LST INDEX - School hires Forum

[umichman]

So As I look through the LST scores, i notice that a lot of the scores have high amounts of school hires. This is the LST of schools when you subtract the percentage of school hires.

chicago-87
uva-79.7
upenn- 91.8
columbia--85.3
stanford-89
NYU-79.1
Harvard-84.4
UCB-85.9
duke-84.9
umich - 81.7

GWU-60.2

While obviously this may skew some of the stats because of self-selection and what not, am I missing something or aren't these more accurate for employment in the real world?

If I am missing something please let me know. I guess I would think of school hires as not the goal LS students.

[20141023]

.

[twenty]

I would imagine a school-funded fellowship at UChicago or even UVA is a substantially better outcome than at GWU.

[cotiger]

In my personal spreadsheet that I use to look at law school employment stats, I assumed that 50% of YHS school-funded positions were desirable employment, 30% for CCN, and 10% for the lower T14. This was a completely arbitrary decision with no actual data backing it up.

[twenty]

In my personal spreadsheet that I use to look at law school employment stats, I assumed that 50% of YHS school-funded positions were desirable employment, 30% for CCN, and 10% for the lower T14. This was a completely arbitrary decision with no actual data backing it up.

I'd imagine that's probably a little bit conservative, though "good outcome" is certainly subjective. From GWU, a "good outcome" is having a paying legal job. My guess is that close to 100% of HYS school funded spots are not a complete waste of a year, and thus a good outcome, probably 80% or so from CCN, 70% or so from most everyone else, and maybe 50% from a few notable schools (coughUVA)

My reasoning here is that HYS grads can basically always get biglaw, so if an HYS grad takes a fellowship and stays with it for 9 months and a day, it has to be a pretty solid deal (otherwise, why not just go to biglaw?). CCN grads will very likely get biglaw 9 months from graduation unless they're at the very bottom of the class, so it makes sense there might be a few unhappy fundees. And so on.

[rad lulz]

m

[cotiger]

In my personal spreadsheet that I use to look at law school employment stats, I assumed that 50% of YHS school-funded positions were desirable employment, 30% for CCN, and 10% for the lower T14. This was a completely arbitrary decision with no actual data backing it up.

I'd imagine that's probably a little bit conservative, though "good outcome" is certainly subjective. From GWU, a "good outcome" is having a paying legal job. My guess is that close to 100% of HYS school funded spots are not a complete waste of a year, and thus a good outcome, probably 80% or so from CCN, 70% or so from most everyone else, and maybe 50% from a few notable schools (coughUVA)

My reasoning here is that HYS grads can basically always get biglaw, so if an HYS grad takes a fellowship and stays with it for 9 months and a day, it has to be a pretty solid deal (otherwise, why not just go to biglaw?). CCN grads will very likely get biglaw 9 months from graduation unless they're at the very bottom of the class, so it makes sense there might be a few unhappy fundees. And so on.

Well, I'm mostly using this for "undesirable outcomes" metrics that incorporate things like small law to estimate how many grads ended up with a result that they probably didn't want. The fact that a lot of these jobs only appeared starting for the epic fail C/O 2011 makes me skeptical that most of them are desired employment. So in my case I think that leaning towards the conservative side is probably better.

H/Y are different, though, having had decently sized programs beforehand.

[twenty]

In my personal spreadsheet that I use to look at law school employment stats, I assumed that 50% of YHS school-funded positions were desirable employment, 30% for CCN, and 10% for the lower T14. This was a completely arbitrary decision with no actual data backing it up.

I'd imagine that's probably a little bit conservative, though "good outcome" is certainly subjective. From GWU, a "good outcome" is having a paying legal job. My guess is that close to 100% of HYS school funded spots are not a complete waste of a year, and thus a good outcome, probably 80% or so from CCN, 70% or so from most everyone else, and maybe 50% from a few notable schools (coughUVA)

My reasoning here is that HYS grads can basically always get biglaw, so if an HYS grad takes a fellowship and stays with it for 9 months and a day, it has to be a pretty solid deal (otherwise, why not just go to biglaw?). CCN grads will very likely get biglaw 9 months from graduation unless they're at the very bottom of the class, so it makes sense there might be a few unhappy fundees. And so on.

At what OCI

The math is clearly shite, but think about it for a second. Unless you are truly insufferable (in which case, non-unique to the situation), even straight Ps at HYS should land you a decent gig nine months after you graduate. If nine months later you're in a school fellowship rather than a nebulous "other decent gig", then clearly the fellowship was a solid outcome.

