Class of 2013 Employment Data Forum

[BVest]

Vandy is in the South and has little to no name recognition outside of it.

Perhaps with the general public, but they place a lot of graduates all over the country. Plus, as the South/Texas continue to grow in population and importance, the opportunities for Vandy and UT grads will only increase (and so will their relative employment stats and reputations). I am betting that Vandy or UT (or both) will overtake some school in the T14, perhaps Georgetown or Michigan. Probably not in the next couple years, but within thee next couple decades.

I'm not sure why you think this. There is practically no biglaw in the South, and never will be. You don't have the big banks, which are pretty much based in NYC, funneling you work and I don't see banks moving down South any time soon. A lot of biglaw work is tied in with big banks, which will stay in NYC. The trend is for NYC biglaw is continue to stay strong and get stronger. Regulatory work is going to expand, and only NYC offices can handle that work. California is dying and the South as far as I'm concerned, doesn't exist as a legal market.

OMG, you're right! I bet there's not one single industry based in the south. Certainly not one that has 4 of the top 10 slots in the Fortune 500, made up of companies who pretty much mint their own money. And no other major corporations would HQ in the south; it's impossible that over a quarter of fortune 500 companies would locate in 12 southern states.

[El Principe]

I'm not sure why you think this. There is practically no biglaw in the South, and never will be. You don't have the big banks, which are pretty much based in NYC, funneling you work and I don't see banks moving down South any time soon. A lot of biglaw work is tied in with big banks, which will stay in NYC. The trend is for NYC biglaw is continue to stay strong and get stronger. Regulatory work is going to expand, and only NYC offices can handle that work. California is dying and the South as far as I'm concerned, doesn't exist as a legal market.

A lot of NYC firms don't recruit at Vandy or UT, yet they recruit at every T14, even Georgetown. And to these firms, past Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and NYU, the rest of the T-14 is largely viewed the same.

I was worried you had forgotten Texas is actually a state, until I realized today is National 'Let's Pretend Texas Doesn't Exist' Day.

You got me good for a second!

[lecsa]

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[cotiger]

I'm not sure why you think this. There is practically no biglaw in the South, and never will be. You don't have the big banks, which are pretty much based in NYC, funneling you work and I don't see banks moving down South any time soon. A lot of biglaw work is tied in with big banks, which will stay in NYC. The trend is for NYC biglaw is continue to stay strong and get stronger. Regulatory work is going to expand, and only NYC offices can handle that work. California is dying and the South as far as I'm concerned, doesn't exist as a legal market.

A lot of NYC firms don't recruit at Vandy or UT, yet they recruit at every T14, even Georgetown. And to these firms, past Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and NYU, the rest of the T-14 is largely viewed the same.

I was worried you had forgotten Texas is actually a state, until I realized today is National 'Let's Pretend Texas Doesn't Exist' Day.

You got me good for a second!

To be fair, Texas isn't part of the South.

[rayiner]

Hm. Paul Campos suggested here the other day that these jobs can account for a lot of the 100+ placement, but the belief appears to be that it's more prominent the lower the rank of the school.

Just compare the NLJ 250 data, which is firms of 150+ and associate positions only, with the ABA data. At NU, the former shows 146 associates, and the latter 158. I know for a fact that there are multiple people in that class who got associate positions at non-NLJ 250 firms above 100 attorneys. Also, if you look at the the salary stats for the 11 people who got jobs in firms of 100-250, each one reported a salary, and the 25th percentile was $110k, which is market in Milwaukee, a tertiary market that does OCI at NU. So I don't think there's much room for staff attorneys to hide in the data.

Maybe its different lower down the rankings, but I don't think its worth factoring in for T14 schools. And even lower down, I'd be surprised. There are just a few firms that have large numbers of entry-level staff attorneys, like Orrick. Most of that work is outsourced to contract attorney shops. It just doesn't make much sense for most firms to hire people full time to do work that's easily outsourced, or at least to have more than a handful of such people (usually called discovery counsel).

