Ah okay. Would their school employment be more legitimate than others'? If you got a real academia job at Yale as a Yale grad, would you get lumped into the school employment category?

Well, in the Unemployment thread, there seems to be an assumption that they're not very good, if I recall correctly.

There is likely a mix. It is so hard to pin down, because the term is so amorphous. A "business/industry" job that is "JD required" or even "JD preferred" is better than working as a secretary, but the data doesn't draw the distinction. I imagine for T14s with good business schools, some people came in with no intention of being a lawyer, and a lot of those "business/industry" jobs are really solid (things like finance, consulting, tax/accounting work, etc.) and they just got the JD because it helped them with their long-term goals. People from a school like NU are almost certainly getting better "business/industry" jobs than someone from DePaul, Loyola, etc. I think people recognize this, so I think DF is off a little bit here.

Still, a ton of these jobs are not good, even at the best schools. There is a reason why this number grew when the economy went to shit, and its because people were forced to take these jobs to pay the bills. I am sure there were plenty of people at schools like NU and other T14s in the c/o 2009-2011 who wound up taking business jobs when they wanted to be lawyers. Sure, not necessarily a bad outcome, but when you spend time, effort, and money to be a lawyer and have to go back to another profession, that kinda sucks.

I changed the original link to private because too many people were still using it.

The original post has a new link that works much better.

Where does clerkship data come from? For some reason I don't see it on the ABA's spreadsheet, though I might be blind.

Fed=federal clerkships
Local/State=local & state clerkships

I interpreted clerkship data being in the federal, state, and local categories. But there is also non clerkship jobs included with this data.

Edit: yea, what drmguy said.

I believe "govt" is all encompassing for fed/local/state government.

This makes sense. ABA should have been explicit though rather than being retardedly vague.

They also should have broken it into fed govt and then state/local govt. Additionally, they should have provided more info on bus/ind.

Yea, this. While I'm sure some of those are ok to good jobs, I think bus/industry is an unacceptable category as it doesn't give any real information to the outcome.

^I lol'ed.

Took me a minute, but I did too.

51+/A3/PI/Aca/Gov graphed against USNWR rankings (ranked schools only)



Observations:

-The average 51+/A3/PI/Aca/Gov percentage for all (ranked!) schools is roughly 34.15. If you take that as a proxy for jobs worth going to school for, those aren't great odds. Also, that's the mean, which factors in the T14. Most of the schools on the graph are even lower than that, which means that the median probably is, too.

-If you look at the plot like a ferret reaching for a cluster of grapes, the grapes are the T14, the ferret's head is the superregionals, and the paw is midwestern "can you make a 165/166/167? If yes, we'll give you a full ride plus stipend plus Cardinals tickets" type schools. Outside of the T14 and superregionals there doesn't seem to be much, if any, correlation between USNWR ranking and outcome, which is a horn people have been blowing on here for a while. Try covering the grapes and the head with your thumb and looking at it that way. It's a very, very modest correlation.

-On the other hand, "we're TTT, but we're also the only game in town" type state schools don't come out looking very good. South Carolina's below Depaul and Washburn (?). Colorado's a whisker below Samford and Hofstra, and it's not even in the same league as St. John's.




Red line added to denote the 34.15 index mean, and a black line to bring out the correlation a little more strongly

You probably shouldn't be grouping academia in with those other decent jobs. But it is nice to see in graph form. Also appreciate the ferret/grapes.

Eh, I think there are reasonable arguments for or against. In any case, it looks pretty much identical if you take them out.

stats on that line? that OLS?

Keeping that graph around for the next "why T14 and not T10 or T15?" thread.

lol @ the "paw"

It's not surprising that a TTT like South Carolina is doing so bad when you consider there are like no jerbs in South Carolina.

This is why I think the whole "TTTs that dominate their markets > TTTs in crowded markets" argument is bullshit.

You kind have to realize though that in some TTT markets biglaw doesn't even really exist. The local TTT can have great placement into local level law firms (small firms...these markets may not even have 100+ member firms), which is another reason it's so important to go these schools at a cheap price and understand what an acceptable outcome from those schools are (IMO small firm placement). This graph really does show you need a T14 or bust mentality if your aiming for big law. If you want big firm placement, don't go unless you go to a very elite school.

In case people are interested in the "outside the T-14, rank doesn't matter" argument



I would say it actually does though that's obviously not a great best fit