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

[timbs4339]

You must have gone to one helluva tier 2/3 school if everyone has a job. But of course, as you said, you didn't do a scientific pole.

I didn't go there. I'm at a local firm and there's also a tier 2 in my city. I have a lot of friends that went to tier 2/3 schools, and a ton of co-workers from the local tier 2. They all have jobs. If someone on here really really wants a job and doesn't mind making 35k-45k, I am 100% certain I can find you one. You'd have to be willing to move anywhere. I'm blown away people disagree with this. Perhaps my view of the world is slanted because I have a job and maybe all of my friends had stellar grades (I doubt it).

If there are 50 white M+Ms in a jar, and 50 red M+Ms in a jar, and I pick 10 red M+Ms in a row, the obvious conclusion is that the jar is lying.

I'm going to get M+Ms now.

[JusticeJackson]

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[Bronte]

How can you be blown away that people disagree with a point that is directly contradicted by reams of statistical evidence?

Maybe you're right. I haven't looked at this statistical evidence. I'm going off the one market I have experience in (which is not a market that did stellar in the recession). I really thought I was taking a stance that was very different from the one OP took, and much more aligned with your stance. My stance was: “sure there are some jobs out there for people at the bottom of the class and for people that went to shitty schools, but those jobs don’t pay your bills and are hardly worth the 3 years of law school.” If you’re saying that, in your market, there are no jobs for people at the bottom of the class, I have no reason to doubt you.

Without looking at the statistical evidence you point to, I admit that I am surprised that people can’t find a job making 35k at some small firm.

http://abovethelaw.com/careers/law-school-rankings/. Scroll down about a third of the way. Forty-four percent of the class of 2012 did not get legal jobs.

[gonewiththewind]

You must have gone to one helluva tier 2/3 school if everyone has a job. But of course, as you said, you didn't do a scientific pole.

I didn't go there. I'm at a local firm and there's also a tier 2 in my city. I have a lot of friends that went to tier 2/3 schools, and a ton of co-workers from the local tier 2. They all have jobs. If someone on here really really wants a job and doesn't mind making 35k-45k, I am 100% certain I can find you one. You'd have to be willing to move anywhere. I'm blown away people disagree with this. Perhaps my view of the world is slanted because I have a job and maybe all of my friends had stellar grades (I doubt it).

If there are 50 white M+Ms in a jar, and 50 red M+Ms in a jar, and I pick 10 red M+Ms in a row, the obvious conclusion is that the jar is lying.

I'm going to get M+Ms now.

As long as you stay away from Skittles.

[JusticeJackson]

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[Samara]

I also wonder why it’s so hard for me to land a contract doc reviewer and why no one in my firm can ever name an unemployed attorney when head hunters call.

As someone once said:

to be honest, if the best job I could land out of law school paid 35-45k, I’d just go back to the job I had before law school.

[JusticeJackson]

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[Anonymous User]

dammit

[timbs4339]

I wonder what the 29% entails because, to be honest, if the best job I could land out of law school paid 35-45k, I’d just go back to the job I had before law school.

Why do you assume they had jobs before law school?

[JusticeJackson]

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[laxbrah420]

I wonder what the 29% entails because, to be honest, if the best job I could land out of law school paid 35-45k, I’d just go back to the job I had before law school.

Why do you assume they had jobs before law school?

I don't. That's why I started the sentence "I wonder what the 29% entails..."

Given the bimodal salary curve for law school graduates showing that over half of law grads make terrible wages, I think it’s likely that at least a portion of the 29% in non-law jobs are there because they decided, “fuck it, I’m going to my old job.” It’s also likely that at least 29% of a given law school class had some kind of prior employment. Along those same lines, they might have decided “fuck it, I’m going to take some [insert any non-law job] because it pays slightly above utter shit, which is my highest law-job offer on the table” or maybe even "I'm a rich a-hole that went to law school to avoid work and I plan to eventually work at my family's real estate empire."

The entire point of my post was, I wonder how many people in the 29% fall in to one of the above categories, or something similar. Maybe it's zero. Maybe it's all of them. Maybe it's somewhere between the two. There's no way for you or me to know based on the data on the ATL webpage.

Good post. That's why it's frustrating when Paul Columbo and his wannabe-libertarian brethren say stuff along the lines of "numbers don't lie --stop trying to add a normative component to the analysis." Law school stats fucking blow --and the worst thing they're predictive for is what a single individual entering XLS with credentials A, B, C. There's never been a bigger lie perpetuated on this website than "you have a 50% chance of being at or below median".