Class of 2013 Employment Data Forum

[cotiger]

I know some people were debating the merits of evaluating what percentage of those hired into 100+ firms were hired into 500+ firms. I don't mean to insinuate anything, but just to provide data. Take this for what it's worth.

Percent of those in big law hired by firms w/ 500+:

Vandy: 42/74=57%

Gtown: 210/267=78.7%

I think the difference is surprisingly large given how close their 100+ numbers were. I also believe this helps illustrate the divide between a T14 like Gtown, and a great non-T14 like Vandy.

Also, Vandy had 12.6% of the class employed at small firms of 2-25 vs 6.2% at GULC.

Though this number becomes a bit sketchier with a school like GULC that sends so many people into public service, GULC sent 62.6% of its non-PI/Gov grads into biglaw, while Vandy sent 53.8%.

The two schools were fairly close this year, but there's still clearly daylight in between.

[lecsa]

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[kaiser]

^^^

Exactly. You don't find too many Yale folks in firms to begin with, so its not surprising.

[Blessedassurance]

I've spoken to a couple of people at Gtown who claim that if you are median there and you want big law, you will probably get it. This could be due to the whole people at Gtown don't all want big law thing.

where do the people who don't want biglaw at Georgetown go? cuz there are a shitton of people who don't get biglaw out of Georgetown. for Christ's sake, they put 83 people in law school/university funded positions. that's damn near 100 people, not to mention the 30 people outright unemployed. these sobering stats should be considered in light of the cost of attending gulc.

[Blessedassurance]

And self-selection comes into play here -- NYU sent 11.55% of grads into PI work, compared to Cornell's 5.7%. Cornell's employment numbers are great, but that doesn't mean Cornell places better in NYC than NYU.

boy do those nyu kids love their pi mantra bullshit. why doesn't the school break down it's pi category considering it is so proud of the fact?

[Princetonlaw68]

I've spoken to a couple of people at Gtown who claim that if you are median there and you want big law, you will probably get it. This could be due to the whole people at Gtown don't all want big law thing.

where do the people who don't want biglaw at Georgetown go? cuz there are a shitton of people who don't get biglaw out of Georgetown. for Christ's sake, they put 83 people in law school/university funded positions. that's damn near 100 people, not to mention the 30 people outright unemployed. these sobering stats should be considered in light of the cost of attending gulc.

Yes, definitely. No argument here. Not to mention that 50% of the students at Gtown are not median or above. I'm just saying that based on what I've heard, if you go to Gtown and manage to be median or above, you are more likely than not to get big law. I also believe that this is extremely believable when looking at gtown's stats.

[rad lulz]

f

[AAJD2B]

And self-selection comes into play here -- NYU sent 11.55% of grads into PI work, compared to Cornell's 5.7%. Cornell's employment numbers are great, but that doesn't mean Cornell places better in NYC than NYU.

boy do those nyu kids love their pi mantra bullshit. why doesn't the school break down it's pi category considering it is so proud of the fact?

[Caesar Salad]

I've spoken to a couple of people at Gtown who claim that if you are median there and you want big law, you will probably get it. This could be due to the whole people at Gtown don't all want big law thing.

where do the people who don't want biglaw at Georgetown go? cuz there are a shitton of people who don't get biglaw out of Georgetown. for Christ's sake, they put 83 people in law school/university funded positions. that's damn near 100 people, not to mention the 30 people outright unemployed. these sobering stats should be considered in light of the cost of attending gulc.

We're dealing with percentages though, I don't understand why class size matters. In absolute terms GULC has more students underemployed, but they have a proportionally larger absolute number of students entering Biglaw as well

[kaiser]

And self-selection comes into play here -- NYU sent 11.55% of grads into PI work, compared to Cornell's 5.7%. Cornell's employment numbers are great, but that doesn't mean Cornell places better in NYC than NYU.

boy do those nyu kids love their pi mantra bullshit. why doesn't the school break down it's pi category considering it is so proud of the fact?

sounds like someone's got quite the chip on their shoulder about NYU. Their numbers stink and their PI mantra is bullshit, grrrrr

But serious though. Given how the school markets itself, and the programs they have that focus on PI, is it really so shocking to think that they more students going into PI than other comparable schools? There are many top students who came there specifically due to the school's PI programs. That doesn't just come out of thin air. Heck, on my journal alone, multiple Board members ended up going the PI route, and one turned down an offer from Cravath to do so.

[03152016]

And self-selection comes into play here -- NYU sent 11.55% of grads into PI work, compared to Cornell's 5.7%. Cornell's employment numbers are great, but that doesn't mean Cornell places better in NYC than NYU.

boy do those nyu kids love their pi mantra bullshit. why doesn't the school break down it's pi category considering it is so proud of the fact?

They ought to. But it's hardly controversial to say that their reputation and institutional support for PI would result in more grads going into PI.

