Class of 2013 Employment Data Forum

[Gooner91]

Yeah, it looks like UVA might have the highest real unemployment percentage out of the T-14

Is that if we assume all of the school funded positions and fellowships would be unemployed otherwise?

[Princetonlaw68]

At least what I'm saying is backed up by thefact that firms do look for people with certain kinds of work experience.

Wrong.

No firm specifically prefers K-JDs...

Also wrong.

Your purported "facts" have gotten you nowhere. In fact, the poor reasoning skills you've demonstrated ITT are an excellent example of why most firms steer clear of "non-traditional" grads with "experience."

Here's some support for what I'm saying. (Skip through to the opinion of the hiring partner) http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/11/21 ... aw-school/


From the article: While no one is tracking employment rates for lawyers with professional experience, interviews with more than 30 law professors, admissions officers, law students, recent graduates and hiring Partners At Law firms confirm that professional experience has grown more important in the weak economy. In many cases, work experience functions as a tiebreaker in a toss-up between two otherwise equally qualified candidates. Many young lawyers who went straight to law school are now regretting the decision.
With unemployment rates at record highs for lawyers -- 68.4 percent of graduates from the national law school class of 2010 are employed in jobs that require a doctorate degree in law, a drop of 8 percentage points from the class of 2007 -- college graduates without professional experience need to think carefully about heading straight to school.
"There's no doubt that this is a buyer's market for hiring," says Kevyn Orr, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of top-tier law firm Jones Day in a phone interview with AOL Jobs. "And so in a more competitive market, we will look at the experience more now than in the past. For a candidate on the margin, yes, it can make a difference. But it's currently hard to quantify."

Your turn.

[californiauser]

Yeah, it looks like UVA might have the highest real unemployment percentage out of the T-14

Is that if we assume all of the school funded positions and fellowships would be unemployed otherwise?

there's no reason to assume someone would prefer to work for their school instead of, you know, an actual employer

[lecsa]

.

[rpupkin]

Now don't get me wrong, I am also entering the profession but I won't be paying sticker to go anywhere and with my networking and affiliations, not to mention my growing business partnership, I believe I am better informed on what's at stake here and have several back-up plans in case things don't work out.

Your belief is wrong. Your so-called experience has made you soft. Those of us who have gone straight through have something you have lost: the ability to battle. Your "networking and affiliations" won't save you when the pressure is on. Prepare to join the ranks of the beaten.

O rly?

Whatever you say.

Now excuse me while I head to my business dinner with a few Cayman Islands hedge-fund managers, many of whom know my work product.

My connects are not limited to US shores, thank you very much. But I will let you decide my future, just like the rest.

I take my comments back. Seriously, I was mistaken. Look, I thought I was talking to a "working professional" whose experience consisted primarily of making cappuccinos at Starbucks. But you're talking about substantive experience here. In fact, calling your experience "substantive" doesn't begin to do it justice. The Cayman Islands? Hedge-Fund Managers? I know you are too humble to say so, but I think you can fairly be described as a power player. For you, a law degree will be another weapon in an already impressive professional war chest.

Although I generally stand by my comments concerning the value of work experience, I grudgingly admit that I was wrong in your case. I sincerely apologize.

[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.

Huh? Are we now viewing school funded positions as desirable outcomes? Granted, a school funded job is better than unemployment, but when you account for the fact that UVA hired 59 of its graduates I hardly think Michigan looks as bad as you say in comparison. (An argument could be made that Michigan should provide these positions for its graduates as well to soften the landing, but that's a different point)

For reference, when you add up unemployed - not seeking, unemployed - seeking, employment status unknown, university employed, FTST, PTLT, and PTST, the percentages are: Michigan - 17.54%, UVA - 18.68%.

Feel free to check my work on that, I did it rather quickly.

edit: uber scooped

This depends on how one considers school-funded jobs. I was referring to LST's metrics, which does not consider school-funded jobs in their under-employment numbers. Whether or not this is misleading is a different point.

