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Cornell Law Grads Make the Most Money

By William Vogeler, Esq. on October 16, 2018 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

They say that money isn't everything, but that's not what law school students say.

Just walk around any law school and listen to the chatter. It doesn't take a formal survey to know that for most law students it's (at least in part) about the money.

But to make it official, a recent report says that Cornell Law School graduates get the top salaries. Now listen to that sucking sound coming from the top 10 law schools.

Social Finance, Inc.

SoFi, an online refinancing company, ranked law schools by highest salaried graduates. Cornell topped the list with a starting salary of $187,377.

The report was based on more than 60,000 student loan refinancing applications from 2014 and 2016. It's a couple of years removed, but shows a trend that should be good news for all law school grads.

It looks like the dog days of the legal recession may soon be over. For law students and the legal profession that means jobs.

Yale, Stanford, and Harvard -- traditionally ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the top law schools in the country -- did not make the top of the SoFi list. Those honors went to Cornell, Columbia, and New York University.

Salary v. Debt

The matrix for SoFi is different than for U.S. News, however. For SoFi, it's about salary versus debt.

U.S. News looks at many other factors, including test scores and peer review. Law students typically go to the "best" law school that will take them, but the SoFi numbers should figure in to their calculus.

After all, everybody knows choosing a law school is about academic prestige. However, students talk about the money.

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