Class of 2009 Employment Data in Graphs (Last Update: T100) Forum

[mrwarre85]

You're numbers for DU have to be off. The percent in law firms seems correct, but they reported that 51% of private sector gave salaries. That would make it impossible for only 2.5% of the class or whatever to clear 71k.

[aliarrow]

You're numbers for DU have to be off. The percent in law firms seems correct, but they reported that 51% of private sector gave salaries. That would make it impossible for only 2.5% of the class or whatever to clear 71k.

I already put a note about that. They just quit giving part time data. So for the sake of accuracy thats the only % we know to be making the salary given given the data they provide.

They only provide reason to believe 11.5% of the class are employed full time in the private sector.

[corvettekid]

nice job!

[aliarrow]

Fix'd

[Aberzombie1892]

IUB and Davis seem especially weak compared to their peers. Ditto for U of Alabama, Arizona State, Hastings, UF, FSU, and Colorado. I have always believed that with all things equal, employers will prefer private schools. Maybe this is evidence of that.

[aliarrow]

IUB and Davis seem especially weak compared to their peers. Ditto for U of Alabama, Arizona State, Hastings, UF, FSU, and Colorado. I have always believed that with all things equal, employers will prefer private schools. Maybe this is evidence of that.

I think it just has more to do with location. Even the top California schools are weak compared to their peers (see Vandy vs UCLA/USC or Berkeley vs. T13). Arizona, Florida, California, and the Midwest were all regions hit hardest by the recession; NYC was pretty isolated from most of it and it shows in the NYC schools' strong performance compared to peers.

[mrwarre85]

Where are you getting that many DU students known to be working part-time? Again, I'm not sure I can explain it because I don't know your sources but I can tell you that all of your DU numbers are way off-- just harping on this because I'm considering the school and have done a ton of research on it.

You show that it places like a T4 school.

[aliarrow]

Where are you getting that many DU students known to be working part-time? Again, I'm not sure I can explain it because I don't know your sources but I can tell you that all of your DU numbers are way off-- just harping on this because I'm considering the school and have done a ton of research on it.

You show that it places like a T4 school.

I somewhat explained it below the graph, I'll go more in depth here -
US News asks for the total employed in:
JD Required Positions
JD Preferred Positions
Professional Jobs (Accountant, Teacher, Etc)
and
Other (Temporary or not viewed as part of a career path).
They also ask how many of each type of job are employed in a full-time position.
JD Required jobs are a very high % employed full time for all schools, typically 75-90+% are employed full time, however the other categories can vary quite a bit. In some T2s, the other categories can be as low as 0% employed full time for the other category, and 20-50% employed full time in the other two.
Denver is, quite frankly, being a dick about it and only providing the % of grads employed full time in JD required positions (the highest category), the rest they refused to provide data for. This actually pissed me off, so I didn't even bother to come up with some arbitrary rates to give them so they could still be in the graph, I just assumed 0% were employed full time in the other categories. It's likely a little bit higher than 0%, but not by much. I would estimate you can shave off about 1/5 of those employed part-time and put them into the full-time category.

[mrwarre85]

Where are you getting that many DU students known to be working part-time? Again, I'm not sure I can explain it because I don't know your sources but I can tell you that all of your DU numbers are way off-- just harping on this because I'm considering the school and have done a ton of research on it.

You show that it places like a T4 school.

I somewhat explained it below the graph, I'll go more in depth here -
US News asks for the total employed in:
JD Required Positions
JD Preferred Positions
Professional Jobs (Accountant, Teacher, Etc)
and
Other (Temporary or not viewed as part of a career path).
They also ask how many of each type of job are employed in a full-time position.
JD Required jobs are a very high % employed full time for all schools, typically 75-90+% are employed full time, however the other categories can vary quite a bit. In some T2s, the other categories can be as low as 0% employed full time for the other category, and 20-50% employed full time in the other two.
Denver is, quite frankly, being a dick about it and only providing the % of grads employed full time in JD required positions (the highest category), the rest they refused to provide data for. This actually pissed me off, so I didn't even bother to come up with some arbitrary rates to give them so they could still be in the graph, I just assumed 0% were employed full time in the other categories. It's likely a little bit higher than 0%, but not by much. I would estimate you can shave off about 1/5 of those employed part-time and put them into the full-time category.

85% employed, 73% work in JD required gigs and 85% of those are full time. Seems to be say about 60% of those who do/could if they didn't self select work in private sector with 51% of those reporting the median salaries. Just on that alone your numbers for DU are off -- although placement for DU is still awful, lol.

