With a full scholarship - how far down USNWR would you go? Forum

[BigA]

In the last couple years there have been lots of talk about folks making top 10% and LR at T2 and even lower T1 schools and not being able to find jobs. I'm at a T14 and I've watched some of my classmates really struggle to find summer employment, even unpaid internships, in their home region. Things have gotten remarkably difficult, and people continue to go because they see those few who are still able to succeed and they think they can be one of those few. The problem is that when everyone believes they're one of a special few, a vast majority of them are going to be disappointed in a terrible way.

What would cause somebody in the top 10% at a T2 or lower T1 to not be able to find a job? Even in this economy I would think these people should get jobs. Seems like they must be really doing something wrong. I'd like to avoid that if I could help it...

[vanwinkle]

What would cause somebody in the top 10% at a T2 or lower T1 to not be able to find a job?

I spelled it out in the very thing you quoted, but let me simplify it for you:

A LACK OF JOB OPENINGS.

Are people living under a rock? How clear does this have to be to folks? Do they really just think that "getting good grades" will make jobs magically appear out of thin air? We're in a recession, getting a law degree and even getting good grades means nothing if there's nobody around to hire you when you graduate.

[DerrickRose]

What would cause somebody in the top 10% at a T2 or lower T1 to not be able to find a job?

I spelled it out in the very thing you quoted, but let me simplify it for you:

A LACK OF JOB OPENINGS.

Are people living under a rock? How clear does this have to be to folks? Do they really just think that "getting good grades" will make jobs magically appear out of thin air? We're in a recession, getting a law degree and even getting good grades means nothing if there's nobody around to hire you when you graduate.

This.

I think people assume that the vast slowdown in hiring in Biglaw has not so severely affected other sectors. In many ways its the opposite.

Hiring people is part of the very fabric of the Biglaw business model. To spit 'em out you have to always be chewing 'em up. They need first-years. So while their hiring has slowed to a trickle, they can't really just say "we're not hiring anybody"

Everyone else (smaller firms, government agencies, corporations, non-profits, etc) can say that really easily, and in large part, they have ITE. There is nothing to be found in a lot of areas, I don't care if you're on the Yale Law Review.

Things will get better. People will eventually start hiring. But right now the cost of labor is higher than the value, in pretty much every industry, and law is no exception.

[vanwinkle]

Everyone else (smaller firms, government agencies, corporations, non-profits, etc) can say that really easily, and in large part, they have ITE. There is nothing to be found in a lot of areas, I don't care if you're on the Yale Law Review.

The PI org I'm working for this summer has suspended hiring because for now they can get all the help they need from deferred BigLaw associates looking for legal things to do to pad their resumes. With all that free labor available to them, why should PI organizations be wasting their scarce resources hiring people? The deferred folks are eager to do the work as they try to build up legal experience to justify being kept on once they finally start at their law firms, and to make connections in case things go further south and they never get to start that gig. Even if those PI orgs start hiring again, those deferred folks are going to be first in line if they want them, not new law grads fresh out of law school.

The sad thing is, I mentioned this was going on already. I mentioned it in the post the dude quoted me from above. It's like people just don't want to hear how bad things are, no matter how you try to tell them.

[JG Hall]

Michigan/UVA

[09042014]

Everyone else (smaller firms, government agencies, corporations, non-profits, etc) can say that really easily, and in large part, they have ITE. There is nothing to be found in a lot of areas, I don't care if you're on the Yale Law Review.

The PI org I'm working for this summer has suspended hiring because for now they can get all the help they need from deferred BigLaw associates looking for legal things to do to pad their resumes. With all that free labor available to them, why should PI organizations be wasting their scarce resources hiring people? The deferred folks are eager to do the work as they try to build up legal experience to justify being kept on once they finally start at their law firms, and to make connections in case things go further south and they never get to start that gig. Even if those PI orgs start hiring again, those deferred folks are going to be first in line if they want them, not new law grads fresh out of law school.

The sad thing is, I mentioned this was going on already. I mentioned it in the post the dude quoted me from above. It's like people just don't want to hear how bad things are, no matter how you try to tell them.

So, let me get this straight: Things are bad right now?

Wait they didn't cancel the models and bottles did they?

[09042014]

Wait they didn't cancel the models and bottles did they?

Not for me. You see, I'm a smart, hardworking guy who is destined to be in the top 10% of his class at a Tier 2. Fuck anybody who questions that.

John Marshall is a good law school right?

[holydonkey]

Wait they didn't cancel the models and bottles did they?

Not for me. You see, I'm a smart, hardworking guy who is destined to be in the top 10% of his class at a Tier 2. Fuck anybody who questions that.

John Marshall is a good law school right?

