^? A ATL Top 50 Rank #14	Tuition $59,330 Total Investment ^? $321,614	Enrollment 1	Student/Faculty Ratio 8.4/1
LSAT (25/75) 167/172 GPA (25/75) 3.61/3.9	Region N State N	Dean Richard L. Revesz
Applicants who are accepted 23.6 / 100 Admitted students who enroll 2.68 / 10	Top Biglaw Employers ^?	Talking Points Hosts the original chapter of the Unemployment Action Center. Notable Alumni: Rudy Giuliani, Ed Koch, Fiorello LaGuardia, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, John F. Kennedy Jr., Howard Cosell, Demetri Martin

Ratings & Rankings

Colored bars represent the range of average school ratings. Black line is this school's rating.

Academics

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 2.25
Mean: 3.68
Maximum: 4

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 2.4
Mean: 3.56
Maximum: 4

Practical/Clinical Training

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 2.14
Mean: 3.30
Maximum: 3.83

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.86
Mean: 3.13
Maximum: 3.8

Career Counseling

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.29
Mean: 3.33
Maximum: 3.56

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.17
Mean: 3.11
Maximum: 3.25

Financial Aid Advising

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.5
Mean: 2.93
Maximum: 3.29

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.25
Mean: 2.73
Maximum: 3.5

Social Life

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.8
Mean: 3.55
Maximum: 3.67

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 2.4
Mean: 3.50
Maximum: 3.86

More Ratings*

	Student	Alumni
	A	A-
	A-	B
	A+	A+
	A-	A-
	A	A

US News Rank

What do these ratings mean?

from Brian Dalton, Breaking Media Director of Research

The ATL School and Firm Insiders Survey asks self-identified current students, alumni, and practicing lawyers to rate major aspects of life at their law school (academics, social life, clinical training, career services, financial aid advising) and/or law firm (compensation, hours, morale, culture, training). We then translate these ratings into letter grades, where the mean score for each particular ratings category is the equivalent of a “B.”

We require a minimum threshold of responses for each institution before we publish any survey-based ratings content. Using a standard formula for statistical validity, we adhere to a threshold that gives us an 85% confidence level and a 10% margin of error. The precise threshold number will of course vary depending on the size of the individual institution. For example, for a law firm of 1,000 attorneys, we would require 50 responses in order to publish ratings for the firm.

Sector	Anticipated	Actual
Source: ATL Insider Survey and the American Bar Association
Work for a firm	88%	53%
Work for government	8%	8%
Work in non-profit/public interest	3%	14%
Go solo	0%	0%

Insider Reviews

from students and alumni of NYU School of Law

Alumni

Great fun, some ballers in the faculty, good reputation. I transferred from Duke partly because I hated Durham. However, I will say that being a big fish in a small pond has its perks, and that profs at Duke were more engaged, maybe because they were less famous.
Alumni

I chose NYU over Harvard for a lot of reasons, but if I’m honest I really don’t think the quality of the faculty is quite the same. I also think a lot of the students are a lot less motivated, which brings the level of the discussion down a bit. On the other hand, people are a lot more pleasant and less competitive, and more willing to work together. Study groups were very congenial, and I never saw anyone rejected from a study group because they weren’t smart enough or engaged enough. I was at the top of my class, and studied with some students who were near the bottom, and I felt like we all contributed something — there’s something to be said for learning through teaching. Basically I just studied with people I liked as human beings. People shared their outlines freely and no one talked about their grades. There were very few gunners and they were shunned (though again, I think that lowered the level of the discourse). It was nice not to have to listen to people ask, as they do every year at Harvard in 1L contracts class, why someone on welfare is buying a tv and a stereo on credit (when you get to IL year, you’ll know what I’m talking about). Also, New York is a thousand times more livable and pleasant and vibrant than Boston, and I say that having grown up in the Boston area. Cambridge is not bad, but I absolutely loved New York. In all, I think I enjoyed my experience a lot more at NYU than I would have at Harvard, but I might have gotten more out of Harvard and certainly having Harvard on the resume would be an advantage forever, whereas who knows how long the NYU brand will last. And outside of the legal field, no one knows NYU is one of the top 5 law schools in the country (boy, were my parents pissed when I turned down Harvard for NYU!). Harvard also offers more clerkship opportunities (though NYU has way better clinical opportunities, and opens more doors in the public service sector, I think.) If I had to do it over again, I’d suck up the 3 years of unpleasantness for all of the benefits that Harvard offers over NYU.
Alumni