[lawschool22]

I think I may have played a small part in this (although I tried to keep my comments serious and productive) but this thread is starting to get stupid.

ETA: Not referring to you ohpo ^

[Winston1984]

Now don't get me wrong, I am also entering the profession but I won't be paying sticker to go anywhere and with my networking and affiliations, not to mention my growing business partnership, I believe I am better informed on what's at stake here and have several back-up plans in case things don't work out.

Your belief is wrong. Your so-called experience has made you soft. Those of us who have gone straight through have something you have lost: the ability to battle. Your "networking and affiliations" won't save you when the pressure is on. Prepare to join the ranks of the beaten.

O rly?

Whatever you say.

Now excuse me while I head to my business dinner with a few Cayman Islands hedge-fund managers, many of whom know my work product.

My connects are not limited to US shores, thank you very much. But I will let you decide my future, just like the rest.

I take my comments back. Seriously, I was mistaken. Look, I thought I was talking to a "working professional" whose experience consisted primarily of making cappuccinos at Starbucks. But you're talking about substantive experience here. In fact, calling your experience "substantive" doesn't begin to do it justice. The Cayman Islands? Hedge-Fund Managers? I know you are too humble to say so, but I think you can fairly be described as a power player. For you, a law degree will be another weapon in an already impressive professional war chest.

Although I generally stand by my comments concerning the value of work experience, I grudgingly admit that I was wrong in your case. I sincerely apologize.

Is this a joke? This thread is quickly became very strange.

[DrStudMuffin]

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.

Huh? Are we now viewing school funded positions as desirable outcomes? Granted, a school funded job is better than unemployment, but when you account for the fact that UVA hired 59 of its graduates I hardly think Michigan looks as bad as you say in comparison. (An argument could be made that Michigan should provide these positions for its graduates as well to soften the landing, but that's a different point)

For reference, when you add up unemployed - not seeking, unemployed - seeking, employment status unknown, university employed, FTST, PTLT, and PTST, the percentages are: Michigan - 17.54%, UVA - 18.68%.

Feel free to check my work on that, I did it rather quickly.

edit: uber scooped

And if you add in state and local clerkships and 2-10 firm jobs, as was suggested earlier in this thread (I believe based on the work Rayiner did), then the "undesirable outcome" percentages are: Michigan - 24.56%, UVA 26.10%.

I don't know enough to say whether state and local clerkships should be considered as undesirable, but there it is.

[Gooner91]

Yeah, it looks like UVA might have the highest real unemployment percentage out of the T-14

Is that if we assume all of the school funded positions and fellowships would be unemployed otherwise?

there's no reason to assume someone would prefer to work for their school instead of, you know, an actual employer

There have been some public interest focused people on here who have mentioned that some of these positions are desirable outcomes as they allow people to get their foot into the door in places that normally would not hire new grads.

I am obviously not saying that some, maybe even most, of these positions are to game the rankings, but I have a hard time believing that non of these fellowships from the mid t14 schools lead to FTLT jobs that people wanted. Or they could have gotten a job in a field they were really not interested in. I don't think the answer is all or none.
I am curious if there is any data that shows the outcomes of these school funded positions?

[lecsa]

.

[swampman]

there's no reason to assume someone would prefer to work for their school instead of, you know, an actual employer

Not to mention I think they pay less than minimum wage....these people are financially better off working for a retailer.

These fellowships are mainly a huge scam to game the rankings.

UVA fellowships pay a little over 30k for the year, which is about twice minimum wage given a 40-hour workweek. And while UVA pays the salary, students are working for, you know, actual legal PI employers. UVA claims a majority of these positions turn into permanent positions, but haven't released detailed stats.

