I wouldn't listen to 95 percent of the stuff here Forum

[NYstate]

The OP's post and replies in the thread illustrate a couple of very common psychological reactions/defense mechanisms, that I think are related in an interesting way.

(1) A basic refusal, at a psychological/emotional level, to accept the validity of statistically-based arguments. The OP no doubt understands that if half the graduates of a law school don't get jobs as lawyers that means the chances of not getting a legal job for graduates of that school is 50%, but, if he gets a legal job, this reasoning no longer applies, since the odds of him getting a job are now reinterpreted as 100%. After all, now he isn't a statistic, he's a "success."

(2) An overwhelming desire to give a moralized interpretation to statistical outcomes. If half his classmates didn't get legal jobs while he did, even though he wasn't an obvious candidate to get a job (not top 10% etc), then that must mean that they failed to do what he did to get a job (key terms: "hustle," "network").

This is all tied up with cultural imperatives to treat social outcomes as reflections of merit, as opposed to cronyism and other forms of unearned privilege, and most of all sheer random luck.

What I'm still curious about Prof Campos is how tied that 50% is to class standing. I realize OP doesn't address this at all, but I thought that there is a hard line at median. I think I'm wrong about that.

[Anonymous User]

The OP's post and replies in the thread illustrate a couple of very common psychological reactions/defense mechanisms, that I think are related in an interesting way.

(1) A basic refusal, at a psychological/emotional level, to accept the validity of statistically-based arguments. The OP no doubt understands that if half the graduates of a law school don't get jobs as lawyers that means the chances of not getting a legal job for graduates of that school is 50%, but, if he gets a legal job, this reasoning no longer applies, since the odds of him getting a job are now reinterpreted as 100%. After all, now he isn't a statistic, he's a "success."

(2) An overwhelming desire to give a moralized interpretation to statistical outcomes. If half his classmates didn't get legal jobs while he did, even though he wasn't an obvious candidate to get a job (not top 10% etc), then that must mean that they failed to do what he did to get a job (key terms: "hustle," "network").

This is all tied up with cultural imperatives to treat social outcjomes as reflections of merit, as opposed to cronyism and other forms of unearned privilege, and most of all sheer random luck.

What I'm still curious about Prof Campos is how tied that 50% is to class standing. I realize OP doesn't address this at all, but I thought that there is a hard line at median. I think I'm wrong about that.

Hate to say it, but I'm with the OP on this one. I graduated bottom 10% of my class from a crappy tier 2 and got a job at a reapectable midsized firm doing substantive commercial litigation work, making approx half of NYC market. I think that's a better result entry level out of law school compared to what ppl on here tend to represent.

[mr.hands]

The OP's post and replies in the thread illustrate a couple of very common psychological reactions/defense mechanisms, that I think are related in an interesting way.

(1) A basic refusal, at a psychological/emotional level, to accept the validity of statistically-based arguments. The OP no doubt understands that if half the graduates of a law school don't get jobs as lawyers that means the chances of not getting a legal job for graduates of that school is 50%, but, if he gets a legal job, this reasoning no longer applies, since the odds of him getting a job are now reinterpreted as 100%. After all, now he isn't a statistic, he's a "success."

(2) An overwhelming desire to give a moralized interpretation to statistical outcomes. If half his classmates didn't get legal jobs while he did, even though he wasn't an obvious candidate to get a job (not top 10% etc), then that must mean that they failed to do what he did to get a job (key terms: "hustle," "network").

This is all tied up with cultural imperatives to treat social outcjomes as reflections of merit, as opposed to cronyism and other forms of unearned privilege, and most of all sheer random luck.

What I'm still curious about Prof Campos is how tied that 50% is to class standing. I realize OP doesn't address this at all, but I thought that there is a hard line at median. I think I'm wrong about that.

Hate to say it, but I'm with the OP on this one. I graduated bottom 10% of my class from a crappy tier 2 and got a job at a reapectable midsized firm doing substantive commercial litigation work, making approx half of NYC market. I think that's a better result entry level out of law school compared to what ppl on here tend to represent.

When did you graduate? And what market?

[Paul Campos]

The 50% stat getting legal jobs (give or take) at most law schools seems to be on the whole loosely related to class standing. From what I've seen, it's fairly tightly related to class standing at the very top of the class (someone close to the top of the class has far better than even odds of getting a legal job). But if you're not near the top of the class, grades rapidly become of quite limited significance, at least in comparison to the importance law students are told to ascribe to them.