[rad lulz]

f

[El Principe]

I'm not sure why you think this. There is practically no biglaw in the South, and never will be. You don't have the big banks, which are pretty much based in NYC, funneling you work and I don't see banks moving down South any time soon. A lot of biglaw work is tied in with big banks, which will stay in NYC. The trend is for NYC biglaw is continue to stay strong and get stronger. Regulatory work is going to expand, and only NYC offices can handle that work. California is dying and the South as far as I'm concerned, doesn't exist as a legal market.

A lot of NYC firms don't recruit at Vandy or UT, yet they recruit at every T14, even Georgetown. And to these firms, past Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and NYU, the rest of the T-14 is largely viewed the same.

I was worried you had forgotten Texas is actually a state, until I realized today is National 'Let's Pretend Texas Doesn't Exist' Day.

You got me good for a second!

To be fair, Texas isn't part of the South.

And I was willing to assume that poster was aware of that distinction too, however, he included UT in his post, and seeing as the top destinations from UT are Texas, New York, and Cali, I have to assume he included Texas.

All that said, I totally agree with you.

[rayiner]

Michigan is a deserving target. They've gone around perpetuating "T10" nonsense for years now despite lacking the employment figures to back it up. Their "self-selection into PI" line is tired and frankly a little hard to believe ITE for a school not named HYS or NYU, particularly given Michigan's stinginess with scholarships and notorious refusal to negotiate.

You think Michigan doesn't have 3% more people self-selecting into PI than Duke does? That's what you're saying. It's three percentage points! Three. You think those PI-focused kids don't love Dean Z's we-love-everyone here schtick? You bet they do. These people tend to go to Michigan and not choose other schools. Additionally, I'd bet that they have pretty good PI career services too. My school doesn't, and we're always nudged to do firm work and bid NYC. It may be tired, but it shouldn't be hard to believe. I really don't see any other way to look at it.

I'll digress. I can't control the assumptions people operate under. If you guys want to keep on saying Penn>NYU, T12, etc. Go right ahead. Just a word of caution for 0Ls, some of TLS is garbage and this is a good example. Talk to actual students who you can trust before you make your decision.

The Michigan trolling is absurd. That said, the (new) TLS conventional wisdom isn't garbage. Several years ago, when I applied, we had tiers: HYS/CCN/MVPB/DCNG. That was roughly based on difficulty of admissions and USNWR, back before we had detailed ABA employment data. Five years ago when I applied, we had nothing like the insight into employment stats that we do now.

What this data tells us isn that the "T6" or "T10" split is totally fictional. It might be harder to get into Michigan or Virginia than it is to get into Cornell or Northwestern, or to get into NYU versus Penn, but the data shows there's no difference in employment stats. And that's valuable information. If you can get Cornell or Duke or Northwestern to give you more money than Michigan or Virginia, which they often will because the USNWR game, its a very smart decision to take the money and run. Its an arbitrage between the hierarchy as USNWR sees it and employers see it.

[cotiger]

I'm not sure why you think this. There is practically no biglaw in the South, and never will be. You don't have the big banks, which are pretty much based in NYC, funneling you work and I don't see banks moving down South any time soon. A lot of biglaw work is tied in with big banks, which will stay in NYC. The trend is for NYC biglaw is continue to stay strong and get stronger. Regulatory work is going to expand, and only NYC offices can handle that work. California is dying and the South as far as I'm concerned, doesn't exist as a legal market.

A lot of NYC firms don't recruit at Vandy or UT, yet they recruit at every T14, even Georgetown. And to these firms, past Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and NYU, the rest of the T-14 is largely viewed the same.

I was worried you had forgotten Texas is actually a state, until I realized today is National 'Let's Pretend Texas Doesn't Exist' Day.

You got me good for a second!

To be fair, Texas isn't part of the South.

The south isn't a homogenous region and never was

If you made it out of the union in '61, you're a southern state

Lol please. That was just a five year aberration/embarrassment. Historically, geographically, culturally, and demographically Texas is different from the south. If you have to put it in a region, the southwest is the only one that makes sense.

If the civil war is such a defining factor (maybe you see it as doing that because I'm pretty sure you're actually a southerner?), I have friends from South Carolina and Georgia. They've said that in high school, when studying the civil war the south was usually referred to as "we." That would never happen in Texas. Also.. they said that it was referred to quite often (and completely seriously) as "The War of Northern Aggression" which... what the fucking fuck? Lol never in my life...

