ABA employment numbers for C/O 2011, LST and recent articles Forum

[laxbrah420]

This really puts to bed the US News rankings- look at all the T2s and T3s in the top 100 spots, some even in the top 30. When it comes to the numbers we should really be caring about US News is way off.

not all full time long term jobs are created equal

it actually shows that the rankings are pretty solid

[Ruxin1]

Compiled it in a slightly more useable format. I can add more stats.
Google Docs 2011 Quick Stats

Wow! This is actually really cool. I'm glad I go to school at a top 50 on this list.

This really puts to bed the US News rankings- look at all the T2s and T3s in the top 100 spots, some even in the top 30. When it comes to the numbers we should really be caring about US News is way off.

If you are happy about your school dominating filling 40k a year spots?

[RedBirds2011]

Compiled it in a slightly more useable format. I can add more stats.
Google Docs 2011 Quick Stats

Wow! This is actually really cool. I'm glad I go to school at a top 50 on this list.

This really puts to bed the US News rankings- look at all the T2s and T3s in the top 100 spots, some even in the top 30. When it comes to the numbers we should really be caring about US News is way off.

If you are happy about your school dominating filling 40k a year spots?

Depends on how much debt you have and what you want to do bro. The majority of attorneys in this country do not work in big law firms.

[spleenworship]

This really puts to bed the US News rankings- look at all the T2s and T3s in the top 100 spots, some even in the top 30. When it comes to the numbers we should really be caring about US News is way off.

not all full time long term jobs are created equal

True, but I think this is a judgement the individual student has to make. Personally I'm happy to have a good chance of landing a $60K a year job (my state is teh poorz, so that's actually decent money, and I don't have a lot of debt) in small law. But I know for a lot on this board it's all about biglaw or bust. And that's fine, each student needs to figure out what they really want. All the same, the fact that LSU is beating Penn in overall placement, and placing almost certainly a significant number of their grads in biglaw firms working for the oil rigs in the gulf should convince us that the US News rankings are not really telling us what we need to know. Should LSU be above Penn...? Probably not. But it should be above Colorado and Dozo, which it isn't. Both those schools have worse placements of both biglaw and small law than LSU, and their instuctors are, let's face it, essentially identical... since they all graduated from the effing T6 anyway.

[laxbrah420]

Should LSU be above Penn...? Probably not.

THE VOICE OF REASON

[manofjustice]

Compiled it in a slightly more useable format. I can add more stats.
Google Docs 2011 Quick Stats

It looks like the LT, FT minus school funded is subtracting all school funded. It should only subtract LT, FT school funded, since those are the only jobs that are included in LT, FT in the first place. You've made some schools who were honest with their school funded positions look bad.

[Yossarian79]

My problem with the USNWR rankings isn't that they're "inaccurate," although I have no doubt they miss plenty of nuance. It's that we've long since reached the point where they've stopped reflecting reality at American law schools, and are instead driving the behavior of these schools in ways that aren't necessarily beneficial to the student.

[dingbat]

My problem with the USNWR rankings isn't that they're "inaccurate," although I have no doubt they miss plenty of nuance. It's that we've long since reached the point where they've stopped reflecting reality at American law schools, and are instead driving the behavior of these schools in ways that aren't necessarily beneficial to the student.

Considering your username, I'm surprised you have a problem with this

[laxbrah420]

Compiled it in a slightly more useable format. I can add more stats.
Google Docs 2011 Quick Stats

It looks like the LT, FT minus school funded is subtracting all school funded. It should only subtract LT, FT school funded, since those are the only jobs that are included in LT, FT in the first place. You've made some schools who were honest with their school funded positions look bad.

Fixed

[jenesaislaw]

For those curious about the long-term, full-time legal rate, here is a post I wrote on our decision. You have to understand that we are not in a position to make stuff up just because a few schools benefit unjustly.

A few things. First, there's really no choice for the long-term, full-time rate. It's a straight calculation and this is how the definitions work. Interestingly, NALP introduced a new feature for the 2011 data. It now distinguishes among long-term jobs. They're either (a) for a definite duration of at least one year; or (b) for an indefinite duration. When we request NALP reports from schools, we will be able to distinguish things better.