Again, this applies to non-elite schools. Whether you're in the 70th or the 30th percentile matters a lot at an elite school, but seems to make very little difference outside those schools. (This what I've seen in studying the issue over the past couple of years, and I'd be curious to know how well it lines up with current students' and recent graduates' experiences).

[NinerFan]

The OP's post and replies in the thread illustrate a couple of very common psychological reactions/defense mechanisms, that I think are related in an interesting way.

(1) A basic refusal, at a psychological/emotional level, to accept the validity of statistically-based arguments. The OP no doubt understands that if half the graduates of a law school don't get jobs as lawyers that means the chances of not getting a legal job for graduates of that school is 50%, but, if he gets a legal job, this reasoning no longer applies, since the odds of him getting a job are now reinterpreted as 100%. After all, now he isn't a statistic, he's a "success."

(2) An overwhelming desire to give a moralized interpretation to statistical outcomes. If half his classmates didn't get legal jobs while he did, even though he wasn't an obvious candidate to get a job (not top 10% etc), then that must mean that they failed to do what he did to get a job (key terms: "hustle," "network").

This is all tied up with cultural imperatives to treat social outcjomes as reflections of merit, as opposed to cronyism and other forms of unearned privilege, and most of all sheer random luck.

What I'm still curious about Prof Campos is how tied that 50% is to class standing. I realize OP doesn't address this at all, but I thought that there is a hard line at median. I think I'm wrong about that.

Hate to say it, but I'm with the OP on this one. I graduated bottom 10% of my class from a crappy tier 2 and got a job at a reapectable midsized firm doing substantive commercial litigation work, making approx half of NYC market. I think that's a better result entry level out of law school compared to what ppl on here tend to represent.

It's great that it worked out for you, but the self-reported (!) data from law schools themselves indicate that it does not end this well for many graduates.

[Anonymous User]

The OP's post and replies in the thread illustrate a couple of very common psychological reactions/defense mechanisms, that I think are related in an interesting way.

(1) A basic refusal, at a psychological/emotional level, to accept the validity of statistically-based arguments. The OP no doubt understands that if half the graduates of a law school don't get jobs as lawyers that means the chances of not getting a legal job for graduates of that school is 50%, but, if he gets a legal job, this reasoning no longer applies, since the odds of him getting a job are now reinterpreted as 100%. After all, now he isn't a statistic, he's a "success."

(2) An overwhelming desire to give a moralized interpretation to statistical outcomes. If half his classmates didn't get legal jobs while he did, even though he wasn't an obvious candidate to get a job (not top 10% etc), then that must mean that they failed to do what he did to get a job (key terms: "hustle," "network").

This is all tied up with cultural imperatives to treat social outcjomes as reflections of merit, as opposed to cronyism and other forms of unearned privilege, and most of all sheer random luck.

What I'm still curious about Prof Campos is how tied that 50% is to class standing. I realize OP doesn't address this at all, but I thought that there is a hard line at median. I think I'm wrong about that.

Hate to say it, but I'm with the OP on this one. I graduated bottom 10% of my class from a crappy tier 2 and got a job at a reapectable midsized firm doing substantive commercial litigation work, making approx half of NYC market. I think that's a better result entry level out of law school compared to what ppl on here tend to represent.

It's great that it worked out for you, but the self-reported (!) data from law schools themselves indicate that it does not end this well for many graduates.

Not exactly. I fall into the unemployed category on those stats because I got my job 11 mo after graduation. 9 mo out is not a full picture, considering approx 5 of those months you're waiting for bar results.

[Anonymous User]

For small firms paying less than a McDonald's manager makes that may be true, but at big firms that pay enough to make law school worth it half the recruiters I've spoken with told me their firms had hard cutoffs, and the other half basically said that below a certain point it's not impossible, but you really aren't in contention

I know my big 3 Texas firm has a HARD cutoff at 3.2 at the MVP school I attended and that is if they absolutely loved you.

[lukertin]

Not exactly. I fall into the unemployed category on those stats because I got my job 11 mo after graduation. 9 mo out is not a full picture, considering approx 5 of those months you're waiting for bar results.

Implying it's OK to wait around unemployed for almost a year after graduation, because hey, after that year is up, you WILL get a job!

[Anonymous User]

The OP's post and replies in the thread illustrate a couple of very common psychological reactions/defense mechanisms, that I think are related in an interesting way.

