Class of 2012 Employment Data

[02889]

Well, feel free to be an asshole about it, but the fact that the screwed Berkeley grads have to work at Starbucks and the screwed UVA grads work at Public Defenders offices as attorneys is an actual difference. 32 of 40 school funded UVA students from 2010 have real lawyer jobs now. I wonder how many of the screwed Berkeley grads whose school so nobly didn't game the system by paying them to work as lawyers are even using their law degrees. Cynicism is healthy on this stuff, but you can take it too far.

- Show me one "screwed Berkeley grad working at Starbucks."
- I agree that the school-funded jobs are certainly better than Starbucks (at least experience-wise). Its a lesser of many evils, sure. However, I disagree with your sentiment that UVA employing 15% of its own graduates is a positive statistic. You were presenting it as such. These kids fell into the safety net, they didn't hit a home run,
- The point I was trying to make is that bashing Berkeley as underperforming makes no sense in the context of the rest of the T14, who are obviously licking their wounds.

Non-indicative anecdote: The nonprofit where I work is hiring a paralegal, and I've received more than one application from a recent Berkeley Law grad.

I think the point is that, when students are facing the worst job market in a generation or more, some schools chose to help their students find a potential path to actual legal employment through school-funded PI positions (UVA, NYU) while some schools did not (Berkeley). Was it to game employment numbers? Did it make any real positive difference in the lives of graduates? We don't know that exactly, but it's still clear that some schools stepped up to help their grads and some (apparently) didn't (at least in this way).

[NoodleyOne]

You're right. it's more like 15 bucks an hour.

Come on now. It's 30k a year with LRAP. Is it a ton of money? No, but for people with serious PI interest, it is an excellent option.

Also relevant from:http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2013_spr/fellowships.htm

When he graduated in 2010, University of Virginia law alumnus Michael Robertson received a fellowship to work in the legal department of a nonprofit biotechnology industry organization in Washington, D.C. After his fellowship, he secured a federal district court clerkship and ultimately a prestigious clerkship with Judge Stephanie Thacker on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"None of this would have been possible without the initial fellowship that put me in D.C.," Robertson said. "It let me hit the ground running and it gave me the opportunity to network and the ability to find new opportunities out there."

and

Daner, who turned down a law firm job in order to pursue public service, said he was pleased with how the fellowship helped him accomplish his goals, as well as with the support from Career Services along the way.

"They allowed me to stay on the career path that I wanted to be on. It laid a foundation for my career that I could not be more excited about," he said.

Now, I am aware it's anecdotal, but you're not getting a firm offer or a clerkship with below median grades. It's not all safety-net, there is some self selection. At the same time, a lot of it is certainly people who miss out on Biglaw (especially since UVA mainly targets DC), but the fact is that the fellowship pays them to be a lawyer. I find that to me a much better outcome than a) the school not giving a fuck in general or b) the school paying you a pittance to work on campus just to game employment numbers. Is UVA getting something out of this? Absolutely, their employment score benefits. But so do the graduates.

[WhiskeynCoke]

You're right. it's more like 15 bucks an hour.

Come on now. It's 30k a year with LRAP. Is it a ton of money? No, but for people with serious PI interest, it is an excellent option.

Also relevant from:http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2013_spr/fellowships.htm

When he graduated in 2010, University of Virginia law alumnus Michael Robertson received a fellowship to work in the legal department of a nonprofit biotechnology industry organization in Washington, D.C. After his fellowship, he secured a federal district court clerkship and ultimately a prestigious clerkship with Judge Stephanie Thacker on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"None of this would have been possible without the initial fellowship that put me in D.C.," Robertson said. "It let me hit the ground running and it gave me the opportunity to network and the ability to find new opportunities out there."

and

Daner, who turned down a law firm job in order to pursue public service, said he was pleased with how the fellowship helped him accomplish his goals, as well as with the support from Career Services along the way.

"They allowed me to stay on the career path that I wanted to be on. It laid a foundation for my career that I could not be more excited about," he said.