Second, this is actually a more applicable criticism of our Employment Score. It is something we thought long and hard about keeping out of the score. Ultimately, there are two reasons we didn't, with one being extremely convincing (in my opinion) and the second being a reason that makes me sigh and shrug my shoulders.

(1) We cannot assume that all school-funded jobs are bar-required jobs across the board. That is, for some schools we can deduce this because too few people are in non bar-required jobs to account for all school-funded jobs. We toyed with making this assumption, but after I spoke with Jim Leipold (exec. director of NALP) about this, we decided we couldn't make the assumption. For us, it is totally compelling to keep them in because we cannot make this assumption (and need it to make the translation perfectly).

(2) If we start excluding these jobs (we did exclude solos), how do we distinguish these jobs from clerkships? It'd be absurd to exclude federal clerkships; and it'd be in advisable to distinguish between federal and state clerkships, even if the federal jobs are significantly more competitive. But the score isn't about being competitive; it's about being on a path to a career. And for many states, state clerkships serve that role. Less compelling, but still compelling in my opinion.

Although I'm being redundant here, the only schools benefiting from this are the ones who are funding their graduates in full-time, long-term jobs. These are not jobs for 6 weeks from the end of January to the middle of March. These are jobs that you work (at least) 9-5 for (at least) one year getting legitimate experience. It is not a desirable outcome, but it is the proper and only categorization using the current data.

[Aberzombie1892]

My problem with the USNWR rankings isn't that they're "inaccurate," although I have no doubt they miss plenty of nuance. It's that we've long since reached the point where they've stopped reflecting reality at American law schools, and are instead driving the behavior of these schools in ways that aren't necessarily beneficial to the student.

This. It's really misleading. Due to a lot of schools gaming the rankings, a lot of naive and US News reliant students will choose to go to schools that aren't good at placing their students into full time jobs (JD required or otherwise) because they are ranked highly instead of choose more well rounded schools. Of course, this only really matters when comparing schools outside of the T14ish schools.

It never ceases to amaze me how people apply in "droves" (shout out to Rad) to high ranking (but not elite in placement) schools solely because they are ranked relatively highly. It would make sense if they took into account overall placement (courtesy of the new ABA data and the LST data), geographic location/placement, the NLJ school list, and then glanced at US News. But alas, they seem to do that in the reverse order.

[Yossarian79]

Plus, what incentive do schools have to reduce costs as long as things like "expenditures per student" help drive their rankings? Generally speaking, schools could increase that number (and thus their chance of a higher ranking) one of two ways: by studying costs, making sometimes painful but potentially necessary cuts to "inefficient" areas of the law school, and working carefully to ensure the money they receive each year is targeted to the students to as great a degree as possible, or simply jacking up tuition each year so they can throw more at the students.

A nice, shiny new dime to whoever guesses which path a law school is more likely to take.

[RedBirds2011]

Plus, what incentive do schools have to reduce costs as long as things like "expenditures per student" help drive their rankings? Generally speaking, schools could increase that number (and thus their chance of a higher ranking) one of two ways: by studying costs, making sometimes painful but potentially necessary cuts to "inefficient" areas of the law school, and working carefully to ensure the money they receive each year is targeted to the students to as great a degree as possible, or simply jacking up tuition each year so they can throw more at the students.

A nice, shiny new dime to whoever guesses which path a law school is more likely to take.

*raises hand annoyingly*. Oh ask me, me, MEEE! Law schools will more likely go down the "more expenditures per student" path. Do I get a shiny new dime?

[jenesaislaw]

Plus, what incentive do schools have to reduce costs as long as things like "expenditures per student" help drive their rankings? Generally speaking, schools could increase that number (and thus their chance of a higher ranking) one of two ways: by studying costs, making sometimes painful but potentially necessary cuts to "inefficient" areas of the law school, and working carefully to ensure the money they receive each year is targeted to the students to as great a degree as possible, or simply jacking up tuition each year so they can throw more at the students.

A nice, shiny new dime to whoever guesses which path a law school is more likely to take.

For what it's worth, I've had a few conversations with Bob Morse about removing this from the rankings. Getting changes to the methodology is an interesting process, but U.S. News is open to it and we've been working to get a handful of changes to them.