[jbagelboy]

In my personal spreadsheet that I use to look at law school employment stats, I assumed that 50% of YHS school-funded positions were desirable employment, 30% for CCN, and 10% for the lower T14. This was a completely arbitrary decision with no actual data backing it up.

I'd imagine that's probably a little bit conservative, though "good outcome" is certainly subjective. From GWU, a "good outcome" is having a paying legal job. My guess is that close to 100% of HYS school funded spots are not a complete waste of a year, and thus a good outcome, probably 80% or so from CCN, 70% or so from most everyone else, and maybe 50% from a few notable schools (coughUVA)

My reasoning here is that HYS grads can basically always get biglaw, so if an HYS grad takes a fellowship and stays with it for 9 months and a day, it has to be a pretty solid deal (otherwise, why not just go to biglaw?). CCN grads will very likely get biglaw 9 months from graduation unless they're at the very bottom of the class, so it makes sense there might be a few unhappy fundees. And so on.

At what OCI

The math is clearly shite, but think about it for a second. Unless you are truly insufferable (in which case, non-unique to the situation), even straight Ps at HYS should land you a decent gig nine months after you graduate. If nine months later you're in a school fellowship rather than a nebulous "other decent gig", then clearly the fellowship was a solid outcome.

This seems tautological, not mathematical - you can't evaluate the quality of positions they actually have for which we dont have an assessment on what students who didnt have to take those positions presumably would have otherwise had to take.

[Cicero76]

I can tell you that the Yale fellowships, at least, are far more competitive than Biglaw. They pay ~50k a year with full benefits, are only available for "significant policy related" positions in the government or a nonprofit, and usually have pretty good outcomes for the fellows when they end (at least according to the stats they gave us at a lecture about them). Can't speak for HS though.

It's a pretty big difference from hiring your own grads at $14 an hour to make copies.

[Tiago Splitter]

Here are Harvard's school funded-people from the class of 2010 if anyone wants to see what they're doing now. We've done this before but I can't find the old thread.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/05 ... ships.html

This lists 27 people, and there were 29 school-funded positions on the ABA report, so some (probably the two short term) are missing.

[cotiger]

It sounds like I should probably revise upwards my estimations for YHS. Which makes sense due to HY having significant programs for at least several years prior (S has never really had much of one).

Tiago, do you have any idea about the validity/desirability of CLS's fellowships? They're a school that jumped from 0% for c/o 2010 to 8.3%/8.1% for 2011/2012.

They also had the third-highest jump in PI employment (after Chi and UVA) between '10 and '11 (7.7%). I know twentypercentmore has detailed that it's not particularly easy to just jump ship into PI, so I guess it's possible that CLS just started attracting PI lawyers. But the combination of biglaw collapse->big fellowship program appearing out of nowhere->greatly increased PI makes me suspicious. Any (even anecdotal) info?

[20141023]

.

[twenty]

This seems tautological, not mathematical - you can't evaluate the quality of positions they actually have for which we dont have an assessment on what students who didnt have to take those positions presumably would have otherwise had to take.

We can for HYS (because that number should be ~100% access to biglaw), though you're right in that it is bad reasoning to do that anywhere else.

In scenario 1, Bill's an HYS grad and takes a fellowship. Nine months later, he's still at that fellowship. Because he had an 100% shot at biglaw, it is safe to assume that the fellowship for him represented a "good outcome," because otherwise he wouldn't be there given that he has another equally "good outcome" alternative in biglaw.

In scenario 2, Bill's a CCN grad, and takes a fellowship. Nine months later, he's still at that fellowship. While it is possible Bill is choosing the fellowship over biglaw (i.e, he's in the top 10% of his class and has that option), it is also possible that Bill doesn't have access to biglaw (i.e, he's in the bottom 10% of his class), thus making the fellowship a possible "bad outcome."

Tiago, do you have any idea about the validity/desirability of CLS's fellowships? They're a school that jumped from 0% for c/o 2010 to 8.3%/8.1% for 2011/2012.

CLS made no secret of the fact they would be massively ramping up their PI commitment. The jump from ~0% to 8.3% is pretty tremendous, but doesn't really surprise me at all, given their marketing of it.

[lecsa]

.

[californiauser]

I'm willing to give HYS a pass on the school-funded jobs, but below that, just no.

Most of these school funded jobs didn't exist pre-recession so there's no reason to believe they're desireable

[rayiner]

I have been unhappy with LST's treatment of the "school-funded" category, particularly with respect to UVA and GW. LST has both at around 95% employment score, but UVA has over 15% school-funded positions, and Penn around 3%. GW is at 23% school-funded. UVA's Kennedy fellowship is relatively generous ($30k/year), but it's still basically a jobs program for graduates who can't get public interest work (most legit PI will pay more than that).

