how to really read Employment data? Forum

[Tiny123]

I am now in the progress of picking the law schools I want to apply, I been reading the Employment data and I am a little confused.

So all of you guys are talking about big law rate, but some of the schools I want to apply to have more people end up with "Government" jobs than law firm jobs, is that bad? or good?

For example W&M last year had 37 people goes to big law and 50+ takes government jobs..
Is that means I should not apply to W&M if I cant work the government? (Non-US citizen)

[Lawdork]

I am now in the progress of picking the law schools I want to apply, I been reading the Employment data and I am a little confused.

So all of you guys are talking about big law rate, but some of the schools I want to apply to have more people end up with "Government" jobs than law firm jobs, is that bad? or good?

For example W&M last year had 37 people goes to big law and 50+ takes government jobs..
Is that means I should not apply to W&M if I cant work the government? (Non-US citizen)

The reason I am considering to apply for those school are personal, has nothing to do with academic or employment.

Usually schools within close proximity of DC like Georgetown, GWU, and in this case W&M, have more people go into gov't than other law schools. I'm pretty sure though not positive that gov't jobs in DC are just as competitive if not moreso than law firms (not necessarily biglaw firms though), so i think the ones who go into gov't could have gotten law firm jobs if they wanted them.

[Clemenceau]

The reason I am considering to apply for those school are personal, has nothing to do with academic or employment.

Why would your choice in law school have nothing to do with employment? Isn't this thread about a particular school's employment numbers?

[Tiny123]

The reason I am considering to apply for those school are personal, has nothing to do with academic or employment.

Why would your choice in law school have nothing to do with employment? Isn't this thread about a particular school's employment numbers?

I mean when I first start to pick school I picked about 30 of them without looking at employment number, and now I want to narrow them down to around 8 by looking at the employment number, that is when I had the question.. Like W&M, I wanted to go because I went to high school near by, I have friends and family. That just got me interested but I am not applying if employment number is a issue.

[Troianii]

I am now in the progress of picking the law schools I want to apply, I been reading the Employment data and I am a little confused.

So all of you guys are talking about big law rate, but some of the schools I want to apply to have more people end up with "Government" jobs than law firm jobs, is that bad? or good?

For example W&M last year had 37 people goes to big law and 50+ takes government jobs..
Is that means I should not apply to W&M if I cant work the government? (Non-US citizen)

Here is W&M salary report
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/wm/sals/2013/

Here is W&M jobs report
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/wm/jobs/2013/


People look at it different ways, and at TLS most just look at big law, where typically you're looking at starting out at or near 160k. What you're really trying to gauge is how much a given law school gives you an opportunity to graduate and get a good paying job.

Many will disagree with this, but IMO these are the things you want to be looking for, in order:

1. Unemployment. For W&M, 9.2% of graduates don't land jobs within 9 months. Obviously the first thing you should be looking to ensure is that you actually have a job after you graduate (far better to have a 50k/yr public sector job than no job, if you ask me), but if you're set on being a lawyer the 9% figure isn't actually that bad. Based on LST info from 2013, Yale grads had an unemployment rate of 8.7%, so IMO anything under 10% is acceptable (though note that for Harvard it was 0.3%, which is one of the many reasons why IMO Harvard has always been and remains #1 - the Yale hype, imo, is overdone).
2. bar-passage employment: these are people who get jobs that actually require bar-passage. For W&M, that's 79.3% (Yale has 90.3%). Excluding school funded jobs, there isn't anything wrong with jobs that prefer JDs - called "JD Advantage" [see Houston - 2nd tier law school, but its grads make bank and often go to JD Advantage jobs]. But the bar-passage required is a good figure to go on, because the JD Advantage jobs are an unreliable measure (Houston has an energy sector niche).
3. $. This is again my opinion, but I think you should be looking at how many of a schools grads start out earning six figures.For W&M, it's something around 20-25%.
3.a. you should also look for how many report salaries. For W&M, roughly one out of five who enter the private sector don't report their salaries. IMO this is not something to be worried about, since it isn't a huge proportion, but there are schools whose grads seemingly get great salaries, but then the majority of their grads entering the private sector don't report salaries. This is cause to be wary of the figures.
3.b. you should also bear in mind how many of their grads enter the public sector. First, this greatly drags down the median salary for grads (which, for W&M, is 80k). But it can also be a loose indicator of difficulty getting good jobs in the private sector. FROM WHAT I'VE READ, a lot of law school applicants talk about their desire to enter public service but then - if they're able to get a high paying private sector job - rarely stick with public service.
And of course, it could be that there is a huge emphasis on public law at the school and that many students there just want to go into the public sector - but that seems at minimum a somewhat dubious claim on the large scale.