[laxbrah420]

Spending per student is an excellent criterion for judging a law school as long as it's weighted appropriately. Suggesting that USNWR drop a criterion because schools respond to it by passing the costs onto students seems contradictory to the goal of publishing a list of the best law schools. I suppose the way to remedy it would be to have a more advanced stat that incorporates spending/student as a part of tuition. But high tuition in itself sort of represents quality in the sense that students wouldn't go to a school with high tuition if it wasn't good.

[dingbat]

Spending per student is an excellent criterion for judging a law school as long as it's weighted appropriately. Suggesting that USNWR drop a criterion because schools respond to it by passing the costs onto students seems contradictory to the goal of publishing a list of the best law schools. I suppose the way to remedy it would be to have a more advanced stat that incorporates spending/student as a part of tuition. But high tuition in itself sort of represents quality in the sense that students wouldn't go to a school with high tuition if it wasn't good.

There are TTTTs in NYC that charge as much as HYS
Edit: 6 out of 7 law schools in NYC charge between $45k and $50k sticker
The exception being CUNY, which is a public school

[fatduck]

Plus, what incentive do schools have to reduce costs as long as things like "expenditures per student" help drive their rankings? Generally speaking, schools could increase that number (and thus their chance of a higher ranking) one of two ways: by studying costs, making sometimes painful but potentially necessary cuts to "inefficient" areas of the law school, and working carefully to ensure the money they receive each year is targeted to the students to as great a degree as possible, or simply jacking up tuition each year so they can throw more at the students.

A nice, shiny new dime to whoever guesses which path a law school is more likely to take.

For what it's worth, I've had a few conversations with Bob Morse about removing this from the rankings. Getting changes to the methodology is an interesting process, but U.S. News is open to it and we've been working to get a handful of changes to them.

that was an april fool's joke, dude.

[jenesaislaw]

Spending per student is an excellent criterion for judging a law school as long as it's weighted appropriately. Suggesting that USNWR drop a criterion because schools respond to it by passing the costs onto students seems contradictory to the goal of publishing a list of the best law schools. I suppose the way to remedy it would be to have a more advanced stat that incorporates spending/student as a part of tuition. But high tuition in itself sort of represents quality in the sense that students wouldn't go to a school with high tuition if it wasn't good.

not sure if serious

[laxbrah420]

The last part is probably dumb. The first part is correct.
Also, not sure if you think your website is actually helpful.

[hung jury]

For those curious about the long-term, full-time legal rate, here is a post I wrote on our decision. You have to understand that we are not in a position to make stuff up just because a few schools benefit unjustly.

A few things. First, there's really no choice for the long-term, full-time rate. It's a straight calculation and this is how the definitions work. Interestingly, NALP introduced a new feature for the 2011 data. It now distinguishes among long-term jobs. They're either (a) for a definite duration of at least one year; or (b) for an indefinite duration. When we request NALP reports from schools, we will be able to distinguish things better.

Second, this is actually a more applicable criticism of our Employment Score. It is something we thought long and hard about keeping out of the score. Ultimately, there are two reasons we didn't, with one being extremely convincing (in my opinion) and the second being a reason that makes me sigh and shrug my shoulders.

(1) We cannot assume that all school-funded jobs are bar-required jobs across the board. That is, for some schools we can deduce this because too few people are in non bar-required jobs to account for all school-funded jobs. We toyed with making this assumption, but after I spoke with Jim Leipold (exec. director of NALP) about this, we decided we couldn't make the assumption. For us, it is totally compelling to keep them in because we cannot make this assumption (and need it to make the translation perfectly).

(2) If we start excluding these jobs (we did exclude solos), how do we distinguish these jobs from clerkships? It'd be absurd to exclude federal clerkships; and it'd be in advisable to distinguish between federal and state clerkships, even if the federal jobs are significantly more competitive. But the score isn't about being competitive; it's about being on a path to a career. And for many states, state clerkships serve that role. Less compelling, but still compelling in my opinion.