[lecsa]

.

[jenesaislaw]

I have been unhappy with LST's treatment of the "school-funded" category, particularly with respect to UVA and GW. LST has both at around 95% employment score, but UVA has over 15% school-funded positions, and Penn around 3%. GW is at 23% school-funded. UVA's Kennedy fellowship is relatively generous ($30k/year), but it's still basically a jobs program for graduates who can't get public interest work (most legit PI will pay more than that).

Agreed. I am also not entirely convinced Harvard and Stanford should be immune from these criticisms.

For what it's worth, we'll be introducing custom score either this week or next, so users can exclude them.

[nyctibboy]

It really is different for each school. As others have mentioned some school funded positions are actually pretty good fellowships and most end up with good opportunities after. The biggest figure I think people should be weary of is GW's. Their school funded positions are from their program: "Pathways to Practice". It pays $15/hr for a 35 hr. work week to intern/volunteer at non profits or smaller law firms. As OP mentioned, without this, GW would have a full time bar req'd employment rate of only 60%.

In the end, I think these positions are fine for people that want PI because first if you were planning on working in PI, a year of $30k salary isn't that much lower than the average PI salary. I personally think most of the HYS/CCN are easily able to snag a full time position when done but yeah it is PI.

[lecsa]

.

[nyctibboy]

It really is different for each school. As others have mentioned some school funded positions are actually pretty good fellowships and most end up with good opportunities after. The biggest figure I think people should be weary of is GW's. Their school funded positions are from their program: "Pathways to Practice". It pays $15/hr for a 35 hr. work week to intern/volunteer at non profits or smaller law firms. As OP mentioned, without this, GW would have a full time bar req'd employment rate of only 60%.

In the end, I think these positions are fine for people that want PI because first if you were planning on working in PI, a year of $30k salary isn't that much lower than the average PI salary. I personally think most of the HYS/CCN are easily able to snag a full time position when done but yeah it is PI.

Lol @ 30k salary. Who goes to law school (and pays for it) to make $30k even if you're in PI? Most admin, non-legal positions in non-profits in NYC pay more than $30k.

On average, at least in NYC, you start between 50 to 60k. That's almost twice.

Yeah the 30k salary is pretty laughable. However, if you came initially planning on PI work, you should've expected low starting salaries. This is why I don't think the 30k for your first year sounds that horrible. You also can't expect NYC PI salaries anywhere else. PI in NYC is pretty competitive and last I checked starting salaries were 45k - 53k here.

[lecsa]

.

[rayiner]

It really is different for each school. As others have mentioned some school funded positions are actually pretty good fellowships and most end up with good opportunities after. The biggest figure I think people should be weary of is GW's. Their school funded positions are from their program: "Pathways to Practice". It pays $15/hr for a 35 hr. work week to intern/volunteer at non profits or smaller law firms. As OP mentioned, without this, GW would have a full time bar req'd employment rate of only 60%.

In the end, I think these positions are fine for people that want PI because first if you were planning on working in PI, a year of $30k salary isn't that much lower than the average PI salary. I personally think most of the HYS/CCN are easily able to snag a full time position when done but yeah it is PI.

Lol @ 30k salary. Who goes to law school (and pays for it) to make $30k even if you're in PI? Most admin, non-legal positions in non-profits in NYC pay more than $30k.

On average, at least in NYC, you start between 50 to 60k. That's almost twice.

Yeah the 30k salary is pretty laughable. However, if you came initially planning on PI work, you should've expected low starting salaries. This is why I don't think the 30k for your first year sounds that horrible. You also can't expect NYC PI salaries anywhere else. PI in NYC is pretty competitive and last I checked starting salaries were 45k - 53k here.

The point is that, because $30k/year seems well below market even for PI, that means folks who are doing these "fellowships" couldn't get real public interest jobs. It's not like these are prestigious fellowships that someone might take despite having alternatives.

[watson86]

Many PI places don't hire people until after they've passed the bar. Thus, in many cases it's extremely difficult to get a PI job as a 3L, especially in this economy. The difficulty also depends on what type of PI you're going into, what geographic area you want, etc.

For people who genuinely want to do PI work, these fellowships are a great way to get your foot in the door. There are grads in these programs who could've landed other PI jobs but chose to do these fellowships so they could work where they wanted to.

Also, there are some organizations that supplement school-funded fellowships and add benefits.