Class of 2010 firm hiring data posted

[BruceWayne]

WTF happened with Duke?

why is that surprising to you?

Their drop is unreal. Honestly, I hate to bash them like this but NO top 14 school should be placing less than 40 percent in biglaw. That's to a point where I don't even feel comfortable calling them (or GULC) top 14. 38 percent???? That's horrible! I'm going to stop telling people that Duke and UVA are basically the same.

[dakatz]

WTF happened with Duke?

why is that surprising to you?

Their drop is unreal. Honestly, I hate to bash them like this but NO top 14 school should be placing less than 40 percent in biglaw. That's to a point where I don't even feel comfortable calling them (or GULC) top 14. 38 percent???? That's horrible! I'm going to stop telling people that Duke and UVA are basically the same.

Dude, chill. You gotta keep in mind that these numbers reflect the world as it was in 2008. Whatever trends you see aren't necessarily reflective of where it will be for class of 2013 or class of 2014.

[BeachandRun23]

WTF happened with Duke?

why is that surprising to you?

Their drop is unreal. Honestly, I hate to bash them like this but NO top 14 school should be placing less than 40 percent in biglaw. That's to a point where I don't even feel comfortable calling them (or GULC) top 14. 38 percent???? That's horrible! I'm going to stop telling people that Duke and UVA are basically the same.

I thought it was really low for duke too. But add the clerkships in and duke was still placing 50 percent or so into biglaw/clerkships, which is not bad at all.

Also if you read some of the previous posts, theyre saying this is just a snapshot and its not duke's real placment power. It was just one bad year for law schools and because things were so chaotic, abnormalities occurred.

[fatduck]

WTF happened with Duke?

why is that surprising to you?

Their drop is unreal. Honestly, I hate to bash them like this but NO top 14 school should be placing less than 40 percent in biglaw. That's to a point where I don't even feel comfortable calling them (or GULC) top 14. 38 percent???? That's horrible! I'm going to stop telling people that Duke and UVA are basically the same.

MVPD only exists on the Jersey Shore, bro

[hipstermafia]

WTF happened with Duke?

why is that surprising to you?

Their drop is unreal. Honestly, I hate to bash them like this but NO top 14 school should be placing less than 40 percent in biglaw. That's to a point where I don't even feel comfortable calling them (or GULC) top 14. 38 percent???? That's horrible! I'm going to stop telling people that Duke and UVA are basically the same.

am i reading this right that duke dropped from 10th to 12th? how is that an unreal drop?

nu's drop from 1st to 8th must be OUT OF THIS WORLD.

[rundoxierun]

am i reading this right that duke dropped from 10th to 12th? how is that an unreal drop?

nu's drop from 1st to 8th must be OUT OF THIS WORLD.

The numerical ranking is pretty irrelevant. The issue is that Duke placed 28 students less into NLJ250. That number is close to 15% of Dukes entire class. Northwestern was probably equally as bad given their class size increase but they dropped farther in numerical ranking simply because of the numbers of the other schools near them in the rankings.

[hipstermafia]

am i reading this right that duke dropped from 10th to 12th? how is that an unreal drop?

nu's drop from 1st to 8th must be OUT OF THIS WORLD.

The numerical ranking is pretty irrelevant. The issue is that Duke placed 28 students less into NLJ250. That number is close to 15% of Dukes entire class. Northwestern was probably equally as bad given their class size increase but they dropped farther in numerical ranking simply because of the numbers of the other schools near them in the rankings.

i am aware, i was trying to be preposterous (as i'm not really surprised by the drop)

[hipstermafia]

off to troll another thread, carry on

[run26.2]

Very interesting data. I'm waiting for someone to explain this. Cornell kicked arse, Duke dropped, NU dropped alot, Vandy and cornell are worlds apart, Columbia and Chicago also did alot better than NYU...etc

Anyone know why these trends occurred?

