Latest employment data Forum

[Tiago Splitter]

All we have for 2008 is NLJ data so it's hard to compare. But the classes of 2007, 2008 and even 2009 put huge numbers of people in biglaw in a way we hadn't seen before and probably won't see again soon.

[kingpin101]

Yeah 2007 was a ridiculous year. BU had the same NLJ 250 placement in 2007 as GULC and Michigan did for 2014.

[starry eyed]

this just reminds me of how little in control i actually am

[UVAIce]

The Biglaw rates seem to be approaching similar rates as during the mid-2000's. Those were the years when even non-14 schools like USC, BU and GW routinely approached (and crossed) the 40% mark. It's pretty interesting. It was only a couple years ago that Georgetown and Michigan had a hard time placing 40% of their classes into Biglaw jobs.

Yeah there's a bit of a myth out there that things were always peachy until the recession, but class of 2013 put more people into firms of 100+ than the classes of the late 90's and 2003-2004. For better or worse what we're seeing now is consistent with the way things have always been.

I think we have an under appreciation for the bubble in legal services that developed in the middle of the 2000's.

And all these numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt. The class of 2014 was hired based on 2012 projections for legal demand in 2014-2015. Many of these schools are not apple to apple comparisons. As DF brought up earlier in this thread, good hiring numbers correlate strongly with placement in NYC, which shouldn't be all that surprising. So you shouldn't expect UPenn or Cornell to somehow pull considerably more weight in the Midwest or California than a Georgetown or Michigan. Once you're looking at a particular range of schools, which is most of the T-14 in my opinion, what ends up being important is not if the big law placement is +/- 4% from another school, but what the cost of attendance is and if you're targeting a particular legal market (e.g., if you want to work in California go to Berkeley over Duke, but not at an insane premium).

This all goes to a point I've made in other threads, my issue with touting big law placement as strongly as it does at times, and just to be clear it is important, is that it creates a kind of circular reasoning. I need big law so that I can pay off the loans that I am going to accrue to go to law school. As soon as I pay off my loans in big law I'm going to GTFO because it's terrible. Maybe I'm the only one, but that seems like a terrible idea. Why get the loans in the first place?

[Moneytrees]

Any employment predictions for the near future, given the data that we have so far? Trend seems to be upward, but I'm not sure if we'll ever see 2007/2008 numbers again.

I just read that some Philly firms have started to match NYC market.

[UVAIce]

Any employment predictions for the near future, given the data that we have so far? Trend seems to be upward, but I'm not sure if we'll ever see 2007/2008 numbers again.

I just read that some Philly firms have started to match NYC market.

That's actually good news for associates in general. I know before the crash the major law firms in Richmond were paying NYC rates. NYC to 190?

[Johann]

The Biglaw rates seem to be approaching similar rates as during the mid-2000's. Those were the years when even non-14 schools like USC, BU and GW routinely approached (and crossed) the 40% mark. It's pretty interesting. It was only a couple years ago that Georgetown and Michigan had a hard time placing 40% of their classes into Biglaw jobs.

Yeah there's a bit of a myth out there that things were always peachy until the recession, but class of 2013 put more people into firms of 100+ than the classes of the late 90's and 2003-2004. For better or worse what we're seeing now is consistent with the way things have always been.

As far as big firm hiring goes, this is correct. We're at the ceiling. I think we're also approaching the ceiling for JD advantage jobs. In 2010-2012, jobs were very skeptical of hiring JD advantage people for fear they'd leave. I'm seeing lots more JD advantage roles in compliance positions required by all the recent federal legislation (thank Obama - seriously - for that). The roles are boring as fuck, but they understand that lots of people who go to law school don't want to be a lawyer and are happier to sit in a cube cross checking numbers than showing up in court everyday or being yelled at by unreasonable bosses. The biggest improvement that is going largely unnoticed by TLS is the increase and new phenomenon of inhouse entry level hiring. This is become much more common, and these jobs seem awesome. Corporate surveys have shown companies are spending more and more money for in house departments. The one place where legal hiring still really sucks much more so than in the past is at the small law firms. I'm relying on mostly anecdotal evidence so I don't know for sure, but I'd bet small law firms are on average paying lower salaries than they were in 2005 and 1995 in actual $$ and way less in inflation adjusted dollars. I can't speak to government hiring and how that is trending (I would guess it's trending the wrong direction or remaining stagnant), but law schools paying for a year of volunteer service for PI is actually nice and very effective for the people it serves.

The main problems with the legal industry today is - 1) shitlaw; 2) cost of education (though this is way offset by government and PI positions and current loan programs - unfortunately biglaw winds up in paying that debt back in full usually); and 3) 8/10 (10/11 in NYC) private practice law jobs suck on a day to day basis including biglaw, midlaw, and shitlaw.

