Students who want to land a job in one of the biggest law firms in the country will likely increase their chances by choosing one of New York's seven Go-To Law Schools, statistics show. The state had three schools in the top 10: Columbia Law School ranked first, New York University School of Law third and Cornell Law School ninth. The schools also had an impressive showing in the highly coveted U.S. News & World Report rankings, which were just released. Columbia ranked fifth, NYU sixth and Cornell 13th. Cornell is the only New York school outside of New York City to make the Go-To list. One of the reasons for Cornell's strong showing on the Go-To list is its powerful network of alumni at New York City law firms, Dean Eduardo Peñalver said. It also helps that the law school holds its August job fair in New York City. "We think of ourselves as part of that New York City market although our students end up all over the country," Peñalver said. More than 48 percent of Cornell grads went to Big Law firms, making it ninth on the Go-To list. "It's just one metric but it's a good one. It's not the only one. If your goal is large law firms, then this is an important metric," he said. Of course, Peñalver said, the Cornell students have all the qualifications to become Big Law associates but there's more to it than that. "The alumni network is a big part of any school's success," he said. "Our graduates definitely look out for our students. You see it in the patterns of where students end up. That's very self-sustaining."

Indeed, the data did show that many law schools had special relationships with certain firms. So for Columbia, it was Davis Polk & Wardwell with 24 hires from the class of 2017 and 18 of the NYU grads and eight of the Cornell grads went to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Six Fordham Law School grads were chosen by Latham & Watkins.

"Fordham traditionally does well on this ranking and it reflects Fordham Law School's traditional strength in Big Law," said Dean Matthew Diller. "Those jobs are prestigious and highly competitive. Big law is not the right fit for everyone."

Fordham ranked 20th on the list with 25 percent of its grads at Big Law jobs.