(1) A basic refusal, at a psychological/emotional level, to accept the validity of statistically-based arguments. The OP no doubt understands that if half the graduates of a law school don't get jobs as lawyers that means the chances of not getting a legal job for graduates of that school is 50%, but, if he gets a legal job, this reasoning no longer applies, since the odds of him getting a job are now reinterpreted as 100%. After all, now he isn't a statistic, he's a "success."

(2) An overwhelming desire to give a moralized interpretation to statistical outcomes. If half his classmates didn't get legal jobs while he did, even though he wasn't an obvious candidate to get a job (not top 10% etc), then that must mean that they failed to do what he did to get a job (key terms: "hustle," "network").

This is all tied up with cultural imperatives to treat social outcjomes as reflections of merit, as opposed to cronyism and other forms of unearned privilege, and most of all sheer random luck.

What I'm still curious about Prof Campos is how tied that 50% is to class standing. I realize OP doesn't address this at all, but I thought that there is a hard line at median. I think I'm wrong about that.

Hate to say it, but I'm with the OP on this one. I graduated bottom 10% of my class from a crappy tier 2 and got a job at a reapectable midsized firm doing substantive commercial litigation work, making approx half of NYC market. I think that's a better result entry level out of law school compared to what ppl on here tend to represent.

When did you graduate? And what market?

2011 and non NYC northeast secondary big city market.

[NinerFan]

Not exactly. I fall into the unemployed category on those stats because I got my job 11 mo after graduation. 9 mo out is not a full picture, considering approx 5 of those months you're waiting for bar results.

Let's say we give them 3 extra months. I don't think there's a huge portion of people being hired between 9 months and 12 months after graduation. The stats are still grim.

[Anonymous User]

Not exactly. I fall into the unemployed category on those stats because I got my job 11 mo after graduation. 9 mo out is not a full picture, considering approx 5 of those months you're waiting for bar results.

Let's say we give them 3 extra months. I don't think there's a huge portion of people being hired between 9 months and 12 months after graduation. The stats are still grim.

What about 2 years out? I'd like to see the stats on this.

[AllTheLawz]

Not exactly. I fall into the unemployed category on those stats because I got my job 11 mo after graduation. 9 mo out is not a full picture, considering approx 5 of those months you're waiting for bar results.

Let's say we give them 3 extra months. I don't think there's a huge portion of people being hired between 9 months and 12 months after graduation. The stats are still grim.

What about 2 years out? I'd like to see the stats on this.

Why?? Because 3 years of law school debt plus 12 months unemployment will still pay off if you just pull out that $60k/yr entry-level job before a full two years of unemployment?

[citylawyer1010]

Not exactly. I fall into the unemployed category on those stats because I got my job 11 mo after graduation. 9 mo out is not a full picture, considering approx 5 of those months you're waiting for bar results.

Let's say we give them 3 extra months. I don't think there's a huge portion of people being hired between 9 months and 12 months after graduation. The stats are still grim.

What about 2 years out? I'd like to see the stats on this.

I think that if you don't get a job within 2 years, you're moving onto something else and firms aren't gonna hire someone who has not had relevant experience in nearly 2 years. They'd rather go with entry level at that point. My 2 cents

User was outed for anon abuse.

[NinerFan]

Not exactly. I fall into the unemployed category on those stats because I got my job 11 mo after graduation. 9 mo out is not a full picture, considering approx 5 of those months you're waiting for bar results.

Let's say we give them 3 extra months. I don't think there's a huge portion of people being hired between 9 months and 12 months after graduation. The stats are still grim.

What about 2 years out? I'd like to see the stats on this.

1 year should be the max, because if you're not employed at this point, the one year gap in your resume is going to torpedo you. They've got an entirely new class of JD's to hire from at this point.

[lolwat]

Hate to say it, but I'm with the OP on this one. I graduated bottom 10% of my class from a crappy tier 2 and got a job at a reapectable midsized firm doing substantive commercial litigation work, making approx half of NYC market. I think that's a better result entry level out of law school compared to what ppl on here tend to represent.

What I don't get is why you don't see that you're in the very small minority of people that graduated at the bottom and yet end up fine. There might also be a subset of people who had such substantial connections (e.g., dad/mom is a named partner at a law firm, or is a CEO of a substantial client of a law firm, that type of connection) that as long as they graduate and pass the bar exam they have guaranteed employment. But statistically, people with your stats don't get into a respectable firm doing substantive work making approximately half of NYC market. Your result is better than what people on here tend to represent because you're an exception.

