ABA just released detailed employment stats for 2010 Forum

[IAFG]

Oh god. Are things with places like HUD, EEOC, SSA, IRS, SEC, NLRB, DoC really that competitive?

Do any of those places hire straight out of school anymore? I am 99% sure SEC doesn't. I know CTFC doesn't.

[Gail]

Oh god. Are things with places like HUD, EEOC, SSA, IRS, SEC, NLRB, DoC really that competitive?

Do any of those places hire straight out of school anymore? I am 99% sure SEC doesn't. I know CTFC doesn't.

Idk. I'm a 0L. SEC isn't the one that has ever interested me. I just threw it in there.


I'm more interested in NLRB, EEOC, SSA and HUD.

[splittinghairs]

Oh god. Are things with places like HUD, EEOC, SSA, IRS, SEC, NLRB, DoC really that competitive?

Do any of those places hire straight out of school anymore? I am 99% sure SEC doesn't. I know CTFC doesn't.

Idk. I'm a 0L. SEC isn't the one that has ever interested me. I just threw it in there.


I'm more interested in NLRB, EEOC, SSA and HUD.

Is GSA hiring, I heard they are looking to clean house

[TaipeiMort]

Government jobs are pure fantasy. DOJ hired like 40 people this year in the whole country. States are bankrupt.

What about other agencies? I had a particular field in mind.

They do hire. It is regimented though. In theory no awesome nepotism or "networking," which really means it is more concealed nepotism. I have a friend a Chicago who gunned for government from Day 1. He battled every day for these jobs, got amazing grades, and chaired a journal. One of the top 5 most intelligent people at our school (I think). Really nice, agreeable, great softs, good cold seller, happy, hard working, great life story, dedicated, not into biglaw at all, savy. (I think) still struggling to find a good government job.

I would seriously put in the same category: Great fed government law job, international PI law, entertainment law, sports law.

But, as I said above, if you have a special connection, you should be able to get past all of this. Nepotism/ties/influence peddling would be really helpful to getting in. Ask yourself: WWND? (What would Newt Gingrich Do?).

Oh god. Are things with places like HUD, EEOC, SSA, IRS, SEC, NLRB, DoC really that competitive?

Well, for DC biglaw after 3 years they all help a ton because the firms are sometimes indifferent to which one you worked in as much as your contextual knowledge into government-private interaction.

[FryBreadPower]

This may be a dumb question:

After reading 6 pages of this thread I am trying to objectively answer the question: "Are things getting better? Are they going to get worse? Or have they stagnated (after having gotten better since 2010), and we should get used to these hiring levels?"

Anyone with more insight than myself (0L) care to comment on this?

[NinerFan]

This may be a dumb question:

After reading 6 pages of this thread I am trying to objectively answer the question: "Are things getting better? Are they going to get worse? Or have they stagnated (after having gotten better since 2010), and we should get used to these hiring levels?"

Anyone with more insight than myself (0L) care to comment on this?

I think the CW is that OCI/EIW was better this year than last year, which was better than the year before. Based on the talk at my school, this is how it's been for us.

[shoeshine]

This may be a dumb question:

After reading 6 pages of this thread I am trying to objectively answer the question: "Are things getting better? Are they going to get worse? Or have they stagnated (after having gotten better since 2010), and we should get used to these hiring levels?"

Anyone with more insight than myself (0L) care to comment on this?

Things have been making steady improvements at my school (a T14) over the last two years. Our OCI hiring numbers have increased around 16% from the bottom in 2009 OCI. I just went to a presentation on this not too long ago.

I am a 1L and the CDO is projecting another modest gain in OCI hiring this year. Hopefully they are correct. I can tell you that I had no problem finding a 1L SA spot. But I am not a traditional candidate so my experience is not typical.

[Bildungsroman]

This may be a dumb question:

After reading 6 pages of this thread I am trying to objectively answer the question: "Are things getting better? Are they going to get worse? Or have they stagnated (after having gotten better since 2010), and we should get used to these hiring levels?"

Anyone with more insight than myself (0L) care to comment on this?

Things have been making steady improvements at my school (a T14) over the last two years. Our OCI hiring numbers have increased around 16% from the bottom in 2009 OCI. I just went to a presentation on this not too long ago.

I am a 1L and the CDO is projecting another modest gain in OCI hiring this year. Hopefully they are correct. I can tell you that I had no problem finding a 1L SA spot. But I am not a traditional candidate so my experience is not typical.

I'm glad you're subtly dropping the fact you got a 1L SA as frequently as possible.

[booboo]

This may be a dumb question:

After reading 6 pages of this thread I am trying to objectively answer the question: "Are things getting better? Are they going to get worse? Or have they stagnated (after having gotten better since 2010), and we should get used to these hiring levels?"

Anyone with more insight than myself (0L) care to comment on this?

Things have been making steady improvements at my school (a T14) over the last two years. Our OCI hiring numbers have increased around 16% from the bottom in 2009 OCI. I just went to a presentation on this not too long ago.