Also you made an error if you meant to post that 17 percent of OU grads make six figures. more like 3 to 5 percent, maybe. Your own data above that shows OU to only guarantee about 10% in the 80k plus category.

[aliarrow]

Where are you getting that many DU students known to be working part-time? Again, I'm not sure I can explain it because I don't know your sources but I can tell you that all of your DU numbers are way off-- just harping on this because I'm considering the school and have done a ton of research on it.

You show that it places like a T4 school.

I somewhat explained it below the graph, I'll go more in depth here -
US News asks for the total employed in:
JD Required Positions
JD Preferred Positions
Professional Jobs (Accountant, Teacher, Etc)
and
Other (Temporary or not viewed as part of a career path).
They also ask how many of each type of job are employed in a full-time position.
JD Required jobs are a very high % employed full time for all schools, typically 75-90+% are employed full time, however the other categories can vary quite a bit. In some T2s, the other categories can be as low as 0% employed full time for the other category, and 20-50% employed full time in the other two.
Denver is, quite frankly, being a dick about it and only providing the % of grads employed full time in JD required positions (the highest category), the rest they refused to provide data for. This actually pissed me off, so I didn't even bother to come up with some arbitrary rates to give them so they could still be in the graph, I just assumed 0% were employed full time in the other categories. It's likely a little bit higher than 0%, but not by much. I would estimate you can shave off about 1/5 of those employed part-time and put them into the full-time category.

85% employed, 73% work in JD required gigs and 85% of those are full time. Seems to be say about 60% of those who do/could if they didn't self select work in private sector with 51% of those reporting the median salaries. Just on that alone your numbers for DU are off -- although placement for DU is still awful, lol.

Also you made an error if you meant to post that 17 percent of OU grads make six figures. more like 3 to 5 percent, maybe. Your own data above that shows OU to only guarantee about 10% in the 80k plus category.

OU was a mistake, I'll admit.
As for DU -
84.3% known to be employed
x 73%
= 61.5%
x 85.3% employed full time
= 52% - which is exactly what my graph says.

The 52% is of ALL grads. 52% are known to be employed full time for certain.
I'll even break this down into numbers:

351 students
32% of all grads could be (and most likely are) employed part time = 112 students
52% known to be employed full time

For the sake of determining the amount known to reach the median private sector, we must assume that all those employed part time are employed in the private sector, so they don't touch the public sector's numbers

we have a total of 46.3% of grads either employed in the public sector, unemployed or seeking an additional degree = 162 students

so 351-162 = 189 that can possibly be employed in the private sector.
We then subtract all the part-time students (because 1) we assume all part time are employed in Private sector and 2) part-time students aren't included in the salary medians) so
189 - 112 = 77
51% of those employed in the private sector full-time reported salary info
77/2 = 38.5
so we divide that into four quartiles
38.5/4 = 9.6
We'll round to 10 whole students

10/351 = 2.89% per quartile...

[mrwarre85]

Where are you getting that many DU students known to be working part-time? Again, I'm not sure I can explain it because I don't know your sources but I can tell you that all of your DU numbers are way off-- just harping on this because I'm considering the school and have done a ton of research on it.

You show that it places like a T4 school.

I somewhat explained it below the graph, I'll go more in depth here -
US News asks for the total employed in:
JD Required Positions
JD Preferred Positions
Professional Jobs (Accountant, Teacher, Etc)
and
Other (Temporary or not viewed as part of a career path).
They also ask how many of each type of job are employed in a full-time position.
JD Required jobs are a very high % employed full time for all schools, typically 75-90+% are employed full time, however the other categories can vary quite a bit. In some T2s, the other categories can be as low as 0% employed full time for the other category, and 20-50% employed full time in the other two.
Denver is, quite frankly, being a dick about it and only providing the % of grads employed full time in JD required positions (the highest category), the rest they refused to provide data for. This actually pissed me off, so I didn't even bother to come up with some arbitrary rates to give them so they could still be in the graph, I just assumed 0% were employed full time in the other categories. It's likely a little bit higher than 0%, but not by much. I would estimate you can shave off about 1/5 of those employed part-time and put them into the full-time category.

85% employed, 73% work in JD required gigs and 85% of those are full time. Seems to be say about 60% of those who do/could if they didn't self select work in private sector with 51% of those reporting the median salaries. Just on that alone your numbers for DU are off -- although placement for DU is still awful, lol.

Also you made an error if you meant to post that 17 percent of OU grads make six figures. more like 3 to 5 percent, maybe. Your own data above that shows OU to only guarantee about 10% in the 80k plus category.

