Can we trust the new employment numbers? Forum

[mrwarre85]

Can we trust the employment numbers on USNEWS? I knew before they were bogus but the questions USNEWS is now making the schools fill out is much more airtight--They just respond with data at graduation and nine months out about the class of 2009, and if you have paid the 10 bucks or whatever to USNEWS online you can see:

Percent employed, percent unemployed and looking/not looking, where employed, what type of job -- IE JD preferred/JD required/non-professional, percent in private sector reporting salary, etc etc etc.

The common response on TLS has been yeah 95% employed but half of those are at Starbucks lol lol. This year USNEWS lists the percentage of the jobs that are "non-professional."

Sidebar: does anyone know whether the job descriptions on USNEWS online are from the career services at the schools and include ALL graduates or are they coming from only the graduates who filled out the salary surveys? This would make a huge difference in how you interpret the data. However, it would seem that USNEWS only gets salary info from the surveys, and that when I school claims that 95% of those employed do work in a job that required the passage of the bar that those figures are strait from career services and would be nearly impossible to fudge.

Sorry that was a ramble. My point is, now USNEWS reports in a way that would make it very difficult for schools to answer it's questions in a misleading way. This in fact was the point of USNEWS latest efforts.

For me, some of the schools I'm considering look pretty rosy actually. UTK stands out for me.

I've made calculations about what grads are doing from the schools similar to those made by law school transparency. Of course all of my calculations use some assumptions. For example, one that is very common on TLS is that those who choose not to report their salaries do not have respectable salaries. I also had to make a few guesses as to who self-selected out of private work. For example, at another school I'm considering, CU-Boulder, it seemed that lots of people selected clerkship's (25%). I made the assumption that all 25% could have worked for a private firm had they gone that route.

Anyway. Thoughts on the new employment numbers? What types of ways would they be misleading us now?

[fakemoney]

What types of ways would they be misleading us now?

This is the key question as far as I'm concerned

[fatduck]

i would be very skeptical of anyone reported as "academia"

[fakemoney]

Good point... That probably encompasses "LSAT Tutor"

[tgir]

Good point... That probably encompasses "LSAT Tutor"

Yeah. :-\ Or employed by the law school from which they graduated as research assistants.

[Miracle]

i would be very skeptical of anyone reported as "academia"

why?

[fatduck]

i would be very skeptical of anyone reported as "academia"

why?

1.) shitty schools reporting 25-30% of students in academia? really?
2.) law schools, being schools, are well positioned to exploit the "academia" category by temporarily hiring recent grads to work in the admissions office, do "research", etc. just long enough to report them to usnews.

[mrwarre85]

i would be very skeptical of anyone reported as "academia"

but even if that is sketchy, that's only a small part of the total pool. according to the new figures median +some find JD Required/Bar passage required jobs at nearly all top 100 schools nine months after graduation. now the salary ranges are generally only representive of top half for tier 1 and sometimes just top 1/4 for teir two, but according to the schools the vast majority of their grads are in JD required work.

was I mistaken to assume that TLS would disagree with this in refernece to job prospects from the top 100? perhaps the starbucks/macdonalds comments are usually reserved for schools outside the top 100 and I've misunderstood the message.

I read the data closely and was impressed. not as good at the picture three or four years ago at all, but still rosy enough for me.

one of my top schools, Tennesee, reports something like 5-10% biglaw, 50% in other firms, 20% clerks. that is like 75% or 80% of the class finding-- IMO-- really good legal employment. of course I'm not biglaw or bust. UTK has very reasonable tuition and it would cost me just north of 50k so I won't HAVE to find a very high paying job to pay the bills.

[Fark-o-vision]

i would be very skeptical of anyone reported as "academia"

why?

Also, law schools can hire recent grads as "adjunct" instructors on a yearly contract. Law school grads are likely qualified, in many states, to teach as an adjunct in English departments, for government classes, and a few other things. While technically academic jobs, these jobs have no security and pay in the toilet (14-20K, depending on the college, annually). I would imagine these types of jobs make up the bulk of "academic" employment as reported by all but a select few elite colleges (and even then, maybe).

[mrwarre85]

But, generally, these numbers can be trusted? They seem realistic to me-- unless you are T- 14/20 or so you need to be top half for T1 to get a good job or similar opportunity. Seems like some schools from 40-60 very from needing to be top 40% to top 60% for good opportunities, although there are lots of example where schools are ranked in the 50's but still place grads in the bottom 1/3 in law firms 9 months out. In T2 the data generally seems to say that if you are not top half you will have to work very hard to get a law job at all. Many people think that is awful, and compared to a field like medicine it is. I expected that though, so I don't feel horrible about that. Seems like T3 varies, but in some schools you may need to be top 1/3 to be sure you are getting a law job. I will agree that is pretty rough, though I'm sure with some time and a lot of legwork you could eventually find some JD required gig. Still, rough.

[Sandro]

it would be awesome if we could trust these numbers enough to make conclusions based on differences in numbers. That being said - numbers that are within range of each other arent too terribly useful because we cant trust them.

[Renne Walker]

Can we trust the employment numbers on USNEWS?

Would you provide a link to this data? Thanks.

[niederbomb]

But, generally, these numbers can be trusted? They seem realistic to me-- unless you are T- 14/20 or so you need to be top half for T1 to get a good job or similar opportunity. Seems like some schools from 40-60 very from needing to be top 40% to top 60% for good opportunities, although there are lots of example where schools are ranked in the 50's but still place grads in the bottom 1/3 in law firms 9 months out. In T2 the data generally seems to say that if you are not top half you will have to work very hard to get a law job at all. Many people think that is awful, and compared to a field like medicine it is. I expected that though, so I don't feel horrible about that. Seems like T3 varies, but in some schools you may need to be top 1/3 to be sure you are getting a law job. I will agree that is pretty rough, though I'm sure with some time and a lot of legwork you could eventually find some JD required gig. Still, rough.

I am interested in this as well. Everyone says that medical school is a much better option than law school, but if you consider that it's about as difficult to get into a Top 20 law school as any medical school, then law school actually seems like a pretty comparable option if you limited yourself to applying to these schools.

I still would not risk going outside the T13, unless you're going to UT for Texas, UGA for Atlanta or UW for Seattle, or some other strong regional school. But I'm wondering if the media may have exaggerated things by primarily reporting sob stories from shit law schools like Villanova.

[aliarrow]

If anyone cares, I broke down the data for the T50 and other elite schools into graphs

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=150681