Best Current Legal Markets for Hiring Forum

[jslom958]

I have spoken with a handful of attorneys in multiple cities, and all have stated that their city is a tough legal market for hiring. Obviously the entire legal market is down, but what cities are rebounding faster than others and are doing comparatively well? All opinions and factual studies are welcomed.

[Bikeflip]

What do you want to do? Big firm? Small-firm? Gubmint?

[jslom958]

I was thinking just generally, but I am personally looking for employment in small firms, medium firms, and businesses.

[BarbellDreams]

Assuming you have ties its TX and its not close based on my research and anecdotal evidence.

[whatsyourdeal]

Southern California has quite a bit of opportunities for entry level. I got a bunch of interviews off of craigslist alone in September.

[Danger Zone]

Uhm, New York?

[redsox550]

if your question is best chance of landing a job, then the answer will be NY. If the question is per application best chance to land a job, then idk

[ggocat]

Assuming you have ties its TX and its not close based on my research and anecdotal evidence.

Care to share your research?

[texas_ranger]

Assuming you have ties its TX and its not close based on my research and anecdotal evidence.

Concurred. I'm a top-3 law Texas law school student, and OCI was for most people who participated a stellar success. The numbers of summer hires appear to be up across the board (with obvious exceptions like Weil, Gotshal), and every BigLaw firm in town was actively recruiting. I know numerous 3Ls who had split summers at BigLaw firms and ended up with offers from both. Houston's the biggest market overall, and tons of UT students lined up jobs there (as did students at the three local law schools. The market for certain specialties, particularly IP law, is at an all-time high, or so I've heard.

That said, even with "ties" to Texas it may prove to be difficult to obtain employment from out of state. The Texas BigLaw firms fill their ranks overwhelmingly from Harvard, UT, UH, and SMU, in that order. Many firms are substantially more likely to hire a UT grad vs. HLS because they generally have a vested interest in Texas. Austin's a considerably smaller legal market, but OTOH the city has what I think is the lowest unemployment rate of any decent-sized American city (just over 5%), so I don't think it'd be that had to find something.

[jslom958]

I guess that I was thinking mostly in terms of firms and businesses. Also, since we are considering the entire country, assume no ties.

[BarbellDreams]

If we are assuming no ties its NY. You don't need ties for NY cause its pretty easy to sell the "Why NY?" thing and the question won't even get asked given that its assumed that its a destination people from all over want to go to.

Texas OCI recruiting has been at a huge uptick lately and the legal market over there, assuming you have ties and went to LS there, is pretty damn healthy. The clerkship hiring is also abundant from what I hear. But, although a few of my classmates with no ties and LS outside of TX landed jobs there anyway, its a very difficult market to crack if you're not from there and do not go to school there.

[hiima3L]

Southern California has quite a bit of opportunities for entry level. I got a bunch of interviews off of craigslist alone in September.

I find this extremely hard to believe.

By SoCal do you mean just LA?

[whatsyourdeal]

No, I mean Orange County as well. In fact, IMHO, OC + LA has more entry level attorney positions than the Bay Area.

I've been job searching in both regions for the past six months, and I have seen more postings on various sources in SoCal as opposed to the Bay. I've been using various Symplicity websites (both regions), BYU, Craigslist (both regions), the Daily Journal and indeed. Without a doubt, based on my observations, there have beem more listings in SoCal overall. Its not even close.

Also, this is coming from a Bay Area law grad that wanted to be in the bay. Sadly, there's way too many regional schools (Hastings, SCU, USF, UoP, Cal, Davis, Stanford, Golden Gate, Lincoln) for whatever jobs there are. And without a tech background, there are far fewer opportunities with much competition.

[Anonymous User]

Assuming you have ties its TX and its not close based on my research and anecdotal evidence.

Concurred. I'm a top-3 law Texas law school student, and OCI was for most people who participated a stellar success. The numbers of summer hires appear to be up across the board (with obvious exceptions like Weil, Gotshal), and every BigLaw firm in town was actively recruiting. I know numerous 3Ls who had split summers at BigLaw firms and ended up with offers from both. Houston's the biggest market overall, and tons of UT students lined up jobs there (as did students at the three local law schools. The market for certain specialties, particularly IP law, is at an all-time high, or so I've heard.

That said, even with "ties" to Texas it may prove to be difficult to obtain employment from out of state. The Texas BigLaw firms fill their ranks overwhelmingly from Harvard, UT, UH, and SMU, in that order. Many firms are substantially more likely to hire a UT grad vs. HLS because they generally have a vested interest in Texas. Austin's a considerably smaller legal market, but OTOH the city has what I think is the lowest unemployment rate of any decent-sized American city (just over 5%), so I don't think it'd be that had to find something.

Agreed. 2L at UT as well. Pretty much all my friends at UT who wanted BigLaw got it through OCI this year. Obviously that's not necessarily a representative sample but the mood is generally optimistic. I know many non-LR people with multiple offers from TX biglaw. I am at median and got one offer for each half of the summer (biglaw and small firm). Oil and gas (shale boom) and IP seem to be doing especially well, even outside of biglaw. I wouldn't be surprised if up to half the class end up (i.e. not necessarily through 2L OCI) with really solid (six figures or close) jobs. Factor in the PI folks who've wanted PI from day one and I think it is fair to say UT really does have one of the best values among the T20s.

And of course, we are all very grateful for the work Gov. Perry has done in making our state economy not suck. Heil! </sarcasm>

[ggocat]

You've gotten some opinions that TX is a good legal market. I'm a lawyer in TX. I see no strong reason for it to be ranked comparatively better or worse. I see employed lawyers. I see unemployed lawyers. A lot of the opinions in this thread, although seemingly presented as fact, are just opinions. Take them all with a grain of salt. To be fair, you did just ask people to give opinions. So they can't be faulted for doing just that.