Now, I am aware it's anecdotal, but you're not getting a firm offer or a clerkship with below median grades. It's not all safety-net, there is some self selection. At the same time, a lot of it is certainly people who miss out on Biglaw (especially since UVA mainly targets DC), but the fact is that the fellowship pays them to be a lawyer. I find that to me a much better outcome than a) the school not giving a fuck in general or b) the school paying you a pittance to work on campus just to game employment numbers. Is UVA getting something out of this? Absolutely, their employment score benefits. But so do the graduates.

FYI, $30k a year at 40 hrs/week ("full time") is $15/hr. If these are "real" lawyer jobs, they're probably working significantly more hours than that so its likely less than $15/hr. Yes this is helping grads gain experience and sure, it could be for the right reasons. High fives for UVA, NYU, and everyone else who "cares." This is all beside the point though.

The point is that you can't look at all these positions and assume each of these people could've landed Big Law, a clerkship, or even PI. No one invests $200k+ in T14 law school education with the explicit plan of getting a low paying job subsidized by their school. Sure, some might have great results, but two stories does not a trend make. It is what it is.

[sinfiery]

32 of the 35 UVA grads were found to be working as lawyers. This is now in the realm where salary data for a profession entitled "lawyer" is applicable which does quite well last time I looked it up. This is exactly what people invest 200k in across all the different law schools to obtain. Sadly, most don't get the reward.

And I'm willing to say a significant amount of these 32 wouldn't be part of this category without this >$15/hr job

[Elston Gunn]

32 of the 35 UVA grads were found to be working as lawyers. This is now in the realm where salary data for a profession entitled "lawyer" is applicable which does quite well last time I looked it up. This is exactly what people invest 200k in across all the different law schools to obtain. Sadly, most don't get the reward.

And I'm willing to say a significant amount of these 32 wouldn't be part of this category without this >$15/hr job

It's 32 of 40 with 5 not reporting. I agree with your point, but it's a significant difference.

[Elston Gunn]

FYI, $30k a year at 40 hrs/week ("full time") is $15/hr. If these are "real" lawyer jobs, they're probably working significantly more hours than that so its likely less than $15/hr. Yes this is helping grads gain experience and sure, it could be for the right reasons. High fives for UVA, NYU, and everyone else who "cares." This is all beside the point though.

The point is that you can't look at all these positions and assume each of these people could've landed Big Law, a clerkship, or even PI. No one invests $200k+ in T14 law school education with the explicit plan of getting a low paying job subsidized by their school. Sure, some might have great results, but two stories does not a trend make. It is what it is.

This is a total strawman. They invest $200K hoping for something else, but it's just as important to know what your safety net is as your chances at the ideal outcome. All I am saying is that it's better to have the school funded jobs available than not. 85% FT/LT JD-required and 2% school funded jobs is worse for students than 95% FT/LT JD-required and 15% school funded, even if the numbers indicate the schools have the same placement power. Most of TLS wants to discount the SFJs completely (and wants the ABA to stop counting them, thus stopping the schools' incentive), and I think that's taking it too far.

[20141023]

.

[Elston Gunn]

snip

Umm, why are you subtracting school funded from biggish firms+AII clerkships? The natural thing to subtract from is FT/LT JD-required. I would bet literally zero SFJs are at firms and very very few are with federal judges. It's not going to distort the firms+clerks number.

[ph5354a]

Thanks, Reg.

Odds that Cornell leapfrogs 2-3 places next year?

[BigZuck]

Thanks, Reg.

Odds that Cornell leapfrogs 2-3 places next year?

Why would they leapfrog Duke or NU?

[NoodleyOne]

snip

Umm, why are you subtracting school funded from biggish firms+AII clerkships? The natural thing to subtract from is FT/LT JD-required. I would bet literally zero SFJs are at firms and very very few are with federal judges. It's not going to distort the firms+clerks number.

