The Struggle of Law School Graduates in a Difficult Job Mark Forum

[NoJob]

Here is what awaits the 0ls.

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[Kilpatrick]

She should've said in the first sentence that she went to Thomas Jefferson so I wouldn't have had to read the whole thing.

[Stonewall]

She should've said in the first sentence that she went to Thomas Jefferson so I wouldn't have had to read the whole thing.

damn you beat me to it. Number 3 at TJ means almost nothing for t1/t2 grads

[sanjola]

Ugh, I also read that whole thing before realizing she graduated from Thomas Jefferson.

[HowdyYall]

Mary F. Cheney is a 2010 law school graduate of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California.

Wasnt Thomas jefferson also in that NYT article "Losing Ground"?

[bdubs]

How bad must her LSAT have been that she only got into TJU as a URM with a 3.02 in Biochemistry?

[yo!]

Still, you'd think that she would have found something with her class rank/pretty decent looking summer employment/IP interest. This is scary no matter which school she went to.

[Kilpatrick]

How bad must her LSAT have been that she only got into TJU as a URM with a 3.02 in Biochemistry?

Wow, just looked at her linkedin and saw that she is 'enrolled' as a Cherokee. She either scored 120 on the LSAT or she completely failed to do any research before law school and went to TJ with a scholarship because it was close by.

[homestyle28]

Someone who knows more about this let me know:"The days when being sworn in as an attorney automatically yielded a dependable source of income are over." Was that ever true at schools like Thomas Jefferson? Or is it a myth?

[gens1tb]

This is the second "oh god I don't have a job" article based on someone from Thomas Jefferson.

[bdubs]

Someone who knows more about this let me know:"The days when being sworn in as an attorney automatically yielded a dependable source of income are over." Was that ever true at schools like Thomas Jefferson? Or is it a myth?

I think people at TJU used to get hired as doc reviewers before that got outsourced to India. It's a pathetic existence, but it did yield a source of income (although not always dependable).

Also, I was also told by someone whose brother works in biglaw (and graduated from a non-T14) that firms also used to hire grads from lower ranked schools at positions that were lower than an associate (title varied by firm) and that the intrafirm career potential of these hires was very different than an associate hire. I don't know how much of this is happening anymore.

[kswiss]

I feel for her...BUT:

She wanted to go into patent practice, yet still hasn't taken the patent bar? What was she expecting? And did she pursue an associateship for 2L summer or did she work for Pfizer both years?

Part of me is asking WTF. With her background and probably high class rank, she should have pushed for something better than an externship. And if she didn't have anything lined up after 2L summer she should have taken the patent bar then, not a year after graduation. I don't think this can even be blamed on TJ, it seems like some bad decision making on her part also.

[Black-Blue]

Rank no. 3 at a T4 isn't bad, even if it's a T4 school. That's definitely much better than Median at many T2s.

Looking at her resume, I think here are the explanations of her lack of luck finding a job. One, is that she hasn't passed the patent bar yet, something which should have been done over the summer. Second, a 3.0 UG GPA for a BS degree (with no advanced degree) can turn people off when looking for biotech patent prosecution. Third, her resume isn't well presented in that it lacks specificity (there are too many terms like "assisted" and "drafting" while there are no quantity terms like the number of patents she has worked on to gauge the extent of her involvement in patent prosecution). Fourth, lack of "internship" or summer associate positions.

[bigben]

I stopped reading after this:

2010 was a terrible year to graduate from law school. The days when being sworn in as an attorney automatically yielded a dependable source of income are over.

Before the economy tanked, there was already a horrendous oversupply of lawyers as well as an incredible disparity between tuition and most starting salaries. It's really obnoxious how some people think otherwise. Even then, probably close to 40% of grads were never becoming lawyers. Only 10% of those outside the top schools were getting jobs that justified a typical tuition bill. The law school calculus actually did not change very much overall when the economy tanked. The significant impact was pretty much limited to the schools ranked 4-25 or so, perhaps especially those ranked 15-25. The already limited bracket of 80 -160k entry level jobs (which is mostly 145k+ biglaw but also midlaw, etc.) went from about 12-15% of law grads to probably 6-8%.

[FreddyBigShot]

I mean I know she went to TJ and all -- but she still graduated 3rd in her class! I'm sorry, but that should meab some sort of gainful employment from any school.

[androstan]

Still, you'd think that she would have found something with her class rank/pretty decent looking summer employment/IP interest. This is scary no matter which school she went to.

I agree with a previous poster that she should have passed the patent bar long before now. Her IP interest is almost nullified by lacking that credential.

Her class rank is certainly impressive. Her resume could use some work in terms of presentation.

I think she could have landed something if she were registered with the USPTO. That's a pretty big deal. I'm taking the exam in two months, before I even start. Not only would that have given her better prospects after graduating, it would have given her better prospects for summers and part-time during semesters.

One last point. I think the biotech industry is more concentrated in the east (in particular the mid-atlantic region NC, MD, VA, etc.) and midwest rather than CA/west. I think CA has more opportunities for electrical/computer stuff than drugs and biotech.

[quickquestionthanks]

I mean I know she went to TJ and all -- but she still graduated 3rd in her class! I'm sorry, but that should meab some sort of gainful employment from any school.