NYU has a great tax program, especially LLM-focused classes, which it’s known for. But the quality of my non-tax professors was also outstanding.
Alumni

One of the best places to go for public interest work because of its loan assistance repayment program, public interest summer stipends, and focus on public interest career searches and development . The faculty is extremely left-leaning and anyone who does not wholeheartedly subscribe to far left politics may feel marginalized.
Alumni

Pretty awesome place. Amazing location, great professors, tons of great events.
Alumni

Superb career counseling for those looking to serve the public interest
Alumni

Best law school in manhattan. Period.
Alumni

New York (the city) is not for everyone. But for those that love it, it really is the most incredible place you can be for law school. The truth is that you have plenty of time to explore the city and enjoy yourself in law school. As for the law school experience, I found NYU to be every bit as challenging and intellectually stimulating as I expected, and its students as engaging, friendly, and accomplished as I could have hoped for. Overall, I could not imagine anyone having a better law school experience. In fact, I would say that my years during law school are still the best years of my life.
Alumni

Jobs are easy to come by; so are drinking buddies.

Law schools don’t teach practice of law. You can only learn to practice law by doing it. Law schools just determine how good a job you get once you finish. NYU gets you in the door everywhere.
Alumni

Its what you make it, do not rely on the name itself.
Alumni

I loved my experience about NYU, but once they have you as a positive for their statistics, the help you receive diminishes immensely. I thought the campus was extremely social and not crazy competitive and the course work was generally top notch. I don’t think NYU had particularly poor practical training compared to any other law school, just law school doesn’t teach practical things well generally.
Alumni

Take as many clinics as you can. Pay attention in lawyering. Volunteer for student groups that get you actual experience. You will be thankful once you actually start working as a lawyer.
Alumni

Professors are wooed away from the handful of higher-ranked schools with truly luxurious Manhattan real estate. It’s rather obscene, and contributes to an atmosphere that pervades every law school, in which professors don’t care about teaching and often lack any pedagogical training or talent. While NYU is obviously better situated than most law schools, there’s still a sense among students that we’re getting fleeced.
Alumni

Students

Fantastic career help and advice for public interest and government work!
3L

Great student body – brilliant, engaged, and sociable.
2L

I have friends at many of the elite law schools, and the one thing I feel sets NYU apart from its peers is the quality, dedication, and helpfulness of the career services staff.
3L

Law school sucks, but going to NYU doesn’t. I turned down a $60k scholarship from Columbia (for essentially the same at NYU) and have not once felt regret.
3L

NYU has been a very collegial place to go to law school and also seems as unstressful as a law school can be. Most of us know that we have a great OCS and that we will do pretty well at EIW provided we aren’t at the very bottom of our class and aren’t total weirdoes (I realize participating in an ATL survey might cause problems for me with the latter). Also, NYU realizes that its job is to prepare us to be lawyers whether at a firm or in public interest/gov’t. Most of my courses (with the exception of 1L contracts taught by a philosophy professor) have had a very practical focus to them and professors strive to take us out of the realm of academia into more concrete “How would I approach this as a lawyer” questions. Our Lawyering program isn’t amazing, but it is nice to go to networking events with firms and be able to talk about my baby’s first contract negotiaion exercise that we did, and its great that Lawyering is Pass/Fail. Finally, even though I am dead set on Big Law, I appreciate the committed efforts of our PILC department to provide funding and opportunities for us. I’m not crazy panicked yet about the 1L job search because I know that they will be helpful if push comes to shove and things start getting desperate (that is not the case for friends at similarly ranked law schools based on anecdotal evidence about their PI career departments).
1L

