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#Duke Law School

Ratings Rankings

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.”

Employment

Insider Reviews

Alumni

Friendly, non-competitive atmosphere much more so than other schools of the same caliber from what I ve heard. Small class size (200 per class) is perfect get to know everyone in your class, have small classes. Made a number of very good friends there. Some great professors, and of course some not-so-great ones too, but you get that anywhere.

At 1L orientation (in 2007), the Dean all but said to us that, if we wanted them, we could all have jobs paying $160,000 upon graduation. Granted, I don t think anyone knew then how much the economy and the legal profession/industry were going to suffer over the next few years, but we all signed up for law school and its attendant debt under the impression that we would easily be able to afford that debt when we graduated. I graduated with honors from a top 14 school, and I m relying on IBR and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to manage my law school loans, so prospective students should know going in that even if you do well at a top school, you should think long and hard before accepting the six-figure debt load.

I would have like more practical transactional training. I was able to take some seminar courses (M A and a Corporate Transactions/drafting course) that were very practical and have been useful in my practice. I wish these courses had been a bigger part of the curriculum and offered more than 1 hr. of credit.

It is what you make of it definitely seek some advice before selecting class. Bar none, the RDU area is a great place to be a student.

Lots of people from California (which is nice for a Cali guy like me), but also a lot of people from a lot of different places. What I enjoyed the most about Duke was the political diversity. It helped refine my own beliefs and made for a very rigorous and intellectual stimulating experience to be able to discuss and be friends with people who disagree with you but made intelligent and very well thought out arguments.

People say law school isn t fun, but I had a ton of fun at Duke. Also, cost of living was WAY less than at the other schools I was considering, which cut down (a LITTLE) on debt. Still, though, in retrospect, I should have gone to a state school. I had a really fun three years, but it wasn t worth the resulting debt.

There is nothing about the typical law school experience that prepares students for practicing law. Even the standard refrain that law school teaches you how to think is wrong. It takes most young associates several years before they learn to think in a way useful to partners and clients. For example, unless a senior lawyer has asked a young associate for a survey of the state of the law (which clients rarely pay for anymore), the associate should strive to develop an answer, or at least an opinion on a selection of possible answers. Otherwise the associate is performing duties that can just as easily be performed by a librarian or senior paralegal.

Students

One of the biggest benefits of the school is the small class sizes and remote location which practically forces classmates to get to know each other more than they would otherwise.

This is probably true for any law school, but it s not good to go into Duke or any other law school without at least some idea or plan for what you want to do after law school. The successful law school student will typically have a goal in mind and work towards it from day one. It doesn t mean you can t change your mind, and many certainly do, but treading water and figuring things out isn t a good strategy. / / More specifically to my school- the faculty as a whole is very approachable, very helpful, and, for the most part, genuinely seem to care about students. You hear this from every law school, so maybe this is true everywhere, but I can attest that we have a friendly, collegial environment. / / International LLM s tend to keep to themselves in their own little international LLM cliques, but most everyone here seems to be happy and healthy.

graded legal writing class isn t that bad. actually pulled up my grades.

Duke sucks because it has no major market to feed into. Go to a school with a major market, i.e. New York, Chicago, etc. Don t go here.

I love, love, LOVE Duke. I turned down higher-ranking schools to go here and I m really glad I did. The atmosphere is amazing, and the number of gunners is incredibly small (the two may be related).

Duke is a wonderful place to go to law school. Durham/Chapel Hill has enough going on that you can have some fun but not so much that your grades will suffer. It s a relatively laid-back bunch of people (not too many gunners and mostly no talk of grades) and there is no ranking system so people are less weirdly competitive with their fellow students than at other schools. The best thing about Duke, other than the generally great people, is how small it is. Because the classes are so small (200-220 per year) the faculty members really know their students and take a personal interest in helping them succeed. Also, if you want a job in NYC, Duke places a lot of students there (more so than most other schools outside the New York area).

The professors are amazing. There is a very nice mixture of old, established and brilliant legal minds and young, up and coming and equally brilliant legal professors. The class culture is not-competitive. Quality of life is fantastic and the social life is surprisingly strong. The 2Ls and 3Ls are also really good at mixing with/supporting the 1Ls. They are really helpful.