This. That makes no sense unless the purpose is to penalize schools for school funded.

Instead of lumping all school funded together as evil, why not call for more transparency as to what it means and what tends to come from it? That is the frustrating aspect to me. Finding out more about UVAs jobs did a lot to set my mind at ease.

[cahwc12]

I wonder how absurd this thought process is:

UCI's biglaw+federal clerkships: 51.8% (29 graduates)

UCI's c/o 2016 size (119) vs c/o 2012 size (56): +112%

UCI's biglaw+federal clerkship placement with c/o 2016 size factored in: 24.4% (29/119)

[ph5354a]

Thanks, Reg.

Odds that Cornell leapfrogs 2-3 places next year?

Why would they leapfrog Duke or NU?

Because of this. Not saying it will happen, just wondering if it's possible. I know there are a lot of other factors that determine rankings.

Cornell: 57.9(+19) + 6.8(-1.2) = 64.7(+17.9)
Duke: 51.1(+6.2) + 12.9(+1.8 ) = 64(+8)
UVA: 47.8(+9.6) + 14.3(+3.7) = 62.1(+13.3)
Northwestern: 49.2(-4.1) + 6.4(-1.6) = 55.6(-5.7)
Mich: 43.3(+9.3) + 8.5(+2.1) = 51.8(+11.4)

[cahwc12]

I know there are a lot of other factors that determine rankings.

The key though is that most of the factors are masturbatory and just derivative of each other. The new and more transparent employment data is the least dependent of them all, and so even though it's only 20% of the ranking, that 20% can net large jumps in the rankings (Alabama, Brooklyn for example).

[DoveBodyWash]

GULC
Firms (101-250): 3.8%
Firms (251-500): 5.9%
Firms (501+): 29.4%
Clerkships (Federal): 3.7%
Total: 42.8%
School Funded: 9.7%
Total Minus School Funded: 33.1%

I'm a little confused, why are you subtracting the school-funded from the specified total? If you're only adding up the placement rates for 100+ firms and federal clerkships, then doesn't that already exclude the school-funded rate?

ETA: Scooped

[BigZuck]

Thanks, Reg.

Odds that Cornell leapfrogs 2-3 places next year?

Why would they leapfrog Duke or NU?

Because of this. Not saying it will happen, just wondering if it's possible. I know there are a lot of other factors that determine rankings.

Cornell: 57.9(+19) + 6.8(-1.2) = 64.7(+17.9)
Duke: 51.1(+6.2) + 12.9(+1.8 ) = 64(+8)
UVA: 47.8(+9.6) + 14.3(+3.7) = 62.1(+13.3)
Northwestern: 49.2(-4.1) + 6.4(-1.6) = 55.6(-5.7)
Mich: 43.3(+9.3) + 8.5(+2.1) = 51.8(+11.4)

Duke and NU have been performing the same or better than Cornell the last couple of years. Plus Cornell has lower medians holding it back. No way it gets ranked higher than Duke or NU unless the composition of the entering class gets stronger IMO. And I don't see that happening as long as the school is located in Ithaca.

[Real Madrid]

I think we can all agree that no one goes to school in the hopes of getting a school-funded job, so for the sake of argument about 19.5 percent of 2012 grads at UVa were unable to land employment. 14.1% of Berkeley grads were unable to.

Elston, I think you are pretty off the mark in just assuming these jobs are a "safety net," considering we have no proof they'll continue to exist. I would LOVE to see what happens to this UVa program if USNWR stopped counting it towards employment numbers.

Also, NoodleyOne, can you please dispense with this argument about how these students are being provided an outlet for their PI interest? UVa has not gone from having 4% of students interested in PI to 24% interested in PI in the course of two years.

I agree that a school-funded position is better than literally nothing at all, but the fact is that about 20% of UVa grads are doing poorly at graduation whereas about 15% of Berkeley grads are. Both numbers should be improved with what these schools charge for tuition.

[20141023]

.

