C/O 2010 Employment Statistics Google Doc Forum

[bahari2010]

You're a strong supporter of a school where 75% of your fellow less fortunate classmates are under/unemployed?

I am. I would argue that our lack of ability to find first jobs is a function of the snobbish nature of the legal profession (and to that extent has been with the school since the beginning) rather than the quality of the education that I received. I'm one of those people that read cases for fun before going to law school, and still spend some of my leisure time reading about legal matters. I love the law, though my best profs were adjuncts who actually know how to do things in the real world, so I think (because I sought it out) I got a good mix of the practical and the theoretical. I will say however, that GGU is no more "practice-oriented" than any other school, despite its claims to the contrary. It isn't the school's job to find grads a job: the fact that there are too many attorneys' for too few positions, isn't something that is unique to GGU or any school below HYSCCN, really, and isn’t going to change soon because it would interfere with too many vested interests within the legal establishment.

[thelawyler]

You're a strong supporter of a school where 75% of your fellow less fortunate classmates are under/unemployed?

I am. I would argue that our lack of ability to find first jobs is a function of the snobbish nature of the legal profession (and to that extent has been with the school since the beginning) rather than the quality of the education that I received. I'm one of those people that read cases for fun before going to law school, and still spend some of my leisure time reading about legal matters. I love the law, though my best profs were adjuncts who actually know how to do things in the real world, so I think (because I sought it out) I got a good mix of the practical and the theoretical. I will say however, that GGU is no more "practice-oriented" than any other school, despite its claims to the contrary. It isn't the school's job to find grads a job: the fact that there are too many attorneys' for too few positions, isn't something that is unique to GGU or any school below HYSCCN, really, and isn’t going to change soon because it would interfere with too many vested interests within the legal establishment.

If it isn't the purpose of a professional school that charges 35-50k in tuition a year to get its students jobs, then what is its purpose? I don't mean to sound like an asshole, but I just don't understand.

[Sandro]

You're a strong supporter of a school where 75% of your fellow less fortunate classmates are under/unemployed?

I am. I would argue that our lack of ability to find first jobs is a function of the snobbish nature of the legal profession (and to that extent has been with the school since the beginning) rather than the quality of the education that I received. I'm one of those people that read cases for fun before going to law school, and still spend some of my leisure time reading about legal matters. I love the law, though my best profs were adjuncts who actually know how to do things in the real world, so I think (because I sought it out) I got a good mix of the practical and the theoretical. I will say however, that GGU is no more "practice-oriented" than any other school, despite its claims to the contrary. It isn't the school's job to find grads a job: the fact that there are too many attorneys' for too few positions, isn't something that is unique to GGU or any school below HYSCCN, really, and isn’t going to change soon because it would interfere with too many vested interests within the legal establishment.

Ugh. You said "I love the law". If it isn't the schools jobs to find grads jobs does that mean they are automatically excused for any blame when they advertise fraudulent employment stats and salary figures?? Its not as if people are enrolling for their own edification, they think they have a good shot at a job. As always on TLS I'm sure your point of view would be much different if you didn't have a job (i'm assuming you do, otherwise you are suffering from something)

[Borhas]

The Bay Area market is brutally competitive. And for good reason, it's an awesome place to live, and one of the favorites of secular, liberal minded people that fill the legal profession. Unfortunately, it is just not that big of a market, there are actually a decent amount of jobs overall, the legal market in Northern California is about as big as the legal market in Southern California, even though there are twice as many people in the South. Unless you are a Stanford or Berkeley grad, you are probably fucked if you want to work in the Bay Area. You'll have to have two of three things: Great Grades, Great Ties, or T14. To top it all off, the state and local governments are not hiring.

I love the Bay Area, but it looks like I am probably going to have to move back to the DC/MD/VA area for work.

[bahari2010]

I am in fact employed (though under-employed, that has more to do with following my spouse to her job in a small town where I don't really know anyone.) I'm aware of the employment stats practices (though I didn't rely on them when applying to school, and I'm not sure most of my classmates really did either if they're being totally honest) A lawsuit on this will do nothing for the already small value of a GGU law degree. There are hudge issues with the way every law school imitates the curicculum, tuition and teaching structure of HYS; these are not really within GGU's control (but I think that's been discussed elsewhere on TLS) I won't defend the stats in the least, but at least things are being reported better now. I didn't pay sticker for school (about 35% of tuition in total) so I think my positive feelings about my GGU education would be totally different if (a) I had not found any kind of legal job, and (b) I had borrowed full tuition and living expenses.

Ugh. You said "I love the law". If it isn't the schools jobs to find grads jobs does that mean they are automatically excused for any blame when they advertise fraudulent employment stats and salary figures?? Its not as if people are enrolling for their own edification, they think they have a good shot at a job. As always on TLS I'm sure your point of view would be much different if you didn't have a job (i'm assuming you do, otherwise you are suffering from something)

[Pokemon]

I went through the placement information of Northwestern and their wages to find that in 2011, expected first year salary is around 117k.
Of course, I had to guess on some salaries, such as the school funded ones or "business." I also put part-time positions on their own category, where I made up a wage of 40k for them. Additionally, I counted federal clerks as receiving 160k income because I imagine most article III clerks could get biglaw.

If other people could go through more schools, we could have statistics guiding prospective future students. For example, calculate the expected first year salary of your school, minus how much you expect to make without law school three years from now (per year), minus yearly loan amount you expect to pay.

If someone wants to make a shared excel document, I could add the NU Law 2011 info, and other people can add info. from their school. We can also correct each other. I am not sure how to do this anonymously on Google Docs... so if someone knows, we can start this project.

[drmguy]

I went through the placement information of Northwestern and their wages to find that in 2011, expected first year salary is around 117k.
Of course, I had to guess on some salaries, such as the school funded ones or "business." I also put part-time positions on their own category, where I made up a wage of 40k for them. Additionally, I counted federal clerks as receiving 160k income because I imagine most article III clerks could get biglaw.

If other people could go through more schools, we could have statistics guiding prospective future students. For example, calculate the expected first year salary of your school, minus how much you expect to make without law school three years from now (per year), minus yearly loan amount you expect to pay.

If someone wants to make a shared excel document, I could add the NU Law 2011 info, and other people can add info. from their school. We can also correct each other. I am not sure how to do this anonymously on Google Docs... so if someone knows, we can start this project.

The danger of a shared document is that one a-hole can ruin the whole project for everyone.

[wLaw_candidate]

I went through the placement information of Northwestern and their wages to find that in 2011, expected first year salary is around 117k.
Of course, I had to guess on some salaries, such as the school funded ones or "business." I also put part-time positions on their own category, where I made up a wage of 40k for them. Additionally, I counted federal clerks as receiving 160k income because I imagine most article III clerks could get biglaw.

If other people could go through more schools, we could have statistics guiding prospective future students. For example, calculate the expected first year salary of your school, minus how much you expect to make without law school three years from now (per year), minus yearly loan amount you expect to pay.

If someone wants to make a shared excel document, I could add the NU Law 2011 info, and other people can add info. from their school. We can also correct each other. I am not sure how to do this anonymously on Google Docs... so if someone knows, we can start this project.

The danger of a shared document is that one a-hole can ruin the whole project for everyone.

^True, but with a good dedicated group you can have people that fact-check. They can also attempt to prevent or at least identify what that person did wrong and fix it. Right now it sounds like a decent idea... Another option is to create an online graph [a table] in a forum where everyone can contribute to it. Each thread will have a record, the only problem it wouldn't be anonymous anymore.