[El Principe]

As someone who has had the misfortune of having to live in the real South, I can gladly proclaim, that with the exception of East Texas (and let's be honest... no one cares about East Texas), that Texas shares next to nothing with the rest of the South.

[cotiger]

As someone who has had the misfortune of having to live in the real South, I can gladly proclaim, that with the exception of East Texas (and let's be honest... no one cares about East Texas), that Texas shares next to nothing with the rest of the South.

[WanderingPondering]

If the civil war is such a defining factor (maybe you see it as doing that because I'm pretty sure you're actually a southerner?), I have friends from South Carolina and Georgia. They've said that in high school, when studying the civil war the south was usually referred to as "we." That would never happen in Texas. Also.. they said that it was referred to quite often (and completely seriously) as "The War of Northern Aggression" which... what the fucking fuck? Lol never in my life...

Not one word of this is true unless your friends were born in the 1950s or earlier. Have you ever been to Atlanta or Nashville or Charlotte?

Source: From Georgia, parents live in South Carolina.

[zman]

As long as the financial sector is where it is, New York will be king.

[arklaw13]

If the civil war is such a defining factor (maybe you see it as doing that because I'm pretty sure you're actually a southerner?), I have friends from South Carolina and Georgia. They've said that in high school, when studying the civil war the south was usually referred to as "we." That would never happen in Texas. Also.. they said that it was referred to quite often (and completely seriously) as "The War of Northern Aggression" which... what the fucking fuck? Lol never in my life...

Not one word of this is true unless your friends were born in the 1950s or earlier. Have you ever been to Atlanta or Nashville or Charlotte?

Source: From Georgia, parents live in South Carolina.

Will second this generally. Would also agree that west TX is completely different than the Southeast culturally.

Source: From bumfuck, AR.

[rad lulz]

f

[cotiger]

If the civil war is such a defining factor (maybe you see it as doing that because I'm pretty sure you're actually a southerner?), I have friends from South Carolina and Georgia. They've said that in high school, when studying the civil war the south was usually referred to as "we." That would never happen in Texas. Also.. they said that it was referred to quite often (and completely seriously) as "The War of Northern Aggression" which... what the fucking fuck? Lol never in my life...

Not one word of this is true unless your friends were born in the 1950s or earlier. Have you ever been to Atlanta or Nashville or Charlotte?

Source: From Georgia, parents live in South Carolina.

Nah, college friends. Born in the late 80s. One from Charleston, one from Greenville, and one from outside of Atlanta.

When I went to Charleston to visit, my friend (suuuuper liberal, not at all southern pride-like) was pretty distressed that quite a few of the old families on the waterfront were selling their estates to "Yankees".

That's a very different sentiment and outlook than Texas.

[cotiger]

What it means to be southern and the southern experience had changed; it's not fixed in time, but it is rooted in a common experience

Exactly.

But that proves the opposite of what you think it does.

The root of the southern experience (imo) is the relationship with the African-American experience in America.

The root of the Texan experience is the relationship with Mexico.

Also, mythology is absolutely important. It's how people define themselves. In the south, there's a sense of commonality with other southerners (see: S-E-C! S-E-C!) in opposition to the "Yankees". Texas is totally different. Cowboy culture and "rugged individualism."

Only southerners still think the civil war is a big deal or definining for anyone lol

[lawschool22]

Haha never would have guessed this thread would turn into a discussion about what it means to be southern.

[cotiger]

Haha never would have guessed this thread would turn into a discussion about what it means to be southern.

about as worthwhile a discussion as what was going on earlier..

[lawschool22]

Haha never would have guessed this thread would turn into a discussion about what it means to be southern.

about as worthwhile a discussion as what was going on earlier..

Probably more so

[rad lulz]

frs

[BentleyLittle]

Here is the most accurate data we have for salaries of law school students, and even this is hardly reliable because of the shitty reporting rates.

Also, just for the hell of it, here is a chart for Irvine. I can only imagine what this will look like if they continue to increase their class size year after year.

What was UCI's class size for 2013??

[rad lulz]

f

[rad lulz]

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[03152016]

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/arc ... ks/246415/