[laotze]

There are some helpful threads - like the procedural/mechanical aspects of looking for a job - but don't believe anything you believe on these forums. It's just fear mongering at its most disgusting level. This is the fox news of internet forums.

I was caught up in here for a while, then things worked out excellent for me (top 30 school, bottom half) and I feel FOOLISH for being stressed out by what I would read here on a nightly basis.

Unbelievable. These threads in the legal employment section epitomize why law school sucks, you're a masochist if you read too much into what some of these people claim.

Good thing your single personal anecdote is worth so much more than mountains of crowd-sourced and industry-reported data.

[citylawyer1010]

Hate to say it, but I'm with the OP on this one. I graduated bottom 10% of my class from a crappy tier 2 and got a job at a reapectable midsized firm doing substantive commercial litigation work, making approx half of NYC market. I think that's a better result entry level out of law school compared to what ppl on here tend to represent.

What I don't get is why you don't see that you're in the very small minority of people that graduated at the bottom and yet end up fine. There might also be a subset of people who had such substantial connections (e.g., dad/mom is a named partner at a law firm, or is a CEO of a substantial client of a law firm, that type of connection) that as long as they graduate and pass the bar exam they have guaranteed employment. But statistically, people with your stats don't get into a respectable firm doing substantive work making approximately half of NYC market. Your result is better than what people on here tend to represent because you're an exception.

Ill add that once you lose this job, you're screwed. So hold on tight!

User was outed for anon abuse.

[citylawyer1010]

Hate to say it, but I'm with the OP on this one. I graduated bottom 10% of my class from a crappy tier 2 and got a job at a reapectable midsized firm doing substantive commercial litigation work, making approx half of NYC market. I think that's a better result entry level out of law school compared to what ppl on here tend to represent.

What I don't get is why you don't see that you're in the very small minority of people that graduated at the bottom and yet end up fine. There might also be a subset of people who had such substantial connections (e.g., dad/mom is a named partner at a law firm, or is a CEO of a substantial client of a law firm, that type of connection) that as long as they graduate and pass the bar exam they have guaranteed employment. But statistically, people with your stats don't get into a respectable firm doing substantive work making approximately half of NYC market. Your result is better than what people on here tend to represent because you're an exception.

Ill add that once you lose this job, you're screwed. So hold on tight!

Ouch.

User was outed for anon abuse.

[Bronte]

OP, you might not like TLS and I don't necessarily blame you, but your argument is wrong. The fact that you got a job from below median at a T30 does not come close to casting doubt on general TLS wisdom, let alone disproving 95% percent of it. Whether posters on TLS could be friendlier and more helpful is another question.

The fact is that roughly 45% of law school graduates are not getting legal jobs. That's an uncontroversial proposition, and it's verifiable from a number of objective sources, not least of which is http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/. Also, for easy accessibility, http://abovethelaw.com/careers/law-school-rankings/. More established institutions also acknowledge these figures. Does this mean that no one below median at a T30 is getting a job? Absolutely not.

Even if job outcomes are perfectly correlated to class rank, the stats suggest about 5% of people below median are getting legal jobs. But no one here, at least no one credible, claims perfect correlation. Given that the correlation is less than perfect, we know that a substantial number of people below median get jobs. Thus, your story does nothing to draw the basic proposition into question.

As a separate note, it's unfortunate that almost the entire first page of this thread is full of flippant nonresponses. It just feeds into OPs misconceptions. OP's post was obviously trollish, but for posterity it would have been better to just explain why OP is clearly wrong.

[John_rizzy_rawls]

Personally, I think I'm going to listen wholeheartedly to everything TLS has to say because I firmly believe that if I'm smart and hustle enough, then the advice I choose to take will be in that 5% worth taking.

Thanks OP.

[NYstate]

Hate to say it, but I'm with the OP on this one. I graduated bottom 10% of my class from a crappy tier 2 and got a job at a reapectable midsized firm doing substantive commercial litigation work, making approx half of NYC market. I think that's a better result entry level out of law school compared to what ppl on here tend to represent.

What I don't get is why you don't see that you're in the very small minority of people that graduated at the bottom and yet end up fine. There might also be a subset of people who had such substantial connections (e.g., dad/mom is a named partner at a law firm, or is a CEO of a substantial client of a law firm, that type of connection) that as long as they graduate and pass the bar exam they have guaranteed employment. But statistically, people with your stats don't get into a respectable firm doing substantive work making approximately half of NYC market. Your result is better than what people on here tend to represent because you're an exception.