OU was a mistake, I'll admit.
As for DU -
84.3% known to be employed
x 73%
= 61.5%
x 85.3% employed full time
= 52% - which is exactly what my graph says.

your right there but I'm talking salaries. you show their salaries as considerably lower than their peer schools-- in fact they are on par with the shittiness of their peer schools.

351 grads but only 84.3% employed. 55% in private practice (note, this is too low because of self selection, but just for this example I'll be precise). 51% report salaries. You get 82 students that the range must account for, so 41 have to make median or above. 41 out of the 351 total is around 12%. 12% (at a minimum) make 71k or more.

your graph does not show that.

[aliarrow]

Read what I added... You aren't accounting for Part-time. Median salaries only account for grads employed full-time (excludes any and all with part time employment), and for the sake of understanding how many we KNOW reach the median, we have to assume what Denver hides are employed part-time, so it has a slightly higher amount employed part time which hurts its % of those known to reach median.

[mrwarre85]

Read what I added... You aren't accounting for Part-time. Median salaries only account for grads employed full-time (excludes any and all with part time employment), and for the sake of understanding how many we KNOW reach the median, we have to assume what Denver hides are employed part-time, so it has a slightly higher amount employed part time which hurts its % of those known to reach median.

oh i see. I thought median salaries were just from the total grads employed in private practice. lemme go check again. thanks.

[mrwarre85]

Wow you're right. You have a coin flips chance of becoming a full time attorney with a DU degree within the first nine months. (make my full scholarship at DU vs. no scholarship at Tennessee much more interesting)

Haha you have got to do Santa Clara. I think it comes out to 23% of graduates working as full time attorneys nine months out. Good thing they are in the same "tier" as Harvard.

[JusticeHarlan]

I'm probably reading something wrong, but I was wondering how you got this:

Here's a ranking of the schools based on schools with the highest percent of graduates known to be making at least six figures 9 months after graduation (this is completely biased towards schools in an area with a high COL, but still fun data to look at):

Rank School % Making 6 Fig
16 WUSTL 36.0%

Because from the chart of salaries, it looks like only those who reported making over the median salary at WashU are known to be making 6 figures, and that puts them around 20%, rather than 36% (their 25th percentile is $89k, so we can only count the top two quartiles of reported salaries, rather than the top three quartiles for schools with a 25th percentile over $100k.).

Sorry if that's articulated in a confusing manner.

[aliarrow]

I'm probably reading something wrong, but I was wondering how you got this:

Here's a ranking of the schools based on schools with the highest percent of graduates known to be making at least six figures 9 months after graduation (this is completely biased towards schools in an area with a high COL, but still fun data to look at):

Rank School % Making 6 Fig
16 WUSTL 36.0%

Because from the chart of salaries, it looks like only those who reported making over the median salary at WashU are known to be making 6 figures, and that puts them around 20%, rather than 36% (their 25th percentile is $89k, so we can only count the top two quartiles of reported salaries, rather than the top three quartiles for schools with a 25th percentile over $100k.).

Sorry if that's articulated in a confusing manner.

WUSTL has a 25th of $110,000, you're referring to the University of Washington. Each graph goes from low ranking to high, I know it can be confusing perhaps, that's just how excel handles it and I didn't think it'd be a big enough issue to warrant going back and rearranging everything.

[JusticeHarlan]

I'm probably reading something wrong, but I was wondering how you got this:

Here's a ranking of the schools based on schools with the highest percent of graduates known to be making at least six figures 9 months after graduation (this is completely biased towards schools in an area with a high COL, but still fun data to look at):

Rank School % Making 6 Fig
16 WUSTL 36.0%

Because from the chart of salaries, it looks like only those who reported making over the median salary at WashU are known to be making 6 figures, and that puts them around 20%, rather than 36% (their 25th percentile is $89k, so we can only count the top two quartiles of reported salaries, rather than the top three quartiles for schools with a 25th percentile over $100k.).

Sorry if that's articulated in a confusing manner.

WUSTL has a 25th of $110,000, you're referring to the University of Washington. Each graph goes from low ranking to high, I know it can be confusing perhaps, that's just how excel handles it and I didn't think it'd be a big enough issue to warrant going back and rearranging everything.

Haha, thought I was reading something wrong. Thanks.

[Aberzombie1892]

Hey this stuff is incredible. I must say it should be shared with absolutely everyone.

Calling all mods - make this a page on tls.com. Call it "Employment statistics for the class of 2009."

I think a lot of ranking obsessed 0L's need to know that certain schools at every "tier" are not as good as their peers (Davis, IUB, etc.).