[Tiago Splitter]

JD Preferred/Advantage hiring is definitely up in recent years, although it's tough to know how much of this is schools massaging their stats and how much of it is an increase in the kinds of jobs Johann mentioned. That's why we need to keep pushing for more transparency. If nothing else seeing the salaries of people taking these JD Advantage jobs can tell us a lot.

[Robb]

JD Preferred/Advantage hiring is definitely up in recent years, although it's tough to know how much of this is schools massaging their stats and how much of it is an increase in the kinds of jobs Johann mentioned. That's why we need to keep pushing for more transparency. If nothing else seeing the salaries of people taking these JD Advantage jobs can tell us a lot.

Hard data would be nice. Anecdotally, the one person I know who has a JD Advantage job lined up is in the top of the class and will be paid substantially better than a biglaw associate.

[Moneytrees]

JD Preferred/Advantage hiring is definitely up in recent years, although it's tough to know how much of this is schools massaging their stats and how much of it is an increase in the kinds of jobs Johann mentioned. That's why we need to keep pushing for more transparency. If nothing else seeing the salaries of people taking these JD Advantage jobs can tell us a lot.

Hard data would be nice. Anecdotally, the one person I know who has a JD Advantage job lined up is in the top of the class and will be paid substantially better than a biglaw associate.

What type of job is it?

[Johann]

Any employment predictions for the near future, given the data that we have so far? Trend seems to be upward, but I'm not sure if we'll ever see 2007/2008 numbers again.

I just read that some Philly firms have started to match NYC market.

2007/2008 numbers aren't likely again because the 2000s were much more about speculation. It's safe to say law firms have been conservative with their growth models and are still being conservative to the point where 2007/2008 won't happen unless the demand is actually there (which isn't to say impossible - just less likely). Things are good right now - corporations are relaxing the budget on law firms a little. Law firms aren't slitting each other's throats to get business in the door the same way they were 5 years ago, which goes a long way. But litigation still seems to be lagging while niche practice groups and corporate have picked up the slack and more. Law firms are attacking growth with a much more conservative growth model now. If this was 2007, we'd probably see raises for midlevels. Instead, it looks like raises are still a couple years off and bigger bonuses - which aren't sticky - are here.

The other thing about law school and education in general during boom economies, is your cost of attending getting more school becomes increasingly costly. 3 years can be 3 promotions in lots of jobs when the economy is booming. So yes legal hiring is doing well right now, but so are most industries. The people who graduated in 2013 probably had the best position because they waited out 3 years of a down economy and graduated into a decent economy. So, yes things are good in law, but they are just as good if not better in the corporate world doing some random meaningless 40 hour/week job with 5 weeks of vacation, bank holidays, and over $100k of comp within a few years.

[Moneytrees]

Any employment predictions for the near future, given the data that we have so far? Trend seems to be upward, but I'm not sure if we'll ever see 2007/2008 numbers again.

I just read that some Philly firms have started to match NYC market.

2007/2008 numbers aren't likely again because the 2000s were much more about speculation. It's safe to say law firms have been conservative with their growth models and are still being conservative to the point where 2007/2008 won't happen unless the demand is actually there (which isn't to say impossible - just less likely). Things are good right now - corporations are relaxing the budget on law firms a little. Law firms aren't slitting each other's throats to get business in the door the same way they were 5 years ago, which goes a long way. But litigation still seems to be lagging while niche practice groups and corporate have picked up the slack and more. Law firms are attacking growth with a much more conservative growth model now. If this was 2007, we'd probably see raises for midlevels. Instead, it looks like raises are still a couple years off and bigger bonuses - which aren't sticky - are here.

The other thing about law school and education in general during boom economies, is your cost of attending getting more school becomes increasingly costly. 3 years can be 3 promotions in lots of jobs when the economy is booming. So yes legal hiring is doing well right now, but so are most industries. The people who graduated in 2013 probably had the best position because they waited out 3 years of a down economy and graduated into a decent economy. So, yes things are good in law, but they are just as good if not better in the corporate world doing some random meaningless 40 hour/week job with 5 weeks of vacation, bank holidays, and over $100k of comp within a few years.

Nice response, I think this pretty accurate. One of the things that I think drives recent graduates' desire to go to graduate school is the notion that working a "meaningless" corporate job will inevitably lead to discontent. Working for a solid paycheck is not sexy; there's this sense people have that they should be doing more with their lives after graduation. Plenty of smart and capable people forego stable career paths to pursue vague ideals, or because they feel like they need a masters degree or some other paper accolade in order to "make a difference".

What ends up happening, I think, is that most of these people will eventually go on to work in a corporate environment anyways after having amassed a serious amount of debt.