Although I'm being redundant here, the only schools benefiting from this are the ones who are funding their graduates in full-time, long-term jobs. These are not jobs for 6 weeks from the end of January to the middle of March. These are jobs that you work (at least) 9-5 for (at least) one year getting legitimate experience. It is not a desirable outcome, but it is the proper and only categorization using the current data.

What are these positions, exactly, and why are they undesirable? The only ones I'm familiar pay 45k per year + bar stipend + ordinary LRAP covering (all) your loan payments for the year for students going into public service; they basically work like a Skadden or EJW fellowship. Given the state of the PI market they actually seem like a soft landing for PI students. Is this standard, or are TTTs creating 10k a year fellowships etc? I guess I look at a school like Yale with 22 of these things and a history of having non-biglaw students and it seems like maybe we're lumping a pretty diverse set of fellowships into one category. Just curious if you have info on these things.

[manofjustice]

For those curious about the long-term, full-time legal rate, here is a post I wrote on our decision. You have to understand that we are not in a position to make stuff up just because a few schools benefit unjustly.

A few things. First, there's really no choice for the long-term, full-time rate. It's a straight calculation and this is how the definitions work. Interestingly, NALP introduced a new feature for the 2011 data. It now distinguishes among long-term jobs. They're either (a) for a definite duration of at least one year; or (b) for an indefinite duration. When we request NALP reports from schools, we will be able to distinguish things better.

Second, this is actually a more applicable criticism of our Employment Score. It is something we thought long and hard about keeping out of the score. Ultimately, there are two reasons we didn't, with one being extremely convincing (in my opinion) and the second being a reason that makes me sigh and shrug my shoulders.

(1) We cannot assume that all school-funded jobs are bar-required jobs across the board. That is, for some schools we can deduce this because too few people are in non bar-required jobs to account for all school-funded jobs. We toyed with making this assumption, but after I spoke with Jim Leipold (exec. director of NALP) about this, we decided we couldn't make the assumption. For us, it is totally compelling to keep them in because we cannot make this assumption (and need it to make the translation perfectly).

(2) If we start excluding these jobs (we did exclude solos), how do we distinguish these jobs from clerkships? It'd be absurd to exclude federal clerkships; and it'd be in advisable to distinguish between federal and state clerkships, even if the federal jobs are significantly more competitive. But the score isn't about being competitive; it's about being on a path to a career. And for many states, state clerkships serve that role. Less compelling, but still compelling in my opinion.

Although I'm being redundant here, the only schools benefiting from this are the ones who are funding their graduates in full-time, long-term jobs. These are not jobs for 6 weeks from the end of January to the middle of March. These are jobs that you work (at least) 9-5 for (at least) one year getting legitimate experience. It is not a desirable outcome, but it is the proper and only categorization using the current data.

What are these positions, exactly, and why are they undesirable? The only ones I'm familiar pay 45k per year + bar stipend + ordinary LRAP covering (all) your loan payments for the year for students going into public service; they basically work like a Skadden or EJW fellowship. Given the state of the PI market they actually seem like a soft landing for PI students. Is this standard, or are TTTs creating 10k a year fellowships etc? I guess I look at a school like Yale with 22 of these things and a history of having non-biglaw students and it seems like maybe we're lumping a pretty diverse set of fellowships into one category. Just curious if you have info on these things.

TL;DR: See sentence in bold.

From: Dean Paul Schiff Berman <pberman@law.gwu.edu>
Subject: Adjustments to P2P Program
Date: June 19, 2012 9:14:12 AM PDT

Dear P2P Fellows,

I know that most of you are deeply immersed in Bar prep right now, but I wanted to reach out to you to discuss your job search as well as some necessary adjustments to the Pathways to Practice (P2P) Program in which you are currently enrolled.

As you know, the purpose of the Program is to provide some financial support in those first crucial months out in the job market when you are still waiting to be admitted to a Bar and may need volunteer opportunities in order to build your networks and get your first paid law work. To that end, I note that the support is only available to those who are actively working in P2P placements and who are regularly in contact with our Career Office to take the steps necessary to find paid work. Such regular contact must, at a minimum, include a monthly meeting (by phone or in person) beginning in August. You should know that I have recently hired a new head of our Career Office, Abe Pollack, and he is dynamic, energized, and laser-focused on getting each and every one of you some paying law job between now and December. He and our career counselors are 100 percent committed to working with you, and if you encounter any difficulties in your work with your counselor, please contact Abe as soon as possible so we can make sure you remain on track.

