Class of 2013 Employment Data Forum

[Princetonlaw68]

Wow this whole thread is the worst of law school/lawyers combined into one.

All online forums attract bickering, not just ones filled with people who are, or are aspiring to be lawyers.

[jbagelboy]

Not sure how helpful this is to the CLS clerkship discussion, but starting this year 1Ls who clerk during the summer will receive guaranteed summer funding (which was also increased this year). Not sure if this means either 1) CSO is working to put more people into clerkships by making them more attractive to first year students or 2) if this will even have any effect, but just thought I would share.

I was never interested in a clerkship, so I haven't focused on that or that department at all, but the culture here is VERY heavily focused on biglaw. At least to me, it feels like they put you on a conveyer belt that leads you to your biglaw job, and it's up to you to get off and reconstruct your own path to PI/clerkships if your desire is that strong. Others may disagree.

You do realize that judicial internships and clerkships are totally different right?

The answer is what Campos said. Clerkship numbers are too small even at T14s for year to year fluctuations to be significant. It's more likely just a random decrease in interest among top students for that year at Columbia.

8-10% is still on the low end.

Generally though many top columbia students abstain from clerking, and I think the transactional/corporate v litigation practice divide is relevant and easily observable. NYC is a big transactional market, relative to Chicago or SF. This is evidenced by how the university overwhelmingly brings in transactional attorneys over litigators to panels, conferences, ect (there are still tons of litigation opportunities, but yea). Moreover, a lot of people here have corporate backgrounds (finance, trading, consulting) and tend towards it. Also our legal writing program is very mehh and pass/fail so brief/memo writing and litigation gets a bad rep, at least this year.

And re: money, it can still be a factor. Even with clerking bonus , you still lose $50,000-60,000 from clerking. The prestige from a fed clerkship should outweigh this, but it doesn't always.

[Nelson]

Not sure how helpful this is to the CLS clerkship discussion, but starting this year 1Ls who clerk during the summer will receive guaranteed summer funding (which was also increased this year). Not sure if this means either 1) CSO is working to put more people into clerkships by making them more attractive to first year students or 2) if this will even have any effect, but just thought I would share.

I was never interested in a clerkship, so I haven't focused on that or that department at all, but the culture here is VERY heavily focused on biglaw. At least to me, it feels like they put you on a conveyer belt that leads you to your biglaw job, and it's up to you to get off and reconstruct your own path to PI/clerkships if your desire is that strong. Others may disagree.

You do realize that judicial internships and clerkships are totally different right?

The answer is what Campos said. Clerkship numbers are too small even at T14s for year to year fluctuations to be significant. It's more likely just a random decrease in interest among top students for that year at Columbia.

8-10% is still on the low end.

Generally though many top columbia students abstain from clerking, and I think the transactional/corporate v litigation practice divide is relevant and easily observable. NYC is a big transactional market, relative to Chicago or SF. This is evidenced by how the university overwhelmingly brings in transactional attorneys over litigators to panels, conferences, ect (there are still tons of litigation opportunities, but yea). Moreover, a lot of people here have corporate backgrounds (finance, trading, consulting) and tend towards it. Also our legal writing program is very mehh and pass/fail so brief/memo writing and litigation gets a bad rep, at least this year.

And re: money, it can still be a factor. Even with clerking bonus , you still lose $50,000-60,000 from clerking. The prestige from a fed clerkship should outweigh this, but it doesn't always.

In previous years, Columbia's clerkship numbers are in line with its peers though (and it's not like Penn and NYU aren't similarly NYC biglaw transactional focused). I suspect it's a 1 year blip. We'll see if this trend continues. It could be that Columbia grads are disproportionately interested in targeting only SDNY and EDNY and an increasing number of those judges prefer to hire alums only.

[rayiner]

Don't have time to scan the whole thread, but an additional point needs to be made about Northwestern's numbers. NU has a much bigger JD-MBA class than any other T14 [EDIT: besides Stanford], amounting to 10% of the total graduates (28 of 284). This past year, only 4 went into law, 1 to government, and 23 to business/industry: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... jdmba.html. Out of 24 reported salaries, all but 1 (presumably the guy working in government) were 100k+.

The range of $100-130k is typical base salary for Kellogg MBA graduates: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/car ... stics.aspx. These jobs are mostly obtained through Kellogg's OCI, and are largely not available to regular JD's (either at NU or presumably at other schools outside of JD-MBA programs).

NU breaks salary stats into buckets instead of using quartile ranges: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... nformation. Using just the reported salaries, 75% of the class either made $100k+ or had a full-time federal clerkship.

The other dark horse, at least for other schools, is public interest placement. My experience with C/O 2012 and 2013 is that it has been very rough for PI-focused people. Schools that have a strong PI focus, and can deliver in placing them, will also do a bit better than the "firms over 100 + federal clerks" metric.

