Federal Clerkships vs. Biglaw Forum

[isuperserial]

So I was scanning the reports from law school transparency, and I was at first confused regarding UMich's percentage of grads placed into large firms. It said 34% went into firms with 101+ attorneys. That didn't seem to adhere to the ranking and generally high regard for UMich, so I was confused at first. USC apparently did .3 percent better! Then I looked at the federal clerkship rate and saw that Michigan did pretty freakin' well there. 10.6% looked really good. And 18.5% for Public Service seemed really good too.

I suppose my question is how I should interpret this data. Are Federal Clerkships more competitive so those 10.6% could probably have gone into BigLaw and simply opted for something else? I know that's not how jobs work, like if you are accepted for one you're accepted for another, but I suppose I'm just speaking in generalities. Would it be unreasonable to interpret this as 44.6% would have been candidates for BigLaw?

What's led me to wondering this is the fact that such a high number of people from HYS go for federal clerkships, so it seems like people, especially from Yale, are self-selecting out of BigLaw into Federal Clerkships.

[jkpolk]

So I was scanning the reports from law school transparency, and I was at first confused regarding UMich's percentage of grads placed into large firms. It said 34% went into firms with 101+ attorneys. That didn't seem to adhere to the ranking and generally high regard for UMich, so I was confused at first. USC apparently did .3 percent better! Then I looked at the federal clerkship rate and saw that Michigan did pretty freakin' well there. 10.6% looked really good. And 18.5% for Public Service seemed really good too.

I suppose my question is how I should interpret this data. Are Federal Clerkships more competitive so those 10.6% could probably have gone into BigLaw and simply opted for something else? I know that's not how jobs work, like if you are accepted for one you're accepted for another, but I suppose I'm just speaking in generalities. Would it be unreasonable to interpret this as 44.6% would have been candidates for BigLaw?

What's led me to wondering this is the fact that such a high number of people from HYS go for federal clerkships, so it seems like people, especially from Yale, are self-selecting out of BigLaw into Federal Clerkships.

You are right.

[isuperserial]

So I was scanning the reports from law school transparency, and I was at first confused regarding UMich's percentage of grads placed into large firms. It said 34% went into firms with 101+ attorneys. That didn't seem to adhere to the ranking and generally high regard for UMich, so I was confused at first. USC apparently did .3 percent better! Then I looked at the federal clerkship rate and saw that Michigan did pretty freakin' well there. 10.6% looked really good. And 18.5% for Public Service seemed really good too.

I suppose my question is how I should interpret this data. Are Federal Clerkships more competitive so those 10.6% could probably have gone into BigLaw and simply opted for something else? I know that's not how jobs work, like if you are accepted for one you're accepted for another, but I suppose I'm just speaking in generalities. Would it be unreasonable to interpret this as 44.6% would have been candidates for BigLaw?

What's led me to wondering this is the fact that such a high number of people from HYS go for federal clerkships, so it seems like people, especially from Yale, are self-selecting out of BigLaw into Federal Clerkships.

You are right.

Alright, thanks man!

[oaken]

yeah it's not really a matter of "self-selecting out of biglaw" as you put it, it's that HYS grads are doing clerkships FIRST, then getting the same big law jobs as the new graduating 3Ls except with huge signing bonuses too

although i think that's more for the T3/T6. i've heard michigan has been getting some flack lately for their (relative to past years) low job prospects, although a lot of people say that's b/c of self-selecting PI as you pointed out