1) Don't try to make trends off one year to year change. Last year everyone was laughing at Cornell for not being a t14, and look what happened. It should be obvious that these scores aren't an accurate measure of the placement of each school relative to each other. There is just too much moving around, even before ITE the data was pretty fluid. Firms don't update their hiring matrices each year.

2) It was a chaotic time for law firm recruiting. This class was hired during the last stage of the boom era, but got their full time offers after the crash.

3) Different markets handled no offers differently. NYC was the first hit (and you can see that in the 2009 data) but had already stopped the bleeding(comparatively in 2010). The South had no problems in 2009, but had really terrible offer rates for the C/O 2010 SA's. That's why Vandy did so poorly.

The only thing that I can't explain is NYU. All the other NYC schools did amazing. And they got burned. Who knows.

The biggest surprise to me, as has been said above, is Duke. In 2008, they reported a median income for graduates of 160K (see http://www.law.duke.edu/admis/employment). But now only 38% into NLJ 250?

I know this isn't accurate (or possibly even close, so someone in the know please correct), but % placed into NLJ 250 was essentially a proxy for % receiving market salaries for me. I'm sure there are people at each T14 that go to non-NLJ 250s that make market or above. But I would be surprised if there were anywhere near 24+ at Duke that did so. Not only is their median going to drop, a significant portion of those graduates will be below market, accounting for individuals going to NLJ 250 firms that don't pay market.

I hope this is a one-off year for them.

[BruceWayne]

WTF happened with Duke?

why is that surprising to you?

Their drop is unreal. Honestly, I hate to bash them like this but NO top 14 school should be placing less than 40 percent in biglaw. That's to a point where I don't even feel comfortable calling them (or GULC) top 14. 38 percent???? That's horrible! I'm going to stop telling people that Duke and UVA are basically the same.

Dude, chill. You gotta keep in mind that these numbers reflect the world as it was in 2008. Whatever trends you see aren't necessarily reflective of where it will be for class of 2013 or class of 2014.

I hear were you're coming from but to have been on here when Duke was placing 60+ percent of their class into biglaw and now they're below 40 percent--that's scary man--even or an optimist like me.

[Knock]

tag

[paulinaporizkova]

tag

[FiveSermon]

Are these data...reliable? I'm still in shock at how drastically different they are...

[Trequartista]

Why is Cornell grouped together with Georgetown when it has consistently (except last year's anomaly) placed around 60% of its class into NLJ250 firms?

[rose711]

Just to be clear,this report is actual hiring, not just those who got jobs though OCI or as summer associates. So this reflects the numbers of starting 1st years regardless of how they got to the firm. Or am I wrong about that?

I mention this because if firms had a surprising upturn and needed more 1st years, they would have hired more people as 3Ls (even if they weren't SAs at the firm.) I think these numbers indicate a true picture of hiring this year. Not to say it can't improve in the next few years, but do people think the next three to four years will be markedly better? Most people seem to think next year will be worse.

I suppose these numbers include Howrey so we can probably drop a few from the total listed.

[Other25BeforeYou]

Someone over in legal employment posted the averages over the last three years of data (classes of '08, '09, and '10):
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=148674&p=4087006#p4087006

[thesealocust]

Just to be clear,this report is actual hiring, not just those who got jobs though OCI or as summer associates. So this reflects the numbers of starting 1st years regardless of how they got to the firm. Or am I wrong about that?

Yes, that is correct. But 3L hiring that year was the lowest it has ever been in the history of 3L hiring, if I recall correctly. I believe 3% of firms interviewed 3Ls.

Someone over in legal employment posted the averages over the last three years of data (classes of '08, '09, and '10):
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=148674&p=4087006#p4087006

Cute, but largely useless. The changes from class of '09 to class of '10 in the legal hiring landscape was enormous, making an average of the two years largely unmeaninful. That goes even more for class of 2008, where almost everyone at the top law schools could get biglaw if they wanted. It's averaging apples and oranges.

Are these data...reliable? I'm still in shock at how drastically different they are...