John Marshall Law School is ok. John Marshall Law School isn't too hot.

--LinkRemoved--)
--LinkRemoved--)

On the other hand, attending a John Marshall gives you twice the chance of employment as employers in Georgia and Illinois are both familiar with the name John Marshall.

[09042014]

Boo, want to wingman for me, and go to JMLS. I figure they are dumb enough to go there, they are dumb enough to fuck me.

[UFMatt]

To answer the OP's question, BC or W&M. Decent pipelines into two good markets (i.e. Boston and DC, respectively).

[Bucwild]

UGA, and thats only because I'm from Atlanta. I'd probably just goto grad school if my options weren't at least that.

[dvd]

`

[DerrickRose]

Boo, want to wingman for me, and go to JMLS. I figure they are dumb enough to go there, they are dumb enough to fuck me.

No joke, I know a super hot girl that goes to JMLS. I was shocked that she went to law school.

See also: The "how much debt would make a girl unmarriable" thread.

[09042014]

Boo, want to wingman for me, and go to JMLS. I figure they are dumb enough to go there, they are dumb enough to fuck me.

No joke, I know a super hot girl that goes to JMLS. I was shocked that she went to law school.

See also: The "how much debt would make a girl [strike]unmarriable[/strike]unfuckable" thread.

No amount son.

[DerrickRose]

Boo, want to wingman for me, and go to JMLS. I figure they are dumb enough to go there, they are dumb enough to fuck me.

No joke, I know a super hot girl that goes to JMLS. I was shocked that she went to law school.

See also: The "how much debt would make a girl [strike]unmarriable[/strike]unfuckable" thread.

No amount son.

Truth.

I'm just looking at it from her perspective.

[1armedscissor]

T14 or the best school in my state-the University of Florida. But since I'm not on full scholly, it's good ol' Boalt for me

[09042014]

Boo, want to wingman for me, and go to JMLS. I figure they are dumb enough to go there, they are dumb enough to fuck me.

No joke, I know a super hot girl that goes to JMLS. I was shocked that she went to law school.

See also: The "how much debt would make a girl [strike]unmarriable[/strike]unfuckable" thread.

No amount son.

Truth.

I'm just looking at it from her perspective.

Then she should read the how much debt makes a man unmarriable thread.

[yabbadabbado]

A lot of full schollys schools offer are not actually guaranteed. These usually come with 1L GPA strings attached, and if you miss the cutoff by even .01 your scholly is gone. A lot of these schools also give out way more full schollys than can be kept as a matter of statistics so you are really rolling the dice given the unpredictability of law school grades.

[keg411]

A lot of full schollys schools offer are not actually guaranteed. These usually come with 1L GPA strings attached, and if you miss the cutoff by even .01 your scholly is gone. A lot of these schools also give out way more full schollys than can be kept as a matter of statistics so you are really rolling the dice given the unpredictability of law school grades.

I think for the purposes of this thread, it is assumed that the scholarship is guaranteed. Obviously that doesn't actually happen in practice but this thread is just a hypothetical situation. A full ride with a scholarship stip isn't actually a full ride and I think when most people say what they would take they mean "without a stip".

[dvd]

`

[keg411]

Obviously the better schools do make their schollys guaranteed. But I think mostly this thread is targeted at talking at the lower ranked schools. Conventional wisdow, however, is that if you are given a stip (obviously first you should try and negotiatet it away) you should assume that you will LOSE it and look at the costs from there when actually making a decision. This is what I did .

[BigA]

What would cause somebody in the top 10% at a T2 or lower T1 to not be able to find a job?

I spelled it out in the very thing you quoted, but let me simplify it for you:

A LACK OF JOB OPENINGS.

Are people living under a rock? How clear does this have to be to folks? Do they really just think that "getting good grades" will make jobs magically appear out of thin air? We're in a recession, getting a law degree and even getting good grades means nothing if there's nobody around to hire you when you graduate.

whoa okay. But top 10% at a ranked school... That would put you in the top 5% of overall candidates graduating law school. The number I've heard on this thread and elswhere (you can correct it if it's wrong) is something like 43,000 new graduates for 30,000 jobs. Yes, that leaves A LOT of people with JDs not getting jobs. But two-thirds of graduates are still getting hired.

If you are in the top 10% at a tier 1 school no less and not able to get a job then there are a lot of people at worse schools and with worse grades snagging jobs from you, which would suggest that someone in that situation might not be doing something right.

I really wasn't trying to argue with you vanwinkle. I'm just trying to get a grip on this myself. In order for a sheer lack of job openings to account for those people not getting hired, there would have to be far far fewer than 30,000 jobs for 43,000 graduates. (You may not be counting shit law as a job even)

edit: read your subsequent post and see that a lot of jobs are going to BigLaw deferalls, not new grads. But does that still account for the disconnect I cited above?

