The United States is famed for the quality of its law schools; for many applicants applying to a top law program and choosing a practice area here can be both an exciting and intimidating process. The following are just five great schools providing students with top-notch legal education. A degree from any one of these places of learning can lead to some extraordinary opportunities and career outcomes.

Yale Law School

Harvard Law might have more name recognition with the general public than Yale Law, but Yale has Harvard beat in terms of class sizes and career outcomes. If your goal is to clerk for a Supreme Court justice, Yale will be your best shot at getting there. Most attorneys rightly consider the school as the best law school in the United States.

Harvard Law School

Harvard may well be home to the most famous law school in the world. Many hit films have been made about Harvard Law’s hallowed halls. If you have the grades and LSAT scores to get into law school here, you’ll probably be set for life: Most Harvard Law graduates end up going into prestigious judicial clerking jobs or to some of the country’s best corporate law firms.

Stanford Law School

As the West Coast’s best law school, Stanford holds its own against Harvard and Yale and then some. If top-tier academics and sunny weather are to your liking, you can’t do much better than a place at Stanford Law. The school is also a pipeline to Silicon Valley’s biggest tech employers. Get a degree from here, and you can expect to be on the cutting edge of the tech industry’s legal apparatus in no time.

Columbia Law School

Columbia probably ought to be your first-choice law school if life in the Big Apple appeals to you. Columbia offers its law graduates some of the best job prospects in the world; its proximity to New York’s most prestigious law firms makes Columbia a prime place of study for would-be corporate lawyers. The school also enjoys an excellent academic reputation worldwide.

The University of Chicago

The Midwest is certainly no slouch when it comes to top law schools! The University of Chicago is arguably the best law school in the region; the school’s alumni often end up with plum legal jobs after graduation. This is a school that any ambitious law school applicant should not overlook.