Latest employment data Forum

[skers]

It's almost certainly a little column a, a little column b.

[Tiago Splitter]

Most of the 2013 unemployed-seeking just went to SFJ this year. But like I said earlier we've still got 12.5% of the class in PI/Gov that isn't school funded. Pretty much identical to last year.

[Serett]

any baseless conjecture as to how this happened?

20-25% of the class going for PI/gov.'t.

Don't get me wrong, those biglaw numbers are seriously lagging, but, subtracting school-funded jobs, FTLTBR is within three points of UVA and is higher than NU. No solo practice, and only 6/390 unemployed - seeking, so whatever's happening, it's not people utterly striking out. If that much of the class was legitimately out for PI/gov.'t (and assuming most of them get it, either outright or after their school-funded stint), the sky isn't falling.

I mean this is basically it. Michigan may really just be accepting a huge proportion of legit PI gunners. Still tough to go there if you want a firm though.

PI + SFJ for Michigan were 11% in 2011, 9.7% in 2012, 6% in 2013 (trend of biglaw going up)...

...and 18.5% in 2014. Why is there such a big upwards trend? I don't know if I buy that rationale Tiago, although I think that it's plausible.

Unless there was some concerted effort by the Adcomms over the last few years to really strive to admit lots of PI gunners, the numbers just seem off from the past

I'm not sure if there's been any recent change to it, but I know Michigan does have a pretty generous LRAP. Complete assistance around $50k, some assistance up to $88k, and applicable to all sectors (including for-profit and self-employment, so long as the position requires a J.D.), with a 5-year window after graduation to start.

To that end, Michigan actually facilitates/subsidizes students going to smaller or regional firms without it being a financially ruinous outcome. I guess I just don't find it plausible that Michigan has truly fallen off a cliff, when their incoming numbers are still in line with the T14. There's just no reason for firms to treat them any differently, based on grade cut-offs and so on, than comparable schools.

[BigZuck]

It's almost certainly a little column a, a little column b.

Yeah, just a grim stew

Large swaths (or at least larger swaths than at other schools) of the class are getting screwed, maybe that's their own fault, I dunno, but it's concerning. At least the grimmest stewers (Michigan and Georgetown) seem to be coming down from their insistence that they always be expensive AF and have started giving more scholarships/negotiating. Although being left high and dry with 150K debt instead of 200K debt might not make that much of a difference I guess.

[Dafaq]

With more to come, here is the current TOP TEN of schools that lean on school funded employment.

1. Emory (19.4%); 2. USC (14.3%); 3. UC-Irving (14.0%); 4. Notre Dame (12.3%); 5. UC-Davis (11.2%); 6. UVA (9.5%); 7. UCLA (9.2%); 8. W&Mary 8.8%; 9. Michigan (8.4%); 10. Illinois (8.1%).

I understand the reasoning why some say that this is used as [A.] a temporary means to assist grads looking for any port in the storm and [B.] inflates the school’s stats.

[JFO1833]

Chicago is in:

4: Chicago - BL+FC-76%, FTLTBR-92%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-87%
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/file/ ... of2014.pdf

Also:

105: Wayne State - BL+FC-14%, FTLTBR-51%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-50%

[runinthefront]

Most of the 2013 unemployed-seeking just went to SFJ this year. But like I said earlier we've still got 12.5% of the class in PI/Gov that isn't school funded. Pretty much identical to last year.

I guess my only comment to that is that, with all PI/Gov placement being equal, big law placement still fell a few points where the trend has been going up for the other schools.

I guess it may not be a Michigan problem per se, but that leads me to wonder...I know you guys say the NYC corp market is on fire, but are secondary markets going ^ in general (albeit, to a lesser extent), are the markets slowing down, or are they neutral?

EDIT: I guess we know about the Chicago market....how about ATL/LA/SF?

To that end, Michigan actually facilitates/subsidizes students going to smaller or regional firms without it being a financially ruinous outcome. I guess I just don't find it plausible that Michigan has truly fallen off a cliff, when their incoming numbers are still in line with the T14. There's just no reason for firms to treat them any differently, based on grade cut-offs and so on, than comparable schools.

The BL calculation is arguably accounting for many regional firms; in any event, only 8 people from the C/O 2014 ended up in firms with 50-100 lawyers. So your argument would mean that many of the students are going to firms that have less than 50 lawyers?

