Emory and Job Prospects Forum

[rando]

BTW I figured that comment about Covington DC having hired people outside of the top 10 percent from UVA went over your head ( to help you out it's analogous to your Alston has hired people outside of the top 10 percent from Emory the past 2 OCI's claim in that it maybe true, but it's an anomaly.) In addition, at the risk of outing myself, I personally know someone who got an offer from Cov DC from UVA who isn't top 10 percent.

Ok. Well I'm done because this is truly an argument I don't want to be a part of. It isn't a copout, I'm just sick of it. It is getting kind of nasty and it shouldn't have gone that way.

Some of your comments were truly out of left field. I really don't have much of a dog in this fight - i'm neither here nor there in the "go, fight, win" Emory debate. I probably shouldn't be taking the time to get involved in interwebz debates if I'm too lazy to nitpick and break down arguments and posts. I just sort of assume people are able to pick up on things.

Sorry about making the douchey job comment. That was dumb. Especially when so many people around me don't have jobs; both here and at UGA. Bdubz you're lucky to be a URM at UVA ITE. Truly. Take advantage of it.

[MrAnon]

These arguments will go on forever between the promoters of the school and the average law school students who know better. For schools outside of the T14 it invariably comes down to law school was a good decision for a select few in the class but nobody really knows what happened to the rest (90%) of the class. There is a lot of hope and dreams that they got 80K and within a few years will all crack 6 figures but it does not ever seem like anyone with authority and knowledge can or will step forward confirm that happens. The schools are silent and that speaks volumes.

[treeey86]

Emory places a higher % of its students in biglaw.
UGA places a higher % of its student in GA.
Atlanta biglaw is flooded with UGA grads because of self selection to stay in GA, whereas many Emory biglaw caliber students go elsewhere (DC, NYC, Chicago, etc).

Many mid-law Emory grads go out of state. Most if not all mid-law UGA grads stay in-state.

UGA and Emory probably are peers in GA. I guarantee Emory carries better up and down the east coast. I guarantee no one out west gives a crap about either Emory or UGA.

For most who go to UGA, they want to practice in GA. Most who go to Emory want to either (1) practice in the "South" ( meaning the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida) or return to the Northeast ( NY, NJ, PA, Conn). A good smattering of people want mid-Atlantic.

I won't contribute to whatever argument is going on about whether Atlanta biglaw digs deeper into Emory or UGA. I would wager biglaw elsewhere would dig much deeper into Emory than UGA.

UGA is the best deal for working in Georgia. I would recommend going there if you want to work in GA. If you, like me, want to work elsewhere, Emory is a better degree. Also, if you want to live in a city and have that life for 3 years and the internships available that a big city offers, then Emory or GA State are your better bets.

[DempseyLaw]

Posted these stats in another thread but they definitely apply here as well. The earlier argument that only the top 10% are going to make 6 figures is inaccurate. It's more like top 40-50% have a very good shot of making 6 figures, not to mention, in addition to that percentage 8% get federal judicial clerkships which will clearly lead to 6 figures/big law. All this for the class that just graduated in a terrible market.

Employment stats that I found for the class that just graduated, 2009:

93% reported employment within 6 months after graduation with the following: (rough percentages)

25 % at firms w 501+ attorneys - avg salary 147k

11 % at firms w 251-500 attorneys - avg salary 150k

7% at firms w 101-250 attorneys - avg salary 127k

7% at firms w 25-100 attorneys - salary range 70-115k

That is roughly 50% of those 93% reporting their information. The rest: 8% got judicial clerkships, 10% went to business, and the rest either went to law firms with under 25 attorneys, PI, academia, government or military.

I happened to have talked to a career counselor there who said that less than 20 students total in the class did not report their employment info, so these stats are pretty accurate. She also said, of the 7 % who were unemployed several were traveling. I have a feeling that some of those unemployed were out of state students trying to take their degree back to their home state as opposed to staying in ATL where Emory's reputation can hold its own. I assume this is because their national demographic is pretty diverse; so I imagine several students attempted to take their degree to Cali, Wash, etc. with less luck (only 20% of the students attending are actually from GA).



http://www.law.emory.edu/fileadmin/care ... -11-10.pdf

[JusticeHarlan]

That is roughly 50% of those 93% reporting their information.

Reporting what information? There are two percentages to look at, those reporting employment status (which is both a binary yes-or-no proposition, and 'what type of job are you at' proposition), and those reporting salary information. What percentage of the graduating class reporting salary =/= those reported being employed. We get the first number - 93% employed. But I don't see the salary-reporting percentage.

Also, note what that 93% number is described as. "Total 2009 graduates reported employed or set nine months after graduation." What does "or set" mean? My speculation is they've counted those no longer trying to find legal employment, but that's just a guess; but its a guess I have to draw from their ambiguous wording.

Check out LST for Emory for the class of 2008 (LinkRemoved): 95.3% reported employment status, but only 77% reported salary information. Note the 13% who said they were employed in the public sector but didn't report salary, and the 10% who said they were employed, but wouldn't say where or with what salary. That's not a huge spread (compared to some schools on LST), but I hope it shows you that just putting up a 'X% employed Y months after graduation' number doesn't mean you're getting that X percentage reporting salary data, too. And that was for the class of 2008. I'd assume the numbers to be worse for 2009, for every school.

Compare to, say, Fordham's class of 2009 employment and salary numbers. They tell you the employment rates at both graduation and 9 months out, but also give what percentage reported salary information (93% overall, 95% for those in private practice). That's more useful information, though I'm sure someone else can pop in here and say why even those numbers are misleading (note, for example, their description about deferrals for associates, which I'm sure happened everywhere)

Now, why is this interesting? Let's say that out of grads working at a particular large law firm, 3 got associate positions, but 7 got temporary doc review jobs. Those who got full-time gigs are gonna report their $160,000 salaries, but most of those with doc review jobs won't. Some will, of course, which explains why at least one person working at a firm of 500+ lawyers is making $68,640 a year (funny number, right?). But a lot won't. And so while they'll have employment data for 10 lawyers, they'll only have salary data for 4 or 5. Which is misleading, because it'll look like 10 lawyers work at a big firm, and most of them are making six figures. But we don't know that from this data.

TL;DR: not as useful data as it appears without what percentage reported salary data

[digitalcntrl]

I happened to have talked to a career counselor there who said that less than 20 students total in the class did not report their employment info, so these stats are pretty accurate. She also said, of the 7 % who were unemployed several were traveling. I have a feeling that some of those unemployed were out of state students trying to take their degree back to their home state as opposed to staying in ATL where Emory's reputation can hold its own. I assume this is because their national demographic is pretty diverse; so I imagine several students attempted to take their degree to Cali, Wash, etc. with less luck (only 20% of the students attending are actually from GA).

Frankly statistical information from the colleges are notoriously unreliable and easily mainpulated. There are innumerable ways to make the numbers say what you want them to stay. The number of colleges reporting 90%+ employment (with an allegedly extremely high student responses) and high salaries is enormous. If I were to believe any of this about Emory I would immediately transfer down to that school. These numbers are also pretty surprising given that Atlanta's legal economy sucks.