[vanwinkle]

whoa okay. But top 10% at a ranked school... That would put you in the top 5% of overall candidates graduating law school. The number I've heard on this thread and elswhere (you can correct it if it's wrong) is something like 43,000 new graduates for 30,000 jobs. Yes, that leaves A LOT of people with JDs not getting jobs. But two-thirds of graduates are still getting hired.

Where are you getting that number from? I haven't heard it at all, that there are going to be 30,000 jobs available. Also, there are over 20,000 experienced lawyers who were laid off by law firms in the last year, which is going to increase the supply of people looking for jobs by ... 20,000. Plus because of the economy a lot of hiring has been greatly reduced going forward.

Also keep in mind the effect of deferrals. If a BigLaw firm deferred half its 2009 hires for a year, then those people are starting in 2010, and the firm has half the new hires it'll need for 2010 before it even starts hiring. That means less hiring. They're dealing with that in two ways: By hiring less, and hiring some people and then deferring them a year too. The continuing deferrals is causing a ripple effect, reducing the amount of hiring that will need to be done for a while.

If you are in the top 10% at a tier 1 school no less and not able to get a job then there are a lot of people at worse schools and with worse grades snagging jobs from you, which would suggest that someone in that situation might not be doing something right.

There aren't a lot of people at worse schools and with worse grades snagging jobs from anybody. There are no jobs down that far. I'm not saying that all of them can't find work, but things are so bad that even some people doing that well haven't found work yet. And those that can are taking jobs that used to be well below that kind of performance. The jobs they're finding an taking now are ones that used to be left to folks who weren't in the top 10% or who were at T2 or T3 schools. That leaves all those people completely SOL.

There are some people still finding jobs at those lower-ranked schools, but they're people who either already have personal connections or are building them as fast as they can.

edit: read your subsequent post and see that a lot of jobs are going to BigLaw deferalls, not new grads. But does that still count for the disconnect I cited above?

It probably does to some extent. A lot of PI organizations are getting free labor now and thus don't need to hire as much to get work. But that's the problem; people aren't looking at the big picture so much, they're seeing individual pieces. I've heard people say "BigLaw is hiring a lot less, but I'll go do PI work instead." It doesn't work that way. Everyone who wanted BigLaw but can't get it is shooting for PI work now, and PI organizations aren't doing as much hiring either right now, so that market is intensely competitive too.

Plus you've got the 20,000 or so lawyers who were laid off in the last year that're now trying to take those PI jobs because they're paying jobs. And since they have more legal experience than someone fresh out of law school, they go to the front of the line, at new grads' expense.

You've got kids at Top 10 schools that used to get BigLaw but are now grabbing up all the big decent-paying PI jobs they can find, if they can even find that. You've got kids at lower Tier 1 schools who are grabbing up all the local PI stuff they can find because at least it' work. People at the top are taking and settling for less because at least it's work, and that means they're taking the jobs that used to go to the kids at lower-ranked schools.

So there's this huge ripple effect and it's going in both directions at the same time. The reduced BigLaw hiring levels and all the BigLaw deferrals waiting to come back and start work are reducing the number of people BigLaw needs to hire. The deferrals doing PI work and the folks recently laid off from BigLaw taking PI jobs because they're jobs is reducing the number of people PI orgs need to hire. Less BigLaw hiring + less PI hiring = less jobs out there.

And the number of people graduating from law schools each year hasn't changed. It's a simple supply and demand issue, and right now there's such an oversupply of lawyers that it's foolish to go to a low-ranked school, even for free, on the assumption you'll find something. It just may not be there.

[dresden doll]

T30. Wouldn't touch CA schools except Stanford with a 200 foot pole, no matter how much money they threw at me.

Really? Wouldn't touch Berkeley, or UCLA, or USC? Really?

Blatant Anti-SoCal trolling.

It's not like you didn't already know I hate everything about California. The only CA schools I would touch are Stanford and Boalt if I had no better option, in other words schools where OCI firms are willing to put me on the next plane out of the state to work for them.

I strongly suspect you won't have any such quagmires.

[motiontodismiss]

T30. Wouldn't touch CA schools except Stanford with a 200 foot pole, no matter how much money they threw at me.

Really? Wouldn't touch Berkeley, or UCLA, or USC? Really?

Blatant Anti-SoCal trolling.

It's not like you didn't already know I hate everything about California. The only CA schools I would touch are Stanford and Boalt if I had no better option, in other words schools where OCI firms are willing to put me on the next plane out of the state to work for them.

I strongly suspect you won't have any such quagmires.

I strongly suspect you're right. I won't get in with my GPA.