Completely reliable. This is a survey of the 250 largest legal employers reporting on their entering classes, and there's no reason to believe it falls short of total responsiveness. The NLJ survey data has been the most reliable metric of school placement power we have had access to. The class of 2005 data is still in my opinion the best snapshot of the relative placement potential between the top schools.

[Borhas]

W&L got hit hard apparently... I'm surprised

Not sure whats so surprising. Its one of a number of schools that fight for the leftovers of a very saturated legal market (by all accounts). With GULC, GW, UVA, etc. it wouldn't seem reasonable to expect schools like W&M, W&L, etc. to keep pace.

yeah but that seems to be true for every school

which market isn't saturated? New York?

[DeSimone]

tag

[KMaine]

Cornell historically sends lots of kids to NLJ250 firms, specifically firms outside biglaw but still within the 250. The name has cachet with those firms, but biglaw won't touch that many cornellians. When kids from NYU show up at those firms for interviews they are viewed with suspicion. The firms assume they will jump to biglaw just as soon as they can. Not so with the cornell students! So more of them get a foot in.

Where are you getting this from? Seems like baseless speculation to me. The leaked data from the 2010 and 2011 classes doesn't really seem to reflect this.

[FiveSermon]

Cornell historically sends lots of kids to NLJ250 firms, specifically firms outside biglaw but still within the 250. The name has cachet with those firms, but biglaw won't touch that many cornellians. When kids from NYU show up at those firms for interviews they are viewed with suspicion. The firms assume they will jump to biglaw just as soon as they can. Not so with the cornell students! So more of them get a foot in.

Where are you getting this from? Seems like baseless speculation to me. The leaked data from the 2010 and 2011 classes doesn't really seem to reflect this.

+1 could you provide some backup for this?

[whitman]

University of Washington dropped from 33 to out of the top 50. What happened there?

[FiveSermon]

So all of these firm hiring datas are useless? I seriously do not get how Cornell placed so high and schools like Vandy dropped from 45%....and like DF said...what's up with NYU? If NYC was the reason for Cornell's high %'s wouldn't that make NYU perform even HIGHER? I mean it's located in NYC and is probably the #1 or #2 school for NYC biglaw.

OCI 2008 was still white hot. The difference between the lower t14 and CCN wasn't as huge. The main difference was placement at top firms.

What? White hot? I thought OCI2008 was pretty ITE.

[thesealocust]

So all of these firm hiring datas are useless? I seriously do not get how Cornell placed so high and schools like Vandy dropped from 45%....and like DF said...what's up with NYU? If NYC was the reason for Cornell's high %'s wouldn't that make NYU perform even HIGHER? I mean it's located in NYC and is probably the #1 or #2 school for NYC biglaw.

OCI 2008 was still white hot. The difference between the lower t14 and CCN wasn't as huge. The main difference was placement at top firms.

What? White hot? I thought OCI2008 was pretty ITE.

OCI 2008 was full steam ahead - at first. Lehman blew up after a lot (most?) of hiring decisions were made.

[Other25BeforeYou]

Cornell historically sends lots of kids to NLJ250 firms, specifically firms outside biglaw but still within the 250. The name has cachet with those firms, but biglaw won't touch that many cornellians. When kids from NYU show up at those firms for interviews they are viewed with suspicion. The firms assume they will jump to biglaw just as soon as they can. Not so with the cornell students! So more of them get a foot in.

Where are you getting this from? Seems like baseless speculation to me. The leaked data from the 2010 and 2011 classes doesn't really seem to reflect this.

+1 could you provide some backup for this?

I am bored and accordingly can refute this. According to the OCI data that was leaked to ATL last year, 12 members of Cornell's class of 2010 went to non-Vault 100 firms, and 5 of those firms are not NLJ 250 firms (and accordingly wouldn't effect this survey). So roughly 105 of the 112 Cornell students at NLJ 250 firms in this survey are at Vault 100 firms. So 54.7% of Cornell's class of 2010 went to Vault 100 firms.