Half of the students at that school couldn't break 150 on their LSAT. Think about that.

She should have transferred.

[romothesavior]

Nojob, your schtick is getting old... and this is coming from someone with a similar schtick.

Maybe post a little in other forums so people don't think you're such a d-bag?

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

I mean I know she went to TJ and all -- but she still graduated 3rd in her class! I'm sorry, but that should meab some sort of gainful employment from any school.

Welcome to Thomas Jefferson, the gum on the bottom of the shoe of a drastically underemployed profession.

[bearmarketblues]

Sure guys, everything is fine. None of the info below applies to anyone headed to Car'Bozo, Brooklyn, or any of the non Top 14 diploma mills. The following is quite NJ-centered, but applies universally. Remember that NJ is one of the largest markets in the US due to high population and proximity to NYC and Philly:

First of all, the NJ AG's office has a permanent hiring freeze and has admitted lawyers working as volunteers:

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(Note that over 100 people were vying to work for free- all of them licensed NJ attorneys).


Next, we have massive, historic NJ Legal Aid cuts:

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(S. Jersey to lay off 1/4 of the attorneys in 2011. Doesn't sound like public interest is exactly "booming.")

Camden poised to cut 18 assistant prosecutors:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/0 ... posit.html

Hunterdon also cutting back on prosecutors:

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(As an aside, these jobs are going because there's little to no political fallout for eliminating them. If you're a politician, do you cut fire, police, garbage pickup, or makework paper-churners in the legal department? Enough said).

NJ's largest firm McCarter & English, just down the block from R-N, had a summer class last year (2010) of 0 people:

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/08/canceled ... d-offices/

Six other NJ firms eliminated summer programs, cut salaries, or both:

http://www.lawjobs.com/newsandviews/Law ... hbxlogin=1

Doc review rates plunge to $25 an hour (and often far less) as this current craigslist ad shows:

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(remember that temp jobs have no health benefits, no 401K, no paid time off, and no assurance of work from week to week).

Crappy NJ Superior Court "clerkships" getting flooded with apps from even Ivy League schools, something never before seen since the program began:

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Love this quote:

Quote:
State Superior Court judges in New Jersey have seen a substantial jump in law clerk applicants — many from Ivy League schools all over the country — as big law firms cut back on hiring attorneys fresh out of law school.
“Over the last two years, I would say I’ve had four times as many applicants. And of those applicants, they’re all with superior grade averages of over 3.5 from law schools all over the country,” said McVeigh. “I normally get excellent resumes. But the volume of excellent resumes — even the quality — far surpasses anything I’ve ever seen. These are the kinds of applicants that would normally have gone to Supreme Court, or one of the large-starting-salary firms.”




Suffolk Law 3 L contemplates suicide online, agrees with scambloggers and regrets going to law school":

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All of this and more awaits you guys, as the legal market continues to implode and bushels of unemployed JD's wrangle for the tiny amount of shitjobs available. Deciding not to attend law school will be a decision you're unlikely to ever regret.

Go ahead and trash me, ban me, and go back to deciding what color IKEA sofa to purchase for your dorm room and what type of laptop is best for writing down the useless drivel that will soon spew from your "professors" mouths. It won't change the fact that the legal market is gruesome beyond belief and getting worse and worse each year.

[robotclubmember]

This is the second "oh god I don't have a job" article based on someone from Thomas Jefferson.

Lol yes. The first one was Mike Wallerstein from the NYT article, for those who forgot. And he was a huge fucking moron.

[Verisimi]

I know this has largely been said.... but if you look at her LinkedIn profile, she spent 4 years in community college to get an AA in 'Transfer Studies,' is NA, according to others had a 3.0 in biochemistry, (which I didn't see anywhere, but even so it means that she either did fairly poorly in community college or really tanked her degree classes at UCSD) and ended up going to Thomas Jefferson. Purely speculative, but something must be wrong beyond just the school (not to say that a T4 is a safe investment in one's future by any means).

[romothesavior]

These articles are actually not helpful at all because they are so easy for prospective students to write off. Journalists should be spending more time on the T1 and T2 grads (like that WSJ article on the unemployed NW students) so that maybe the point gets drilled home a little better. But I doubt it would even help.

[bearmarketblues]

I'm really curious why anyone with more than 3 active brain cells would have any interest in law as a "career"? For the most part the work is extremely boring, hours are long, pay outside Biglaw is downright pathetic for the amount of education required, and the degree is not even portable geographically unless you want to sit multiple bar'zams.

Not to mention the near-universal lack of jobs, massive cutbacks in gov't/public interest, and intense competition for even the crappiest of crap positions.

[romothesavior]

I'm really curious why anyone with more than 3 active brain cells would have any interest in law as a "career"? For the most part the work is extremely boring, hours are long, pay outside Biglaw is downright pathetic for the amount of education required, and the degree is not even portable geographically unless you want to sit multiple bar'zams.

Screw off dude. You're barking up the wrong tree. Maybe you think practicing law is boring, and maybe for you it is or will be. But there are many, many, MANY lawyers out there who love the work they do. You wanna tell everyone the legal market sucks? Fine. But insulting people who have a genuine interest in legal work isn't helpful at all.