A few points by my husband (who spent way too much time researching this stuff when he was applying):
Note: Everything mentioned here is based on my memory of statistical data found on law school websites and admissions paraphernalia. I’m sure everyone can say “Ploni got into Harvard with a 155” and “Almoni got a Federal clerkship and a job at Skadden with a 3.3 from Brooklyn Law,” but there are usually exceptional reasons for this situations. More importantly, for every Ploni and Almoni, there’s a Yankl with a 180/4.0 who “only” got into U of Texas and a Shmuel who was #1 in his class at Yale and ended up working for an ambulance chaser.
Here goes…
While law schools technically have individual ranks, the legal community thinks of them in groups. There are “Top 3” (called “HYS” – Harvard, Yale, Stanford – even though their order fluctuates from year to year), “Top 6” (those mentioned by OP), “Top 14,” “First Tier” (Top 50, although US News now includes the top 100 in the first tier), and if you need to know about anything below that, it’s probably not worth going to law school unless you have a full scholarship, a guaranteed job, or some other compelling reason.
Go to the “hourumd” website!!! It lets you type in your LSAT score and undergrad GPA (do not check “minority,” since yidden don’t count as UNDER-REPRESENTED minorities), and will generate a list of self-reported statistics about how people with your scores fared at the top 100 law schools, and how much they received in scholarships on average. It’s incredibly powerful information to have, and for me, its predictions were eerily accurate.
Employment prospects (at least for non-minority students) depend not only on the prestige of the school, but the school’s regional connections and your local ties to the area where you want to work. To work in NYC, going to NYU (#6) will be more helpful than either Stanford (#3) or Chicago (#4) because NYU has more large NYC firms attending their on-campus job fairs. To work in LA, after Stanford, the best bets are UCLA (#17) and USC (#18). To work in a “smaller city” (e.g. Baltimore, Boston, Atlanta, etc.), if you’re not already from the city itself, it’s wise to go to the best-ranked law school within 200 miles (I won’t go through the entire country, but feel free to ask me questions about specific cities).
Part-time isn’t really an option. Georgetown and GW (both just slightly outside of the Top 14) are the best part-time programs, but their full-time programs have limited job prospects (neither is strong in NYC, Georgetown is okay for DC (but not a strong enough bias to compete against Top 14 schools) and GW students struggle to compete with Georgetown – I turned down a full scholarship at Georgetown for that very reason). Also, employment statistics for part-time programs are difficult to obtain, and are usually weaker than the corresponding full-time program. Law firms are hesitant to hire graduates of part-time programs unless there is a compelling reason (e.g. single mothers, etc.) because it looks like a lack of commitment or effort.
As for money, it’s really all about a combination of scholarships and loans. However, look into IBR (income-based repayment) and public-interest loan forgiveness programs offered by both the federal government and the law schools themselves. At schools like Harvard and Yale, the loan forgiveness programs basically work as an insurance program guaranteeing that you won’t have to pay your loans if you make less than $80k a year. Other schools won’t help out unless you commit to working in public interest law (usually at a salary of $40-60k), but if you do, they will pay off your loans in their entirety. And through the IBR program, the federal government (may Hashem revive it speedily in our days) will pay any loan payments in excess of approximately 15% of your income. While $200,000 of debt looks and sounds scary, it’s not necessarily as debilitating as it looks.
Brief (hah!) thoughts on specific schools mentioned above:
Harvard: The kollel is in Brighton, not Brookline. The 86 bus runs from Cleveland Circle to Harvard Square and takes about half an hour. In additional to the kollel, there are two other yeshivish and two MO shuls within a relatively short walk. The MO community on campus is confined to the Hillel, and some frum people go to Chabad, but in general, it’s worth the commute (and housing in Brighton is cheaper than Cambridge anyway).
Yale: While Waterbury is great, don’t forget that there are several Orthodox shuls and a Yeshiva in New Haven itself. The law school has a reputation for being “academic” and “theoretical”: a third of their students go on to clerkships with Federal judges. This doesn’t necessarily translate into developing the skills and connections necessary to be a well-paid corporate attorney.
Stanford: Unless you want to live on the West Coast, don’t bother.
Chicago: Great school, but I didn’t apply because the academic program is strongly influenced by Milton Friedman and “law and economics” theory. While I believe that “law and economics” is a valuable field for research, I think one course in law school is sufficient, rather than having it as an underlying theme in the entirety of one’s studies.
Penn: Everyone forgets about it! I think it’s ranked #8 or so, and has one of the largest frum campus communities in the country. Job prospects aren’t as good in NYC as with Columbia and NYU, but it’s a degree that carries weight wherever it goes. Philly is a great place to live – several yeshivish shuls in the Northeast, a community kollel and at least five shuls in Lower Merion, one of the most elite yeshivos in the country, and a huge MO community at the Penn Hillel (two strong minyanim for shacharis, 10:00 ma’ariv every weeknight, shiurim every night of the week, mishmar on Thursdays, etc.)
Emory: R’ Broyde is an amazing scholar, a chaver of the Beis Din of America, and a frequent contributor to the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society as well as Tradition. There is a large Jewish population (one of the highest percentages in the country, around 30%), but there is not much happening on campus. However, R’ Broyde’s shul (YI of Toco Hills) is about two miles away from campus, and is also a short walk from the Yeshivish Shul and Community Kollel (Beth Jacob). In the opposite direction, the quality and selection of kosher food (including pre-prepared food – important for someone in law school, at least before marriage) at Kroger’s is impressive even by NYC standards. I still wonder to this day if I should have chosen Emory over Cornell.
Cardozo: While Cardozo gets a lot of hype in the frum community for obvious reasons, that hype doesn’t spread far enough into the employment world. Cardozo fell out of the first tier last year. In NYC, it has to compete with Columbia, NYU, Cornell (yes, Cornell is considered part of the NYC local job market) and Fordham, all of which are significantly more competitive. Outside of NYC, it has limited name recognition because its name does not correspond to that of its university (and I’m sure that was intentional).