[swampman]

Some of my friends went the PI route (as much as I make fun of it) and they ended up volunteering for free after graduation. Ended up getting a full time job one year down the road.
These fellowships don't really offer a foot in the door since a lot of PI organizations let you volunteer for free anyway.

Right but with the fellowships instead of volunteering for a year you're getting paid for a year, so....

[Princetonlaw68]

I think I may have played a small part in this (although I tried to keep my comments serious and productive) but this thread is starting to get stupid.

ETA: Not referring to you ohpo ^

I apologize if I contributed to making the thread stupid, but I thought the relationship between work experience and ability to obtain a big law job was relevant to this thread.

[lawschool22]

I think I may have played a small part in this (although I tried to keep my comments serious and productive) but this thread is starting to get stupid.

ETA: Not referring to you ohpo ^

I apologize if I contributed to making the thread stupid, but I thought the relationship between work experience and ability to obtain a big law job was relevant to this thread.

You and I both know this is not what I'm referring to. Come on don't be cute.

[lecsa]

.

[Princetonlaw68]

I think I may have played a small part in this (although I tried to keep my comments serious and productive) but this thread is starting to get stupid.

ETA: Not referring to you ohpo ^

I apologize if I contributed to making the thread stupid, but I thought the relationship between work experience and ability to obtain a big law job was relevant to this thread.

You and I both know this is not what I'm referring to. Come on don't be cute.

[lawschool22]

there's no reason to assume someone would prefer to work for their school instead of, you know, an actual employer

Not to mention I think they pay less than minimum wage....these people are financially better off working for a retailer.

These fellowships are mainly a huge scam to game the rankings.

UVA fellowships pay a little over 30k for the year, which is about twice minimum wage given a 40-hour workweek. And while UVA pays the salary, students are working for, you know, actual legal PI employers. UVA claims a majority of these positions turn into permanent positions, but haven't released detailed stats.

It's glorified volunteering. Not sure if you have experience with PI, but you can easily volunteer for PI orgs after graduation.

And believe it or not, many PI orgs don't care about the rank of your school. If you really just care about doing PI, going to a TTT for free and volunteering afterwards is better than racking up 300k debt to go to a T14.

I'm leaving your second point alone, but volunteering and getting paid $30k /yr are not the same thing

[swampman]

It's glorified volunteering.

Except you're getting paid. Which is the opposite of volunteering.

[lawschool22]

I think I may have played a small part in this (although I tried to keep my comments serious and productive) but this thread is starting to get stupid.

ETA: Not referring to you ohpo ^

I apologize if I contributed to making the thread stupid, but I thought the relationship between work experience and ability to obtain a big law job was relevant to this thread.

You and I both know this is not what I'm referring to. Come on don't be cute.

Sorry, difficult day at work. Nothing personal. I wasn't really even talking about you in the first place.

[burtmacklin]

Anyone do Emory yet? Let's see what that jump in the rankings was all about

[lecsa]

.

[RLowry23]

Temple U -

Big Law (36/295) 12.2%, Fed. Clerk (10/295) 3.3 - 15.5%

http://www.law.temple.edu/documents/Car ... t_2013.pdf

[swampman]

From the point of view of the PI, you're volunteering. The school is paying you 30k. I don't consider that employed. At least I wouldn't tell people I was employed by a PI org at a job interview if they aren't directly paying me. That seems misleading. At a job interview, you'd say you're a school funded fellow at the organization. Not "employed by PI org."

This is true for some organizations, but not others. My local prosecutor's office, for example, considers the person with a fellowship to be an employee and a regular prosecutor (just like the prosecutor whose position is funded by a yearly grant from the Violence Against Women Act), but would require that the unpaid volunteer have another attorney supervising them while appearing before a judge and they wouldn't have their own caseload.

But in many cases, yes, the main distinction is working for free versus getting paid. Which, for me at least, is a very important distinction.
Anyway, probably not the right thread for this discussion, sorry guys.

[d cooper]

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

50 + 12.91 = 62.91%