Ill add that once you lose this job, you're screwed. So hold on tight!

Ouch.

Why at these anon? If you are going to taunt someone at least have the tiny balls required to post under your user name. OP has a point about the focus on biglaw as the only respectable firm outcome. Maybe this focus is part of the reason people who get no offered or have no jobs from top schools feel shame and most don't post

That said, I'm not sure why I'm arguing because I think TLS is still too positive about outcomes for the vast majority of people, even those at T14 schools. So lol at me I guess.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

The 50% stat getting legal jobs (give or take) at most law schools seems to be on the whole loosely related to class standing. From what I've seen, it's fairly tightly related to class standing at the very top of the class (someone close to the top of the class has far better than even odds of getting a legal job). But if you're not near the top of the class, grades rapidly become of quite limited significance, at least in comparison to the importance law students are told to ascribe to them.

Again, this applies to non-elite schools. Whether you're in the 70th or the 30th percentile matters a lot at an elite school, but seems to make very little difference outside those schools. (This what I've seen in studying the issue over the past couple of years, and I'd be curious to know how well it lines up with current students' and recent graduates' experiences).

Agree with bolded 1000%. At CU, I know lots of bottom half people with good jobs and lots of top 20% people that are struggling. Grades just don't mean that much for most students at non-elite law schools. Because of this, the "drop out of you are below median" line might still be good advice, but the underlying reasoning is severely flawed.

[Scotusnerd]

Successful troll is successful.

On a non-ironic note, I agree 100% with the grade distribution being less important outside of T14 and certain markets. Are biglaw and federal jobs closed to you if you get below median? Yes. Don't expect a circuit clerkship if you're ~top 50%. Are all other jobs as a lawyer foreclosed? Naw. Heck, you can find great jobs in 'shitlaw.'

That said, TLS threads engender a certain worried feeling that is quite healthy for your job prospects.

[citylawyer1010]

Successful troll is successful.

On a non-ironic note, I agree 100% with the grade distribution being less important outside of T14 and certain markets. Are biglaw and federal jobs closed to you if you get below median? Yes. Don't expect a circuit clerkship if you're ~top 50%. Are all other jobs as a lawyer foreclosed? Naw. Heck, you can find great jobs in 'shitlaw.'

That said, TLS threads engender a certain worried feeling that is quite healthy for your job prospects.

I agree with only 5% of this.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

The OP's post and replies in the thread illustrate a couple of very common psychological reactions/defense mechanisms, that I think are related in an interesting way.

(2) An overwhelming desire to give a moralized interpretation to statistical outcomes. If half his classmates didn't get legal jobs while he did, even though he wasn't an obvious candidate to get a job (not top 10% etc), then that must mean that they failed to do what he did to get a job (key terms: "hustle," "network").

This is all tied up with cultural imperatives to treat social outcomes as reflections of merit, as opposed to cronyism and other forms of unearned privilege, and most of all sheer random luck.

Completely agree this type of rationalization happens all the time, but..

The OP no doubt understands that if half the graduates of a law school don't get jobs as lawyers that means the chances of not getting a legal job for graduates of that school is 50%

Got to disagree here, and this logic is repeated over and over again on TLS. It's basic: 50% of people got X, so chances of obtaining X equals 50%. This logic is completely false. It assumes 100% of people are striving for X.

1/4 people at your law school (and mine) came here to study environmental puppy law. Others came here to kill time and would rather get married/join Peace Corps/become a farmer than work full-time in a JD required role. A few came here and got depressed because they never got over their old boyfriend, never forgave their dad, or never found their true calling. For lack of a better way of putting it, I am not really competing with these people. Then you have all the other people who have the maturity and drive to become a successful professional, but you can't assume they are all working towards "X." Point is, the "56% of Oregon grads obtain full-time JD required work, so Oregon students have a coins flip chance of becoming a real lawyer" thing is mindless and silly. Maybe at U of Chicago 90% of students want X, but the difference between U of Chicago and whatever the fuck "T30" signifies is huge. There is a difference in intelligence between top schools and average schools, especially at the bottom of the class, but the real difference is culture, work ethic, goals, etc. That's why OP (who was clearly being a dick and attempting to start a fight) is finding some support. TLS over-states the problems of the legal market. The truth is the legal market sucks, but TLS tries so hard to avoid blaming students that it presents ridiculous alternatives-- that legal hiring is completely different than non-legal hiring, that (outside of Biglaw and Fed clerks) grades trump actual skills, that everyone wants the same thing out of law school, etc.