Here at SLW World Headquarters, we received a call earlier today from an old law school classmate regarding Lawdragon's 100 Lawyers You Need to Know in Securities Litigation list.

We won't get into details, but it piqued our interest, so we set to work slicing and dicing the list.

A few interesting details.

The 100 lawyers graduated from 43 different law schools, with an average graduation year of 1981. Willis H. Riccio is the elder statesmen of the group (Georgetown '58), and as gently pointed out by this alleged friend, I am the new kid on the block (Villanova '00).

Harvard was the clear leader, with 16 graduates on the list. NYU, Yale, Georgetown, and Columbia rounded out the Top 5.

But just because a school is in the Ivy League doesn't mean that its graduates fair better than other law school graduates. Penn only has one graduate on the list, while local competitors Temple and Villanova each have two graduates on the list.

And being on the "Top 10" lists of law schools doesn't guarantee admission to the club, as UC Berkeley has not a single graduate on the list, but a Golden Gate University graduate, from just across the San Francisco Bay, snagged a spot on the list.

As far as ideological breakdown goes (a/k/a Drinking the Kool Aid):

16 lawyers on the list clearly sit on the left side of the "v" - that is they primarily represent plaintiffs.

75 clearly sit on the right side of the "v" - that is they primarily represent defendants.

7 are switch hitters, representing a mix of plaintiffs and defendants.

2 (me and Commissioner Grundfest) aren't representing people in private practice these days, though I am a former plaintiff's attorney.