TLS will crap on public service law without end, but I think it isn't as bad as people suggest. It's mostly a personal values issue. I don't want to become a lawyer to live like I'm in The Wolf of Wall Street, I just want a good quality of life - decent pay, a rewarding career, and a work schedule that will still allow me to have a personal life. The reality is that if you enter big law, where the big bucks are - you'll be working insane hours, especially as a junior attorney. Expect to work 70 or more a week (at least in your first few years - it should go down over time as you learn to work more efficiently). IMO, working at a medium private firm or in a good public sector job - where 55k+ starting is reasonable (though not always to be expected in public law) - with something more around 45 or 50 hrs a week, give or take a little bit, is preferable by far. But that's my take on it - most of TLS would disagree and prefer the big bucks.

[LurkerShirker]

You shouls also look carefully about the number of school funded jobs in the mix, and basically count those people as unemployed. At W&M, this number had been one of the highest in the country. US News has stopped fully counting those people, so you can expect that category of jobs to disappear by the time you graduate.

[Tiago Splitter]

TLS will crap on public service law without end, but I think it isn't as bad as people suggest. It's mostly a personal values issue. I don't want to become a lawyer to live like I'm in The Wolf of Wall Street, I just want a good quality of life - decent pay, a rewarding career, and a work schedule that will still allow me to have a personal life. The reality is that if you enter big law, where the big bucks are - you'll be working insane hours, especially as a junior attorney. Expect to work 70 or more a week (at least in your first few years - it should go down over time as you learn to work more efficiently). IMO, working at a medium private firm or in a good public sector job - where 55k+ starting is reasonable (though not always to be expected in public law) - with something more around 45 or 50 hrs a week, give or take a little bit, is preferable by far. But that's my take on it - most of TLS would disagree and prefer the big bucks.

I disagree with just about all of this.

As to your question OP, the employment data schools provide is not very granular, so it's hard to know exactly what it means, when, for example, a school says someone is employed in a "JD Advantage" job or employed in Government or Public Interest. It's not that those jobs are all bad, it's that they could be bad or they could be good, and when you're spending three years and six figures on a degree you want to have a pretty good idea of what's coming on the other side. For that reason we look at employment numbers in a conservative fashion and focus on the outcomes we can be reasonably certain are good ones. To date the only ones we can safely conclude fall in the good category are employment in firms of 100+ attorneys and federal clerkships.

[Troianii]

TLS will crap on public service law without end, but I think it isn't as bad as people suggest. It's mostly a personal values issue. I don't want to become a lawyer to live like I'm in The Wolf of Wall Street, I just want a good quality of life - decent pay, a rewarding career, and a work schedule that will still allow me to have a personal life. The reality is that if you enter big law, where the big bucks are - you'll be working insane hours, especially as a junior attorney. Expect to work 70 or more a week (at least in your first few years - it should go down over time as you learn to work more efficiently). IMO, working at a medium private firm or in a good public sector job - where 55k+ starting is reasonable (though not always to be expected in public law) - with something more around 45 or 50 hrs a week, give or take a little bit, is preferable by far. But that's my take on it - most of TLS would disagree and prefer the big bucks.

I disagree with just about all of this.

