A study of three law departments, all in defense manufacturing, looked at the percentage of lawyers in the departments whose law schools were listed in the US News and World Report rankings of law schools. Graduates of one of the top 25 law schools accounted for about one-third of lawyers in each of the three departments.
Graduates of schools ranked 26-100, a group with three times more law schools in it than the top 25 group, accounted for about 45 percent of the in-house contingent. The remaining lawyers, about 20 percent overall, graduated from a law school ranked 101 or higher.
The average age of the 250 lawyers in the three departments was just under 48 years, while the average number of years they had practiced law was just under 21 (See my posts of Sept. 4, 2005 on demographics and keeping the experience of aging lawyers and Sept. 25, 2005 on in-house lawyers working on average 6 years before moving into a company.)