Also, I have now heard several anecdotal reports of graduates turning down paying work so that they can remain in the Pathways Program and hopefully find more desirable work later. This is not how the Program is intended to be used. You should jump at any paying legal work opportunity, and if it's not your ideal position, then use it as a launchpad for your next search. In order to make sure both that the incentives are properly aligned and that we can continue to fund the Program for the many students who have enrolled, <<<we will be adjusting the payments from $15 per hour to $10 per hour beginning December 1. The new funding amount will remain in place from December 1 until you have been in the Program for a full year, at which time your enrollment in the Program will end>>>. However, it is my sincere hope that all of you will have found employment by then (or, preferably, far earlier). My advice is the same as always: follow every lead, get out in the world and meet as many people as you can at Bar events, trade association meetings, and so on, use any network you can find to make contacts, and follow up on any contacts you make. And do twice as much as expected of you in your P2P placement so people will notice you and want to hire you permanently or recommend you to others. I know it is an historically difficult job market, but we are here to help you navigate through this transition period.

My very best to each of you.

Paul Schiff Berman
Dean and Robert Kramer Research Professor of Law
The George Washington University Law School

[rayiner]

LOL.

[spleenworship]

He pulled back on that... almost certainly at least in part because they made him look like the world's biggest douchenozzle on ATL.

[RedBirds2011]

Truly, it's still a lot better than just being flat out unemployed. Even if the school is doing it for unethical/questionable reasons, it still gives the student a year to try to line something up without just putting them out on the street.


But still...

LOL.

at this.

[mrwarre85]

This really puts to bed the US News rankings- look at all the T2s and T3s in the top 100 spots, some even in the top 30. When it comes to the numbers we should really be caring about US News is way off.

not all full time long term jobs are created equal

True, but I think this is a judgement the individual student has to make. Personally I'm happy to have a good chance of landing a $60K a year job (my state is teh poorz, so that's actually decent money, and I don't have a lot of debt) in small law. But I know for a lot on this board it's all about biglaw or bust. And that's fine, each student needs to figure out what they really want. All the same, the fact that LSU is beating Penn in overall placement, and placing almost certainly a significant number of their grads in biglaw firms working for the oil rigs in the gulf should convince us that the US News rankings are not really telling us what we need to know. Should LSU be above Penn...? Probably not. But it should be above Colorado and Dozo, which it isn't. Both those schools have worse placements of both biglaw and small law than LSU, and their instuctors are, let's face it, essentially identical... since they all graduated from the effing T6 anyway.

You are just looking for data to verify what you want to believe.

CU
medians- 3.64, 164
faculty student ratio-- 9.8 to 1
bar passage rate- 95.2%

LSU
medians- 3.39, 158
faculty student ratio-- 18.6 to 1
bar passage- 75.2%

See, anyone can focus on particular data that makes their school look better than other schools. Not impressive. You could have also just looked at the last two years of employment data to see that CU>>LSU for fed clerkships and big law, but you didn't do that. Considering both law schools have small class sizes, and thus year to year fluctuations are going to be huge, doing so would have been more informative. I think your real problem is refusing to consider that inputs should be a criteria for the rankings. When you only look at outputs, you have to necessarily assume that all students are looking for the same types of opportunities across the different schools. This isn't true. i.e., why Mississippi College is ahead of Yale in the rankings you seem to favor so much.

Your school is fine and you shouldn't feel any need to defend it. With a few exceptions at the very top, flagship state schools offer similar employment opportunities whether they are T3 or T1. A median CU student should have the same job hunt strategy as a median LSU student or a median Texas Tech student. That doesn't mean CU Law isn't more selective or that it doesn't have a higher quality student body, though. The faculty might not be better, but a professorship at CU or Dozo (Boulder/Denver area or NYC) is a much better gig than at Tech or LSU (Lubbock or Baton Rouge). You can't say that LSU "should be ranked ahead" these schools because of (very suspect) data from one years class that you found on the internet. Let's be reasonable.