[burtmacklin]

Don't have time to scan the whole thread, but an additional point needs to be made about Northwestern's numbers. NU has a much bigger JD-MBA class than any other T14, amounting to 10% of the total graduates (28 of 284). This past year, only 4 went into law, 1 to government, and 23 to business/industry: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... jdmba.html. Out of 24 reported salaries, all but 1 (presumably the guy working in government) were 100k+.

The range of $100-130k is typical base salary for Kellogg MBA graduates: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/car ... stics.aspx. These jobs are mostly obtained through Kellogg's OCI, and are largely not available to regular JD's (either at NU or presumably at other schools outside of JD-MBA programs).

NU breaks salary stats into buckets instead of using quartile ranges: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... nformation. Using just the reported salaries, 75% of the class either made $100k+ or had a full-time federal clerkship.

So...thats a good thing right? In terms of employment, it seems like NU is a bit ahead of some of the T10, or am i reading into things the wrong way?

[rayiner]

Don't have time to scan the whole thread, but an additional point needs to be made about Northwestern's numbers. NU has a much bigger JD-MBA class than any other T14, amounting to 10% of the total graduates (28 of 284). This past year, only 4 went into law, 1 to government, and 23 to business/industry: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... jdmba.html. Out of 24 reported salaries, all but 1 (presumably the guy working in government) were 100k+.

The range of $100-130k is typical base salary for Kellogg MBA graduates: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/car ... stics.aspx. These jobs are mostly obtained through Kellogg's OCI, and are largely not available to regular JD's (either at NU or presumably at other schools outside of JD-MBA programs).

NU breaks salary stats into buckets instead of using quartile ranges: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... nformation. Using just the reported salaries, 75% of the class either made $100k+ or had a full-time federal clerkship.

So...thats a good thing right? In terms of employment, it seems like NU is a bit ahead of some of the T10, or am i reading into things the wrong way?

EDITED: Yes, it's a good thing, but that makes it a bit hard to compare to some of the other T14. NU usually has 10% JD-MBAs, and apparently Penn has 6-7% JD-MBA's, and in any given year those folks might go 50% into law (like NU last year), or 10% into law (like NU this year). So at least at NU/Penn, you gotta at least keep that in mind as a mental asterisk.

[d cooper]

Don't have time to scan the whole thread, but an additional point needs to be made about Northwestern's numbers. NU has a much bigger JD-MBA class than any other T14, amounting to 10% of the total graduates (28 of 284). This past year, only 4 went into law, 1 to government, and 23 to business/industry: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... jdmba.html. Out of 24 reported salaries, all but 1 (presumably the guy working in government) were 100k+.

The range of $100-130k is typical base salary for Kellogg MBA graduates: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/car ... stics.aspx. These jobs are mostly obtained through Kellogg's OCI, and are largely not available to regular JD's (either at NU or presumably at other schools outside of JD-MBA programs).

NU breaks salary stats into buckets instead of using quartile ranges: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... nformation. Using just the reported salaries, 75% of the class either made $100k+ or had a full-time federal clerkship.

The other dark horse, at least for other schools, is public interest placement. My experience with C/O 2012 and 2013 is that it has been very rough for PI-focused people. Schools that have a strong PI focus, and can deliver in placing them, will also do a bit better than the "firms over 100 + federal clerks" metric.

Does this mean that we should subtract 28 from the class size when calculating percent at Biglaw + FedClerk? Those students don't seem to be in the same competitive pool, so at least some of them should be subtracted.

If 28 is subtracted from total graduates (no competition from JD-MBA students), NU is 61.7 + 8.6 = 70.3%.

If 14 is subtracted from total graduates (some competition from JD-MBA students), NU is 58.5 + 8.1 = 66.6%

Of course, you can't compare these numbers to the other schools unless you make similar concessions for their JD-MBA class, but it's probably a more accurate way of calculating good outcomes for JD students.

[rayiner]

Don't have time to scan the whole thread, but an additional point needs to be made about Northwestern's numbers. NU has a much bigger JD-MBA class than any other T14, amounting to 10% of the total graduates (28 of 284). This past year, only 4 went into law, 1 to government, and 23 to business/industry: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... jdmba.html. Out of 24 reported salaries, all but 1 (presumably the guy working in government) were 100k+.

The range of $100-130k is typical base salary for Kellogg MBA graduates: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/car ... stics.aspx. These jobs are mostly obtained through Kellogg's OCI, and are largely not available to regular JD's (either at NU or presumably at other schools outside of JD-MBA programs).

NU breaks salary stats into buckets instead of using quartile ranges: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/career/ ... nformation. Using just the reported salaries, 75% of the class either made $100k+ or had a full-time federal clerkship.