I am a 1L and the CDO is projecting another modest gain in OCI hiring this year. Hopefully they are correct. I can tell you that I had no problem finding a 1L SA spot. But I am not a traditional candidate so my experience is not typical.

I'm glad you're subtly dropping the fact you got a 1L SA as frequently as possible.

I don't understand... how else should she or he do it?

[Samara]

I dont get why this is the case, the LT Gov figures are based on jobs straight out (within 9 months to be exact) of school. I just don't understand how a school like Catholic University places 81/286 in LT Gov.

Maybe schools close to DC or state capitols, or flagship state schools do disproportionately well.

Wooo! Finally, something in legal employment I can actually speak to! I know some people at a T2 in a state capital who pursued government work. I don't know anything about fedgov hiring (outside of Congressional hiring) but here are a few things I do know.

1) As IAFG said, not all government jobs are created equal. I know a guy who graduated from this T2 as c/o 2010 and couldn't find a job. He ended up working for the county for $10/hour in a bachelor's-preferred temp job. He managed to get hired on full time by the nine-month mark and sneak into the FT government work category, but he told anyone who would listen not to go to law school.

2) I suspect that, especially for lower-tier schools, people doing long-term government work after law school are often people who did long-term government work before, or even during, law school. I know somebody at that T2 who I used to work with at my old government agency. She is going to law school part-time to hang onto her full-time job. When she graduates, she'll be able to stay in her current job at the very least. She is hoping to move up or out, but in this political climate, she may not be able to. I suspect that at places like Catholic or GULC PT, many (the bulk?) of the people in the FT gov category are in a similar situation.

3) As TaipeiMort said, the government jobs that do exist are going to people who have connections. You don't need to be somebody's kid, but you do need to have connections. In my old state, most, if not all, JD-required/preferred gov't agency jobs are held by people who were involved in the Governor's party, if not worked on his campaign. Even with political connections, good luck. Back to the T2, I know another guy who graduated c/o 2010. I knew the Chief of Staff for the newly elected county prosecutor. With a party change after a scandal, there were a lot of new hires. I tried to get him a job there, as did some other connected people, but to no avail. There were simply too many people desperate for a decent legal job who were better connected. He's still working as a waiter, by the way. So for anyone who thinks the legal market will get back to decent employment levels anytime soon, just remember that we still have a bunch of guys like him saturating the labor market on top of the surplus of new grads. It's brutal out there.

[mrjohnsterman]

Just wanted to point out that WSJ reports we should be seeing the 2011 data within next couple months..

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/04/18/com ... _news_blog

The American Bar Association is pushing to get new law schools’ job data out May or early June.

In the past, the gap between students’ graduation and the publication of jobs data has been about two years. Now, the ABA is targeting publication of the information a full year earlier, hoping to get it into prospective students’ hands as early as next month. The National Law Journal has a story on the new timetable here.

“We decided a while back that as soon as we got all the data together, we’d put it up for the public to see. We want to get information out more quickly,” Hulett “Bucky” Askew, the ABA’s consultant on legal education, told the NLJ.

[romothesavior]

This may be a dumb question:

After reading 6 pages of this thread I am trying to objectively answer the question: "Are things getting better? Are they going to get worse? Or have they stagnated (after having gotten better since 2010), and we should get used to these hiring levels?"

Anyone with more insight than myself (0L) care to comment on this?

Things have been making steady improvements at my school (a T14) over the last two years. Our OCI hiring numbers have increased around 16% from the bottom in 2009 OCI. I just went to a presentation on this not too long ago.

I am a 1L and the CDO is projecting another modest gain in OCI hiring this year. Hopefully they are correct. I can tell you that I had no problem finding a 1L SA spot. But I am not a traditional candidate so my experience is not typical.

I'm not really sure what your individual job hunt has to do with this general question, but I think this is about right overall.

Things seem to be slowly improving, but improving more quickly at T14s. T14 students are probably still taking "less prestigious" biglaw jobs than they would have gotten pre-ITE, so this means that the recovery for schools lower down in the T1 hasn't been as big. The growth is occurring fastest at the primary market megafirms; class sizes at some of them have shot back up close to pre-ITE levels, while secondary markets and even some less prestigious biglaw firms in primary markets have seen their SA sizes stagnant or only slightly increase. Also, government and PI are still a total shitshow.

[thelawyler]

We really should create a new ranking system based only on this data. At least it would provide a more direct way to assess which schools you should attend.

Bullshit justifications like, "Look at the size of our library!!!", won't hold up if applicants see that only 33% of graduates are employed.

I actually think a TLS ranking publication that is more scientific, fair, reliable, and useful for the consumers (the students!) would actually, if marketed correctly and backed by this community, actually shake things up.

[SunshineMagic]

We really should create a new ranking system based only on this data. At least it would provide a more direct way to assess which schools you should attend.

Bullshit justifications like, "Look at the size of our library!!!", won't hold up if applicants see that only 33% of graduates are employed.

I actually think a TLS ranking publication that is more scientific, fair, reliable, and useful for the consumers (the students!) would actually, if marketed correctly and backed by this community, actually shake things up.

I mean I knew TLS was damn near full of pompous asses but really?