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Is biglaw the only real option after law school? What I'm hearing from people is that to have any chance at government or in-house work you must first have a few years experience in biglaw. Is this true? What about local DA jobs? What about local PD jobs? What about rural communities and smaller markets? I'd like to hear what the full range of options for JD's foregoing biglaw. Please, for a moment also forgo the obvious issue of debt repayments so that I can at least see what's out there.

Ballpark figures:

45,000 law graduates, 5,000 entry level biglaw jobs and a smaller number of clerkships represent the pool of "obvious" jobs for graduates. Many other places - public interest outfits, a small number of corporations, small and medium sized firms, local and federal governments, etc. will hire recent law graduates, but (a) for substantially less salary on average and (b) with much less consistency. There are also much less desirable jobs such as temporary doc review available.

Recent estimates suggest there are only a total of maybe 25,000 to 30,000 entry level jobs for law graduates at all, so a substantial portion will fail to find legal employment.

tuffyjohnson wrote:What about local DA jobs? What about local PD jobs?

I know someone who went to work for the DA's office after graduation. From what I recall, it was 70k starting salary with full benefits and pension plan for a 40hr work week, unless he was in trial and then the hours could be as high as 60.

I thought it sounded pretty good myself. Decent salary, retirement package, and he gets to have a life outside of work.

TheGreatFish wrote: and he gets to have a life outside of work.

Bingo.