At first glance, it looked like a brighter picture for first-year associate hiring in 2010. After all, the top two schools on the list supplied nearly 3% more of their graduates to the nation’s 250 largest law firms, compared with 2009. But overall, this year’s Go-To Law Schools sent fewer graduates into the big-firm market. The percentage of 2010 graduates taking jobs at NLJ 250 law firms was 27.3%, compared with 30.3% of 2009 graduates.

We’ve ranked the top 50 law schools by the percentage of juris doctor graduates in 2010 who took jobs at NLJ 250 firms, the nation’s largest law firms identified by our NLJ 250 annual survey. Besides the top 50 Go-To Law Schools, we’ve identified firm favorites — the schools from which law firms on the NLJ 250 recruited the most graduates. This year, we’ve also included annual tuition costs at the 50 Go-To Law Schools.  — Leigh Jones