[DoveBodyWash]

I agree that a school-funded position is better than literally nothing at all, but the fact is that about 20% of UVa grads are doing poorly at graduation whereas about 15% of Berkeley grads are. Both numbers should be improved with what these schools charge for tuition.

This.

[Elston Gunn]

I think we can all agree that no one goes to school in the hopes of getting a school-funded job, so for the sake of argument about 19.5 percent of 2012 grads at UVa were unable to land employment. 14.1% of Berkeley grads were unable to.

Elston, I think you are pretty off the mark in just assuming these jobs are a "safety net," considering we have no proof they'll continue to exist. I would LOVE to see what happens to this UVa program if USNWR stopped counting it towards employment numbers.

Also, NoodleyOne, can you please dispense with this argument about how these students are being provided an outlet for their PI interest? UVa has not gone from having 4% of students interested in PI to 24% interested in PI in the course of two years.

I agree that a school-funded position is better than literally nothing at all, but the fact is that about 20% of UVa grads are doing poorly at graduation whereas about 15% of Berkeley grads are. Both numbers should be improved with what these schools charge for tuition.

First of all, the bolded is why the push to have SFJs not count in a school's USNWR employment score is misguided IMO. I'm not saying saying the schools are purely acting from noble intentions.

Second, this depends completely on which question you're asking. If you're asking, is law school worth the money?, then it's a very bad idea to uncritically look at UVA's FTLTJD number and think that's how well you're placing, and I agree the tuition is too high. But if you're asking which law school should I go to?, schools that have shown a willingness to provide their students with a legitimate safety net should be preferred to otherwise equivalent schools that don't do that, even though I serious discount must be applied for the SFJs.

The point that we have no idea how long these jobs will continue to be funded is a good one, however.

[Revolver066]

I think we can all agree that no one goes to school in the hopes of getting a school-funded job.

I think this is the strongest point. While they MAY lead to desirable employment, I dont think many people would go to law school if this was the guaranteed outcome. For example, if I was guaranteed in my target market any job paying 145k or more (within reason), any fed clerkship, or any LRAP eligible PI/Govt job that I had a good chance to stay 10 years in, I would take that in a heartbeat. School funded? No way in hell.

Law school is already a gamble...adding the extra gamble of hoping to get desirable employment after a school funded 30k a year job seems terrible, though there have been some exceptions, obviously.

All this is to say I think it's extremely reasonable to exclude these from desirable jobs, with the caveat that some do in fact lead to desirable employment down the road. Yes these are obviously better than straight unemployment, but it's probably better to be conservative with these estimates anyways. If you really wanted, you could include in an underemployment chart maybe 1/2 of the jobs as being undesirable (like in the business category)

[WhiskeynCoke]

I think we can all agree that no one goes to school in the hopes of getting a school-funded job.

I think this is the strongest point. While they MAY lead to desirable employment, I dont think many people would go to law school if this was the guaranteed outcome. For example, if I was guaranteed in my target market any job paying 145k or more (within reason), any fed clerkship, or any LRAP eligible PI/Govt job that I had a good chance to stay 10 years in, I would take that in a heartbeat. School funded? No way in hell.

Law school is already a gamble...adding the extra gamble of hoping to get desirable employment after a school funded 30k a year job seems terrible, though there have been some exceptions, obviously.

All this is to say I think it's extremely reasonable to exclude these from desirable jobs, with the caveat that some do in fact lead to desirable employment down the road. Yes these are obviously better than straight unemployment, but it's probably better to be conservative with these estimates anyways. If you really wanted, you could include in an underemployment chart maybe 1/2 of the jobs as being undesirable (like in the business category)

This is all I was really trying to say.

[californiabeauar]

I think we can all agree that no one goes to school in the hopes of getting a school-funded job, so for the sake of argument about 19.5 percent of 2012 grads at UVa were unable to land employment. 14.1% of Berkeley grads were unable to.