The other dark horse, at least for other schools, is public interest placement. My experience with C/O 2012 and 2013 is that it has been very rough for PI-focused people. Schools that have a strong PI focus, and can deliver in placing them, will also do a bit better than the "firms over 100 + federal clerks" metric.

Does this mean that we should subtract 28 from the class size when calculating percent at Biglaw + FedClerk? Those students don't seem to be in the same competitive pool, so at least some of them should be subtracted.

If 28 is subtracted from total graduates (no competition from JD-MBA students), NU is 61.7 + 8.6 = 70.3%.

If 14 is subtracted from total graduates (some competition from JD-MBA students), NU is 58.5 + 8.1 = 66.6%

Of course, you can't compare these numbers to the other schools unless you make similar concessions for their JD-MBA class, but it's probably a more accurate way of calculating good outcomes for JD students.

I think the calculation methodology is about as good as it's going to get without having more insight into the kinds of business/industry jobs at other schools. So I'm not suggesting calculating things a different way. Just pointing out that you should have a mental asterisk for the NU figure, as you might say for Michigan to account for its substantial PI focus.

[Spacejam]

IDK if its already been posted here. But UVA is up.

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

62.9%

[jumpin munkey]

Penn has closer to 6-7% JD-MBAs, rayiner, FWIW.

[cotiger]

boooo texas and berkeley

[BigZuck]

boooo texas

Tomorrow

[20141023]

.

[Dr.Zer0]

Thank you Regulus! Will you be doing the same for Cal and Cornell once they release employment numbers?

[03152016]

Amazing, thanks for posting that.

[BVest]

A report from UT's ASW:

They told us we will be getting employment stats tomorrow [Friday] that should be out next week to all, I will post them up as soon as I get them.

[papercut]

Any idea on how the ABA enforces the disclosure due date? Are Berkeley et al going to have to pay some sort of fine?

[20141023]

.

[cotiger]

Thank you Regulus! Will you be doing the same for Cal and Cornell once they release employment numbers?

Yeah, I'll update the post with graphs for those bastards as soon as they get with the program and release their employment data.

Any idea on how the ABA enforces the disclosure due date? Are Berkeley et al going to have to pay some sort of fine?

Kyle is probably the only one on here who will be able to answer this question.

Cornell actually posted theirs on time.

http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/career ... istics.cfm

[rayiner]

Penn has closer to 6-7% JD-MBAs, rayiner, FWIW.

Interesting. Someone told me 3-4 people, but this was a couple of years ago and second-hand. Does Penn have a breakdown of what the JD-MBA's end up doing?

Here is some more stats: http://tippingthescales.com/2013/11/jdm ... o-get-both.

The size of the top JD/MBA programs varies widely. Northwestern has 27 JD/MBAs in the Class of 2016 and 70 of them on campus. Stanford has about 21 total, the biggest group since 1976. Penn’s JD/MBA count, with 14 in the Class of 2016 and 45 total, is slightly higher than Harvard’s, which is 10 in the newest class and 35 overall.

But at many schools—even elite schools—JD/MBAs are about as rare as unicorns. Drake says there are four other JD/MBAs in his year at Duke. An admissions representative at UC Berkeley says there might be one JD/MBA in this year’s incoming class, but she wasn’t sure; she estimates that the school gets about 20 JD/MBA applicants a year. Columbia doesn’t formally track the number, though the estimate there is slightly higher: 15 JD/MBAs in the Class of 2016.

Assuming graduating class size stays roughly the same, that's about 10% for NU/SLS, 5.5% for Penn, 3.5% for Columbia, 2.5% for Duke, 2% for HLS. So it would be good to read the business/industry categories for these schools consistently with these (rough) numbers.

[star fox]

If you had to guess would you say it's more likely firms dig deeper into the class at T14s or go after top 10 percent types at local schools moving forward with smaller law school class sizes?

[skers]

Dude reg, those graphs are pretty cool and all, but it's also spring break man.

[04102014]

Dude reg, those graphs are pretty cool and all, but it's also spring break man.

[bombaysippin]

Thank you Regulus! Will you be doing the same for Cal and Cornell once they release employment numbers?

[BVest]

Any idea on how the ABA enforces the disclosure due date? Are Berkeley et al going to have to pay some sort of fine?

This is from another thread:

Just to be clear, the status date is March 15th. The data are due to the ABA on March 17th (today). The ABA estimates a three-week turnaround, which puts the data out [on LST] on April 7th. The turnaround timeline is fuzzy. Other dates are hard.

[Emphasis added.]

Is it possible that there's another date by which the schools must publish the data? That is, maybe the schools have all reported to ABA in a timely fashion and don't have to publish until x date or until the ABA releases the data. Anyone know?