As to your question OP, the employment data schools provide is not very granular, so it's hard to know exactly what it means, when, for example, a school says someone is employed in a "JD Advantage" job or employed in Government or Public Interest. It's not that those jobs are all bad, it's that they could be bad or they could be good, and when you're spending three years and six figures on a degree you want to have a pretty good idea of what's coming on the other side. For that reason we look at employment numbers in a conservative fashion and focus on the outcomes we can be reasonably certain are good ones. To date the only ones we can safely conclude fall in the good category are employment in firms of 100+ attorneys and federal clerkships.

Could you be a bit more specific? I mean, I did say that most of TLS would disagree with me, so I don't think you're disagreeing with that part.

To be clear, I agree with everything you've said but "I disagree with just about all of this" haha, so I'd appreciate it if you could specify what I'm wrong about. It'd be informative for me and others if you have sources, too.

Here's some of my sources - again, I'm 0L, I've gotten this from reading and talking to lawyers. And again, I'd actually appreciate being corrected with specifics - sources are bonus. First are directly related, second grouping is somewhat related. The esblog, though it is a blog, has a chart that seems particularly informative. Some of the things I've read are from less reputable sources (like ehow or whatever), or from forums (to include this one, but others as well), and I haven't included those.

http://www.law.yale.edu/studentlife/cdo ... lehour.htm
http://abovethelaw.com/career-files/law ... eal-story/

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magaz ... ed-Itself/
http://abovethelaw.com/2012/04/how-many ... -are-busy/
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-first-yea ... overworked

[Troianii]

You shouls also look carefully about the number of school funded jobs in the mix, and basically count those people as unemployed. At W&M, this number had been one of the highest in the country. US News has stopped fully counting those people, so you can expect that category of jobs to disappear by the time you graduate.

+1

[Tiago Splitter]

TLS will crap on public service law without end, but I think it isn't as bad as people suggest. It's mostly a personal values issue. I don't want to become a lawyer to live like I'm in The Wolf of Wall Street, I just want a good quality of life - decent pay, a rewarding career, and a work schedule that will still allow me to have a personal life. The reality is that if you enter big law, where the big bucks are - you'll be working insane hours, especially as a junior attorney. Expect to work 70 or more a week (at least in your first few years - it should go down over time as you learn to work more efficiently). IMO, working at a medium private firm or in a good public sector job - where 55k+ starting is reasonable (though not always to be expected in public law) - with something more around 45 or 50 hrs a week, give or take a little bit, is preferable by far. But that's my take on it - most of TLS would disagree and prefer the big bucks.

Re-quoting to provide specifics.

1. TLS does not crap on public service law.

2. Finding a job with decent pay, a rewarding career and a nice comfortable work schedule is just not likely to happen right out of law school. There are way fewer of those jobs than there are biglaw jobs, and there aren't that many biglaw jobs.

3. Senior lawyers have more independence than juniors, but the senior people often work many more hours.

4. 70 hours a week is not that common. The issue is the unpredictability and being tied to your phone at all times, along with other random shit, but the total number of hours is generally well down the list of complaints of biglawyers.

5. Getting a legit job in a "medium sized firm" or in public interest is remarkably difficult. The path of least resistance at good schools is biglaw, and everywhere else it's just unemployment. About 6000 people from the class of 2014 got jobs at firms of 100+ attorneys. Less than half that ended up with firms in the 26-100 range. See here. A ton of people end up with small firms, but far too many of those jobs are in the pure shit category for us to count them as quality outcomes. The good medium sized firms often just hire biglaw refugees, meaning the only way to get there is to spend a few years in biglaw. It's not at all uncommon for a firm of 50-100 attorneys to have no summer program.

6. Most of TLS does not disagree with you. But most of TLS has to come to terms with what I've just told you. Of the 25k or so "long term, full time, bar passage required" jobs reported on NALP, maybe 15-20K of those are good ones. And as you can see from the link I provided about half of those are biglaw or federal clerkships. If you go to a school that does not place into biglaw and federal clerkships, your chances of ending up un- or underemployed are really high. I think most biglaw associates would be pretty stoked on an easy work schedule that paid 60% of what they make, but that's just not an option coming out of law school.

7. I just noticed that one of your links includes the bimodal salary distribution, which sums all of this up pretty well.