Elston, I think you are pretty off the mark in just assuming these jobs are a "safety net," considering we have no proof they'll continue to exist. I would LOVE to see what happens to this UVa program if USNWR stopped counting it towards employment numbers.

Also, NoodleyOne, can you please dispense with this argument about how these students are being provided an outlet for their PI interest? UVa has not gone from having 4% of students interested in PI to 24% interested in PI in the course of two years.

I agree that a school-funded position is better than literally nothing at all, but the fact is that about 20% of UVa grads are doing poorly at graduation whereas about 15% of Berkeley grads are. Both numbers should be improved with what these schools charge for tuition.

The bolded is fallacious and absolutely not true. Since you're bent on nit-picking the difference between mere percentage points, then I'd say at least 4 or 5% of those UVa SFJ's are going to students who either self-selected into the black-box market that is public interest or received one of a handful of prestigious fellowships (usually given to one outstanding, public-minded law graduate) which are thrown into the 'school-funded jobs' group. On the other hand, those 15% unemployed Berkeley students are well....all unemployed. So far, it seems like these two are peers law schools in every sense of the word. But wait. There's more. Most reasonable people would rather be underemployed than unemployed. So, despite my hatred for both admission offices, UVa takes the cake. Also, I'm not trolling or picking on you, but some of your arguments are grossly distorted (as are some of mine).

[WhiskeynCoke]

I think we can all agree that no one goes to school in the hopes of getting a school-funded job, so for the sake of argument about 19.5 percent of 2012 grads at UVa were unable to land employment. 14.1% of Berkeley grads were unable to.

Elston, I think you are pretty off the mark in just assuming these jobs are a "safety net," considering we have no proof they'll continue to exist. I would LOVE to see what happens to this UVa program if USNWR stopped counting it towards employment numbers.

Also, NoodleyOne, can you please dispense with this argument about how these students are being provided an outlet for their PI interest? UVa has not gone from having 4% of students interested in PI to 24% interested in PI in the course of two years.

I agree that a school-funded position is better than literally nothing at all, but the fact is that about 20% of UVa grads are doing poorly at graduation whereas about 15% of Berkeley grads are. Both numbers should be improved with what these schools charge for tuition.

The bolded is fallacious and absolutely not true. Since you're bent on nit-picking the difference between mere percentage points, then I'd say at least 4 or 5% of those UVa SFJ's are going to students who either self-selected into the black-box market that is public interest or received one of a handful of prestigious fellowships (usually given to one outstanding, public-minded law graduate) which are thrown into the 'school-funded jobs' group. On the other hand, those 15% unemployed Berkeley students are well....all unemployed. So far, it seems like these two are peers law schools in every sense of the word. But wait. There's more. Most reasonable people would rather be underemployed than unemployed. So, despite my hatred for both admission offices, UVa takes the cake. Also, I'm not trolling or picking on you, but some of your arguments are grossly distorted (as are some of mine).

You are confusing your statistics. These numbers refer to the percentages of grads not employed in FULL TIME LEGAL JOBS, not percentage of grads without any job whatsoever. This is an incredibly important distinction and please allow me to clarify the numbers.

Berkeley: http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... show=chars
Full-Time Legal = 85.9% employed (includes no school funded)
Full-Time (any field) = 94.2% employed
This means that 5.8% of 2012 Berkeley grads are without some sort of Full-Time Job

UVA: http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=uva&show=chars
Full-Time Legal (including school funded) = 94.5% employed (14.8% of this score is SFJ)
Full-Time Legal (no school funded) = 79.7% employed...( 94.5-14.8 )
Full-Time (any field) = 98.1% employed
This means that 1.9% of 2012 UVA grads are without some sort of Full-Time Job

You can play with these statistics enough to really justify any sort of agenda you may have. Less UVA grads are unemployed. More Berkeley grads have been hired as lawyers by people who are wiling to pay them. So on and so forth. Have at it.

[Dmini7]

Am I missing something? I don't see Chicago on here, have they released their stats yet? I am on a mobile device so I can't really check right now :/.