[Tiago Splitter]

I guess it may not be a Michigan problem per se, but that leads me to wonder...I know you guys say the NYC corp market is on fire, but are secondary markets going ^ in general (albeit, to a lesser extent), are the markets slowing down, or are they neutral?

Most secondary markets don't do a ton of corporate so that doesn't help. The bigger problem might just be that people shooting for non-NYC are often shooting for firms with just a few summers. Lot of luck involved there and much more chance of striking out. People throughout the T-14 make that mistake every year and by the time November rolls around and they realize how badly they screwed up it's already too late.

[UVAIce]

Michigan is just another example that If the name of your school is not Harvard or Columbia then you probably should cut your class sizes. Most of the top-tier law schools should really not be admitting more than ~300 students.

[Serett]

Most of the 2013 unemployed-seeking just went to SFJ this year. But like I said earlier we've still got 12.5% of the class in PI/Gov that isn't school funded. Pretty much identical to last year.

I guess my only comment to that is that, with all PI/Gov placement being equal, big law placement still fell a few points where the trend has been going up for the other schools.

I guess it may not be a Michigan problem per se, but that leads me to wonder...I know you guys say the NYC corp market is on fire, but are secondary markets going ^ in general (albeit, to a lesser extent), are the markets slowing down, or are they neutral?

To that end, Michigan actually facilitates/subsidizes students going to smaller or regional firms without it being a financially ruinous outcome. I guess I just don't find it plausible that Michigan has truly fallen off a cliff, when their incoming numbers are still in line with the T14. There's just no reason for firms to treat them any differently, based on grade cut-offs and so on, than comparable schools.

The BL calculation is arguably accounting for many regional firms; in any event, only 8 people from the C/O 2014 ended up in firms with 50-100 lawyers. So your argument would mean that many of the students are going to firms that have less than 50 lawyers?

My argument is that there isn't any one thing causing the full extent of the discrepancy, but each smaller explanation adds up to Michigan not being secretly awful. Many in PI/gov.'t, a generous LRAP that covers even the private-sector, and a tendency to target regional markets could easily add up to explain Michigan's numbers (which are comparable to some other T14s in FTLTBR and are only scary re: BL+FC), and given the lack of clearly bad outcomes and stable input numbers, I find that far more likely than Michigan being a markedly worse bet than the rest of the lower T14, as though firms suddenly decided not to reach as deeply into its class as peer schools.

Edit:

Put another way, given equal grades and whatever else, I'd feel essentially as confident (and as worried, for the inverse) about getting NYC corporate biglaw from UMich as I am right now from Duke.

[Clemenceau]

Chicago is in:

4: Chicago - BL+FC-76%, FTLTBR-92%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-87%
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/file/ ... of2014.pdf

Damn those are healthy numbers. A ton of clerks and only 3 firm jobs with fewer than 50 lawyers.

[Tiago Splitter]

I guess Harvard donated all their excess clerkships to Chicago, Duke, UVA and Berkeley.

[starry eyed]

wasn't mich state's #'s equally as shitty? maybe its a michigan economy thing

[itachiuchiha]

What exactly is a school funded job? does that mean that the school hires them or the school has some kind of intervention in getting the student hired by an outside firm?

Would Emory's fellowships fall into this category?

http://law.emory.edu/careers/for-studen ... ogram.html

[Serett]

wasn't mich state's #'s equally as shitty? maybe its a michigan economy thing

MSU is always shitty. As awful as its numbers were ITT, they're actually better than they've been the past few years.

The state of Michigan is an oversaturated dumpster fire for legal jobs, but I don't think that's recent or affects UMich much.

[runinthefront]

I think many of the "UM students fuck up their bids!" comments are pretty valid, but I just don't understand why there are not more panels/emails/conferences put on by the UM Career Services Office explaining that, for big law (aka "for the only entry-level private sector jobs that'll allow you to pay off T-14 debt unless you're one of the few with a half-ride or better here"), NYC is the safest bet...

...they need to send out a memo or something. Mich's numbers aren't "bad" considering it's still better than all but 12 schools, but I think the whole PI-focus is overstated (and uncorroborated by past UM's past employment data) and CSO should at least actively tell their students that the chances of landing a biglaw job outside of Chi/NYC that'll pay enough to service your debt without gov't/UM help is slim. I guess that's my only gripe.

[jenesaislaw]

What exactly is a school funded job? does that mean that the school hires them or the school has some kind of intervention in getting the student hired by an outside firm?