[Blessedassurance]

sounds like someone's got quite the chip on their shoulder about NYU. Their numbers stink and their PI mantra is bullshit, grrrrr

I have nothing against nyu but I have met a lot of unemployed nyu grads. others have said the same (people have also alluded to this on scamblogs). that may or may not be accurate but if they are placing that many graduates into public interest, prospective students should endeavor to at least request a breakdown of what these jobs actually entail. it's a very expensive school and a "t6". the fact that it's a t6 leads many people to believe it's okay to pay sticker.

my rant against them in this thread has to do with the cultish adamancy with which they proffer the pi excuse. it's the same line over and over again, and every single one of them is just happy to blurt out the nyu-pi-this-and-that mantra (they've been using this excuse since I've been on tls. they've used it when their biglaw numbers were relatively low and when their biglaw numbers are relatively high as they are doing now). nyu doesn't attract more pi students than yale, Harvard, Berkeley, or stanford. at least a quarter of any given class at hys, nyu, Berkeley etc., are convinced prosecuting Charles taylor at the hague is their calling and the law schools tell entering student whatever they want to hear (like how there are opportunities for study abroad like that's gonna get you hired at the UN). there's no way to gauge who wanted pi and who didn't etc., let's just focus on outcomes, or at the very least request more information on the pi category when a school is placing more than 10% of its large class there.

[lecsa]

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[lawschool22]

And self-selection comes into play here -- NYU sent 11.55% of grads into PI work, compared to Cornell's 5.7%. Cornell's employment numbers are great, but that doesn't mean Cornell places better in NYC than NYU.

boy do those nyu kids love their pi mantra bullshit. why doesn't the school break down it's pi category considering it is so proud of the fact?

They ought to. But it's hardly controversial to say that their reputation and institutional support for PI would result in more grads going into PI.

Seriously. Not to mention several full-ride scholarship programs designed specifically for people who want to pursue PI, as well as increased standard scholarships for people who pursue PI. Add to that a completely separate career services office dedicated to PI, and even the marketing the school does, and it's not a stretch to assume that there is a higher number of students going to NYU for PI than at peer schools such as CCP.

[lawschool22]

sounds like someone's got quite the chip on their shoulder about NYU. Their numbers stink and their PI mantra is bullshit, grrrrr

I have nothing against nyu but I have met a lot of unemployed nyu grads. others have said the same (people have also alluded to this on scamblogs). that may or may not be accurate but if they are placing that many graduates into public interest, prospective students should endeavor to at least request a breakdown of what these jobs actually entail. it's a very expensive school and a "t6". the fact that it's a t6 leads many people to believe it's okay to pay sticker.

my rant against them in this thread has to do with the cultish adamancy with which they proffer the pi excuse. it's the same line over and over again, and every single one of them is just happy to blurt out the nyu-pi-this-and-that mantra (they've been using this excuse since I've been on tls. they've used it when their biglaw numbers were relatively low and when their biglaw numbers are relatively high as they are doing now). nyu doesn't attract more pi students than yale, Harvard, Berkeley, or stanford. at least a quarter of any given class at hys, nyu, Berkeley etc., are convinced prosecuting Charles taylor at the hague is their calling and the law schools tell entering student whatever they want to hear (like how there are opportunities for study abroad like that's gonna get you hired at the UN). there's no way to gauge who wanted pi and who didn't etc., let's just focus on outcomes, or at the very least request more information on the pi category when a school is placing more than 10% of its large class there.

No one is comparing NYU to HYS. Now you're attacking a strawman. We are comparing it to Columbia, Chicago, and Penn.

Based on the evidence we have, I don't think it is crazy to say that NYU has a higher percentage of PI-minded individuals than CCP.

[Nelson]

Going to NYU on an RTK is one thing, going to NYU as Joe Average law student paying sticker is another. The issue is that we don't have good ways to disaggregate the outcomes of those two situations or know the proportions of those populations at NYU compared to other peer schools. Absent data, there's no point in arguing about it, just take the data we do have for what it is and move on.

[Blessedassurance]

I'm not sure where you're getting this. I don't think a quarter of HYS, NYU or Berkeley, or any T 14 for that matter wants to do PI.

they did when they entered law school.

there's a group at Harvard dedicated to reminding people of that fact. their flyers normally start with "remember how you came to Harvard to change the world..."? or something along those lines. i'm surprised they don't have their own website yet:

http://abovethelaw.com/2012/04/the-comm ... to-biglaw/

http://hlrecord.org/?p=14339

[lawschool22]

Going to NYU on an RTK is one thing, going to NYU as Joe Average law student paying sticker is another. The issue is that we don't have good ways to disaggregate the outcomes of those two situations or know the proportions of those populations at NYU compared to other peer schools. Absent data, there's no point in arguing about it, just take the data we do have for what it is and move on.