NYU has the perfect balance of rigorous academics, prestige, and fun, social students. Everyone works hard and goes out hard. People are friendly and fun – something I never thought I’d find in law school.
2L

NYU has very high standards, but the good news is that everyone gets a good job coming out, even in a bad economy.
3L

OCS and PILC are not holding your hand in the summer job search–you can’t start applying until December, but when you can, do it ASAP. Especially after finals are over. / / Dorms might not be less expensive than living off campus. This is New York, there is public transportation, and you need not live in walking distance. Plenty of people live in Brooklyn.
1L

Prominent names don’t necessary have any correlation to teaching ability. NYU has been strong in recent years in poaching famous professors from other schools, but i’ve had two of them now and they’ve both been awful. My far and away best experience was with Troy McKenzie, a name you probably haven’t heard. He’s young, but his ability to teach is outstanding.
1L

Really focused on public interest. If you’re not liberal, this might not be the place for you…
3L

They seriously lowball the cost of living in NYC when they tell you how much money you will need to attend this school. Be prepared to be in debt for a REALLY long time. / / Also, all the famous rock star professors don’t want to help you do anything (surprise, surprise) or write you a letter unless you’re top 5%/law review. They just want to put in their four hours a week of teaching and collect enormous salaries.
2L

It’s about as good for big firm placement in New York as Columbia and Harvard. So don’t choose one of those simply because you feel that they have some magical placement advantage.
1L

Everyone is really nice and non-competitive. It provided me access to lots of legal opportunities. Though I chose to go to a firm, I feel like it’s equally feasible to get quality public interest opportunities as well.
3L

NYU is great. If you want BigLaw you get it. I don’t know of anyone who didn’t (out of those who really wanted it that is).
2L

Study Abroad Opportunities

from the school

NYU School of Law Exchange Program

New York University School of Law participates in exchange programs with 16 law faculties around the world. Encouraging our students to study abroad, and receiving exchange students from other countries, enhances the Law School’s goal of providing opportunities for the study of global legal issues. Whether you are from another country looking to come to New York, or an NYU student wishing to spend a semester abroad, the perspectives gained away from your home institution will undoubtedly impact your learning experience. With the return of our students from abroad, and the arrival of new exchange students, we hope to foster an environment where international understandings complement national legal educations.

NYU School of Law J.D. Students Exchange Program

NYU School of Law encourages our J.D. students to consider the possibility of studying abroad as a means to become familiar with a foreign legal perspective in a way unavailable to them in New York. Depending on each student’s individual course of study, the feasibility of spending a semester away from the Law School varies.

J.D. students at NYU School of Law currently in their first or second year are eligible to apply for an exchange semester during their second or third year. Students who transferred to NYU School of Law from another law school are eligible for an exchange semester during their third year. Currently there are 16 approved partner law faculties at which students may study abroad.

If you are interested in one of our approved exchange programs, please take the time to consider all the information available about studying abroad by following the links in the box to the right. Should you have any questions after reviewing the materials here, please contact the Hauser Global Law School Program at law.global@nyu.edu.

Students Interested in Studying at NYU School of Law

If you are a prospective international exchange student who wishes to study at NYU School of Law for an exchange semester, you are eligible to apply if you attend one of our partner law faculties with whom the Law School has an arrangement.

To apply as an exchange student from one of our partner law faculties, please click here. Should you have any questions after reviewing the materials here, please contact the Hauser Global Law School Program at lawglobal@exchange.law.nyu.edu.

If you are interested in studying at NYU School of Law for more than one semester, please visit the Office of Admissions for information about transfer and third year visiting students.

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