Presumably you're asking your question here because Google was of no value and there is no good analysis based in fact. That's unfortunate. It would be nice if someone could design a good way to measure the health of legal markets by state/city. Maybe poke around on the BLS website. It's not loading correctly for me at the moment. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes231011.htm

You might check out this article. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ ... -by-state/
It doesn't account for all the factors one might consider for determining what is a "good" legal market. Just shows lawyer surpluses by state. I note that Texas has a smaller surplus than most other major markets; and although it is on the high end of the surpluses overall, wages are better than most markets with smaller surpluses. So my two cents is that this study supports a conclusion that Texas would be a relatively strong legal market.

I took a quick look at the LST reports (http://www.lstscorereports.com/) and focused on schools with 50%+ of employed grads in a handful of states; I took the average "employment score" from those schools. The 50%+ requirement means most national schools are excluded, except for NY. Because most national schools are excluded from this sampling, it ends up being a rough analysis of "how does employment look for regional schools in XYZ states." Clearly this is not a perfect search; could be weighted by populations; etc.; and an argument could be made it's completely meaningless. Regardless, here was the average LST score for the states I looked at:
GA -- 61%
TX -- 60%
NY -- 60% (excluding T14 with majority placement in NY, it's 50%)
AZ -- 56%
IL -- 51%
FL -- 51%
PA -- 51%
CA -- 47%
OH -- 47%
MA -- 37%

At least from this sampling, TX appears at the higher end.

[Devlin]

The Texas BigLaw firms fill their ranks overwhelmingly from Harvard, UT, UH, and SMU, in that order.

Sounds like you just outed yourself as UH student

[Anonymous User]

Also, from the experience of friends at my T14, OCI success in Texas does not always equate to a job. Texas firms no-offer at higher rates than other markets, at least from this anecdotal experience. I know people who went on to federal clerkships and market jobs in DC/NY/CA that initially spent 2L summer in Texas and were no-offered.

[thesealocust]

The Texas trolling ITT is hilarious.

Texas is definitely doing well, just not "Texas law schools are materially less fucked than all other non T-14 law schools" well.

[BarbellDreams]

Haha, I have absolutely no relation to UT, any other TX law school or the TX market. With that said, I've been lobbying for UT to overtake GTown for years.

[thesealocust]

Haha, I have absolutely no relation to UT, any other TX law school or the TX market. With that said, I've been lobbying for UT to overtake GTown for years.

There's just a mile of difference between shitting on G-town (America's favorite passtime) and trolling for the entire Texas legal market (1/50th of the union's favorite passtime?)

[rad lulz]

m

[hiima3L]

No, I mean Orange County as well. In fact, IMHO, OC + LA has more entry level attorney positions than the Bay Area.

I've been job searching in both regions for the past six months, and I have seen more postings on various sources in SoCal as opposed to the Bay. I've been using various Symplicity websites (both regions), BYU, Craigslist (both regions), the Daily Journal and indeed. Without a doubt, based on my observations, there have beem more listings in SoCal overall. Its not even close.

Also, this is coming from a Bay Area law grad that wanted to be in the bay. Sadly, there's way too many regional schools (Hastings, SCU, USF, UoP, Cal, Davis, Stanford, Golden Gate, Lincoln) for whatever jobs there are. And without a tech background, there are far fewer opportunities with much competition.

I agree it looks better when compared to the Bay (I know both markets pretty well), but the Bay is arguably the worst legal market in the nation (and one of the hardest hit ITE), so comparing the two and saying SoCal is therefore doing well seems a bit of a stretch.

[Perseus_I]

Haha, I have absolutely no relation to UT, any other TX law school or the TX market. With that said, I've been lobbying for UT to overtake GTown for years.

There's just a mile of difference between shitting on G-town (America's favorite passtime) and trolling for the entire Texas legal market (1/50th of the union's favorite passtime?)

I hate it when people say "everyone I know who wanted big law got it" every yr when the stats show that it's not true every year

Our CSO seemed to indicate a near collapse of firm hiring last summer with multiple no-offers. OCI has been stable/slight decline since 2010.

All in all, about 25% get big law. 9% get Aiii clerkships, and about another 30% get other good jobs such as mid law, DA/PD, and fed honors. About 1/3 of the class is largely fucked with small law or unstable employment or unemployed.

(1) people didn't know what they wanted to do so didn't prepare for a specific career; (2) out of staters trying to stay in Austin; (3) bad grades or people skills.

Some people want small law for courtroom experience though so my "fucked" numbers might be inflated.

[Bildungsroman]

Haha, I have absolutely no relation to UT, any other TX law school or the TX market. With that said, I've been lobbying for UT to overtake GTown for years.

There's just a mile of difference between shitting on G-town (America's favorite passtime) and trolling for the entire Texas legal market (1/50th of the union's favorite passtime?)

I hate it when people say "everyone I know who wanted big law got it" every yr when the stats show that it's not true every year

Nah man, it's just that few people at UT want biglaw. That's why their placement is lousy; they're just so public-service oriented.

[Perseus_I]

Reasons for unemployment at UT according to my anecdotal experience/observation:

(1) bad grades

(2) not using law school to prepare for practicing a specific type of law (non big law only)

(3) creepers

(4) women who aren't feminine enough

(5) Aspergers

(6) having too much of a hippie or public service resume and applying for big law

(7) lack of Texas ties

(8) narrowly focused on out of state / DC / fed

Between these, that's 1/4 - 1/3 of the class at UT who is fucked.