[nosocat]

Good luck finding a job where you get five weeks of vacation as an entry-level employee. That sounds nice.

[JFO1833]

New ones:

59: Hastings - BL+FC-14%, FTLTBR-50%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-50%
113: Creighton - BL+FC-7%, FTLTBR-60%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-60%
122: Baltimore - BL+FC-2%, FTLTBR-50%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-50%
127: Missouri KC - BL+FC-5%, FTLTBR-60%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-60%
138: North Dakota - BL+FC-4%, FTLTBR-57%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-57%
145: Dayton - BL+FC-3%, FTLTBR-49%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-49%

[docdoc]

Good luck finding a job where you get five weeks of vacation as an entry-level employee. That sounds nice.

I did (kinda). Was great for studying for the LSAT.

Had three weeks of vacation + a couple of predetermined (an extra week during Christmas time and another week) off (No, I was not a teacher).

Job was salaried but low paying. Also terrible for other reasons.

[NoBladesNoBows]

.

[rpupkin]

Good luck finding a job where you get five weeks of vacation as an entry-level employee. That sounds nice.

Financial services = 10 days of bank holidays and 15 PTO (at least where I work)

In other words, three weeks of vacation.

[Indifference]

Good luck finding a job where you get five weeks of vacation as an entry-level employee. That sounds nice.

Financial services = 10 days of bank holidays and 15 PTO (at least where I work)

In other words, three weeks of vacation.

25 days = 5 work weeks. Unless I'm missing something?

[Tiago Splitter]

Good luck finding a job where you get five weeks of vacation as an entry-level employee. That sounds nice.

Financial services = 10 days of bank holidays and 15 PTO (at least where I work)

In other words, three weeks of vacation.

25 days = 5 work weeks. Unless I'm missing something?

Vacation implies you getting to pick your days off.

More importantly there aren't a lot of people making 100k and those jobs generally suck. Lawyer might suck more but financial services can really suck.

[Desert Fox]

Good luck finding a job where you get five weeks of vacation as an entry-level employee. That sounds nice.

Financial services = 10 days of bank holidays and 15 PTO (at least where I work)

In other words, three weeks of vacation.

25 days = 5 work weeks. Unless I'm missing something?

holidays don't count as vacation days .

[rpupkin]

Good luck finding a job where you get five weeks of vacation as an entry-level employee. That sounds nice.

Financial services = 10 days of bank holidays and 15 PTO (at least where I work)

In other words, three weeks of vacation.

25 days = 5 work weeks. Unless I'm missing something?

Most people get at least a few holidays off. In general, "vacation" doesn't include holidays.

[twenty 8]

holidays don't count as vacation days .

When a holiday falls on Monday. Leave early on Thurs, start your vacation on Friday and be gone until the following Monday. Basically, you’re on a 10 day vacation break. From what I’ve seen that’s the way most people handle it. Over a year figure 30 days of vacation time.

[JFO1833]

Some more new ones, including UCLA:

16: UCLA - BL+FC-40%, FTLTBR-80%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-71%
63: Seton Hall - BL+FC-7%, FTLTBR-72%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-72%
87: Rutgers-Newark - BL+FC-15%, FTLTBR-64%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-62%
118: Dequesne - BL+FC-12%, FTLTBR-56%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-56%
RNP: Barry - BL+FC-1%, FTLTBR-40%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-40%

[nosocat]

holidays don't count as vacation days .

When a holiday falls on Monday. Leave early on Thurs, start your vacation on Friday and be gone until the following Monday. Basically, you’re on a 10 day vacation break. From what I’ve seen that’s the way most people handle it. Over a year figure 30 days of vacation time.

Being on vacation is not the same as vacation days that are paid by your employer. Most places are going to give you two or three weeks (i.e., 10-15 days) of paid vacation.

My point was that Johann makes it sound like jobs "in the corporate world doing some random meaningless 40 hour/week job with 5 weeks of vacation, bank holidays, and over $100k of comp within a few years" are a dime a dozen for entry-level folks. That's about as realistic as what the average 0L thinks their outcome will be coming out of law school. Sure, some jobs like that exist, and it will happen for some people, but don't count on it, buddy.

[BrazilBandit]

Some more new ones, including UCLA:

16: UCLA - BL+FC-40%, FTLTBR-80%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-71%
63: Seton Hall - BL+FC-7%, FTLTBR-72%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-72%
87: Rutgers-Newark - BL+FC-15%, FTLTBR-64%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-62%
118: Dequesne - BL+FC-12%, FTLTBR-56%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-56%
RNP: Barry - BL+FC-1%, FTLTBR-40%, FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-40%

Mind sharing the link for UCLA? can't find it for the spreadsheet...