Would Emory's fellowships fall into this category?

http://law.emory.edu/careers/for-studen ... ogram.html

It means the school paid the wages, at least in part (usually entirely). The link you provided is to Emory's program. Nearly 20% of the class was in it. (12k/year...)

[BigZuck]

I think many of the "UM students fuck up their bids!" comments are pretty valid, but I just don't understand why there are not more panels/emails/conferences put on by the UM Career Services Office explaining that, for big law (aka "for the only entry-level private sector jobs that'll allow you to pay off T-14 debt unless you're one of the few with a half-ride or better here"), NYC is the safest bet...

...they need to send out a memo or something. Mich's numbers aren't "bad" considering it's still better than all but 12 schools, but I think the whole PI-focus is overstated and CSO should at least actively tell their students that the chances of landing a biglaw job outside of Chi/NYC that'll pay enough to service your debt without gov't/UM help is slim. I guess that's my only gripe.

I agree.

Are other CSOs actually better at other places though? I'm not sure what CSO is like at top schools but at UT it's pretty useless. No bidding strategy help at all, if you get a big law job it's because you listened to TLS/upperclassmen/got lucky/had factors working for you that made it impossible to strike out.

[nothingtosee]

Baseless speculation on Harvard's clerkship numbers? Definitely seems like a lot more than 15% of (1Ls) want to clerk.

[Tiago Splitter]

CSO being more proactive would help, but I guarantee you there are plenty of students who would still bid exclusively on difficult to crack markets.

Baseless speculation on Harvard's clerkship numbers? Definitely seems like a lot more than 15% of (1Ls) want to clerk.

Were HY behind the times on the breakdown of Teh Plan?

[sneezus]

fuck. i had just come to the decision that Michigan would be where I deposit this month (they offered me 120k).

this just throws it all back up in the air. I'm mostly interested in PI, but i really want the biglaw option there.

[Mal Reynolds]

fuck. i had just come to the decision that Michigan would be where I deposit this month (they offered me 120k).

this just throws it all back up in the air. I'm mostly interested in PI, but i really want the biglaw option there.

Maybe people like you are the cause of UM's decline.

[runinthefront]

fuck. i had just come to the decision that Michigan would be where I deposit this month (they offered me 120k).

this just throws it all back up in the air. I'm mostly interested in PI, but i really want the biglaw option there.

Lol $120k from UM for primarily PI w/ option of biglaw is still not a bad option

please don't take this side-commentary the wrong way

just don't end up like the hard-headed peers that precede you and understand that you're not getting Indianapolis biglaw or w/e secondary markets these kids target

That's a nice amount of scholly $$$

[storpappa]

Here is the part about SFJ that for some reason escapes some people. It might be a KJD thing, or it might be the expectation that a bright future awaits the newly minted JD as they walk off of the steps at graduation day, sheepskin in hand.

Take that Emory program --
Graduate, try all summer, don't get any job, apply for the SFJ. $1k/month to do with as you see fit ... eat, pay partial rent, car insurance, cell phone bill?
Sounds like a good piece of Unemployment Insurance / rainy day fund protection. If you live on a friends couch


But for the three years prior, you paid into Emory Tuition $50,900 and Fees $610
And then your particular living expenses, which they estimate with
Living expenses $17,932*
Books: $1534 for 1Ls and AJDs; $1802 for 2Ls, 3Ls, and LLMs.
Emory Student Health Insurance $3,050**
Parking $665***
Loan fees $312


You spend and incur debt for $210,000 and if you can't get a job, they hand you a SFJ Fellowship of $12,000 back.

If I worked for a law school, I would be all over SFJ. It brings my school a guaranteed $198k and a possible up to $12k extra per student. Heck, I could pay the CSO a commission or bonus for every student hired of 50% of the unused SFJ Fellowship

I get all that, and yet I will still attend a school that offers an SFJ program, because if someone needs that helping hand, I am glad the school makes it available. I would rather see one of my fellow classmates after 3 years in an SFJ then unemployed. BUT, if they know they are going to have so many people in the SFJ, cut the class sizes. Because I don't work for the law school, I am someone looking to write checks for 3 years.

And if I am competing for that job with my fellow classmates, I want the job and them to not get it. Because there is only 1 spot, me or them.

[hoos89]

Your math seems to assume that nobody has a scholarship and everybody is paying 100% of their living expenses to the school.