[aliarrow]

I must add that these numbers aren't perfect in part due to School error (hopefully error and not deceit). Some schools just either don't follow directions or there are no clear instructions - ie 98% of schools list % employed as an Art III clerkship as a % of all those employed (1-10% typically), but then along comes a tier two school with 200 students reporting 63% of its class working for AIII clerks - obviously this is taken to be a % of those employed in clerkships, not of all grads like other schools do (I converted the %s correctly for these schools). There are also other sections that for some schools just don't add up to 100% which they should, I'm not entirely sure whats going on there, maybe some are reporting %s as a % of all employed whereas others already are reporting %s as the total of the class, not just those employed.

So inconsistencies are prevalent, I've done my best to attempt to minimize them and get the #s somewhat standardized.

[zonto]

Seems like some of the images aren't loading correctly and just show up "image" in the first post. Is the link broken?

[aliarrow]

Seems like some of the images aren't loading correctly and just show up "image" in the first post. Is the link broken?

Some of them weren't at a point for me, but later I revisited the page with no cached images and they did. Try refreshing in a bit. I'll try uploading those through a more stable server.

[Lasers]

looking at these stats, hastings > davis.

[splittinghairs]

I think those of you concluding from these graphs that UC hastings is better than UC davis need to be much more careful.

First of all UC Davis is not as bad as that "Known" salary percentile breakdown graph suggests. According to that graph, only approx 5% of known private median salary is > 160k, another 5% is 145-160k, 5% 90k-145k, with a disturbingly high 16-17% of private sector salary "unknown."
Now, our first thought is to conclude that the majority if not all of that unknown 16-17% are earning below 90k because we think that the lower earning individuals are less likely to report their salaries. However, a previous graph shows that UC davis places 17% in to NLJ 250 law firms. If only 15% of known salary range is between 90k- 160K or greater, then we would still be missing 2% of NLJ 250 graduates who didnt report. Plus, most likely we are missing much more than just 2% since NLJ 250 usually dont make between 90K-145K. So it appears that for whatever reason, a significant amount of NLJ 250 students did not report their salaries which means that the 16-17% of unknown salary could be comprised of 2-7% of students who are at NLJ 250 firms.

Now, in regards to UC hasting's seemingly high NLJ placements we need to consider Cost of Living for San Francisco. COL in San Fran is the highest in the nation. Just to put into perspective, housing is 32% cheaper in New York when compared to SF. Therefore, for a school like Hastings, it is essentially Big Law or bust even more so than any other city. When u look beyond biglaw, it is clear that UC Davis brings more opportunities for clerkship and gov work than UC H.

Of course I still consider UC Davis to be inflated in the rankings as the egregiously high part-time employment shows that UCD's employment percentages would be unaffected in the rankings.

I do wonder whether it is possible that certain schools just have students who do not feel comfortable reporting their salaries regardless of how much they make. I know that generally it is true that those who do not report likely do not make the median, but what if there are just students who are in NLJ 250 firms but still feel uncomfortable reporting their salaries. It is something to consider and ponder.

[Borhas]

Cost of Living for San Francisco. COL in San Fran is the highest in the nation. Just to put into perspective, housing is 32% cheaper in New York when compared to SF. Therefore, for a school like Hastings, it is essentially Big Law or bust even more so than any other city.

so if Davis grads don't get Big Law they have work in Davis, and that's less of a risk because Davis has a low cost of living?

it is clear that UC Davis brings more opportunities for clerkship and gov work than UC H.

not really, not sure where you get that from, especially since they both place so small % in A3 clerkships that the numbers swing widely from year to year.

Also wondering who's alt you are...

[splittinghairs]

so if Davis grads don't get Big Law they have work in Davis, and that's less of a risk because Davis has a low cost of living?

Im saying COL matters for the 3 years of law school plus it matters where u find work after law school. So since NLJ 250 numbers are similar between UCH's 16% and UCD's 16.5%, it does not mean that those two schools have similar standards of living. In fact, if a significant number of Biglaw out of UCD is in sacramento rather than in SF, then of course cost of living matters.

not really, not sure where you get that from, especially since they both place so small % in A3 clerkships that the numbers swing widely from year to year.

Now I dont go to UCH or UCD so i dont have actual first hand knowledge of this. But generally, UCDavis' location in Sacramento, the capital of california, would provide alot more opportunities for clerkship, government, and public interest. Any people who are actually familiar with this can comment on whether this is indeed true.

Also wondering who's alt you are...

Sorry im kinda new to these boards but what do u mean by "alt"?

But um my biggest point that i want to point out was that discrepancy between UCD's 17% NLJ250 placement versus the known salary reported % and ranges. I just felt that if 17% got biglaw and only 15% of Davis reported earning at least 90k, then there must have been a significant number of graduates who simply did not report their salary despite being placed in biglaw.