I'm not trying to argue the relative quality of the PI outcomes at NYU vs. CCP, etc. My only point is that I think it's fair to assume you have a small, but statistically significant increased number of people at NYU who do not seek biglaw. Sure, they may end up in shitty PI. But the point is that if you have fewer people gunning for biglaw in the first place, your ultimate biglaw placement percentages are likely to be somewhat lower than peer schools.

I'm not saying NYU is a magical PI school that gets everyone top-quality PI outcomes. I'm just saying that it's reasonable to assume you have fewer people gunning for biglaw in the first place.

On the flip side, I think Columbia benefits from the reverse effect. That is, a higher number of people gunning for biglaw than it's peers --> slightly higher biglaw placement.

[04102014]

Going to NYU on an RTK is one thing, going to NYU as Joe Average law student paying sticker is another. The issue is that we don't have good ways to disaggregate the outcomes of those two situations or know the proportions of those populations at NYU compared to other peer schools. Absent data, there's no point in arguing about it, just take the data we do have for what it is and move on.

I'm not trying to argue the relative quality of the PI outcomes at NYU vs. CCP, etc. My only point is that I think it's fair to assume you have a small, but statistically significant increased number of people at NYU who do not seek biglaw. Sure, they may end up in shitty PI. But the point is that if you have fewer people gunning for biglaw in the first place, your ultimate biglaw placement percentages are likely to be somewhat lower than peer schools.

I'm not saying NYU is a magical PI school that gets everyone top-quality PI outcomes. I'm just saying that it's reasonable to assume you have fewer people gunning for biglaw in the first place.

On the flip side, I think Columbia benefits from the reverse effect. That is, a higher number of people gunning for biglaw than it's peers --> slightly higher biglaw placement.

This is the unquantifiable point of contention.

[lecsa]

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[Nelson]

Going to NYU on an RTK is one thing, going to NYU as Joe Average law student paying sticker is another. The issue is that we don't have good ways to disaggregate the outcomes of those two situations or know the proportions of those populations at NYU compared to other peer schools. Absent data, there's no point in arguing about it, just take the data we do have for what it is and move on.

I'm not trying to argue the relative quality of the PI outcomes at NYU vs. CCP, etc. My only point is that I think it's fair to assume you have a small, but statistically significant increased number of people at NYU who do not seek biglaw. Sure, they may end up in shitty PI. But the point is that if you have fewer people gunning for biglaw in the first place, your ultimate biglaw placement percentages are likely to be somewhat lower than peer schools.

I'm not saying NYU is a magical PI school that gets everyone top-quality PI outcomes. I'm just saying that it's reasonable to assume you have fewer people gunning for biglaw in the first place.

On the flip side, I think Columbia benefits from the reverse effect. That is, a higher number of people gunning for biglaw than it's peers --> slightly higher biglaw placement.

This is the unquantifiable point of contention.

This. There's just no evidence to prove or disprove that hypothesis at this point. Especially since every law school makes a big deal about PI and how much great stuff their alums do. They do that because it's sexier to sell than telling 0Ls they're going to spend their careers fighting discovery motions in derivative litigation or compiling paperwork for CDO offerings.

[UVAIce]

UVA info is up Firms: 17, 25, 140: 182 + 47 federal clerkship = 229 / 364 graduating class = 62.91%

Or 50% in firms 100+ and 12.91% in federal clerkships.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/pdf/aba/2013employment.pdf

Edit: I also find the regional placement of UVA to be telling. 67 in DC, 62 in NY, and 61 in Virginia. However, a lot of those taking positions in Virginia are folks clerking who end up in DC or NYC. Just goes to show how much of a DC bias we have.

[Nomo]

I'm not sure where you're getting this. I don't think a quarter of HYS, NYU or Berkeley, or any T 14 for that matter wants to do PI.

I honestly believe a quarter of my class at Michigan wanted to PI; I'd believe it was a third. A lot of those people still showed up at OCI because its easy and safe, though many seemed to do the OCI process halfheartedly. The student org for PI was probably the biggest and most active student org. at Michigan. They held multiple events throughout the year to assure people it would be ok not to do OCI. They normally did a couple sessions per year explaining the LRAP program, they seemed to have about a hundred attendees, despite the fact that lunch wasn't provided. It would be fascinating to see how many students skipped OCI, or only showed up to interview with Dep. of State. We could end this speculation once and for all if the schools told us how many people skipped OCI or showed up only to interview with a few small firms for gov. org's. Maybe prospective students should ask for this info.

[04102014]

UVA info is up Firms: 17, 25, 140: 182 + 47 federal clerkship = 229 / 364 graduating class = 62.91%

Or 50% in firms 100+ and 12.91% in federal clerkships.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/pdf/aba/2013employment.pdf

I'm fascinated right now by how badly Michigan's struggling students did relative to other T14s (such as UVA). LST's under-employment score for Mich is going to be rough.

[lecsa]

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