Employment Prospects/Salaries Forum

[nextlaw]

Hi so I begin applying in the Fall and have to retake the LSAT for a third time but I've been looking at salaries from some of my top schools like Tulsa University, Mercer University, Texas Tech, etc. and the salaries on here seem to be a lot higher than on US News. I know that rankings shouldn't really matter but I am concerned about my prospective salary it doesn't need to be huge but I $65,000ish would be nice is that possible going to these schools? The numbers on here compared to US News are drastically different and I'm not sure who to trust...I know that these aren't the most prestigious but they seem to have good programs and so I'm a little concerned about the difference/who to trust...

Thanks.

[chiliad]

Law School Transparency is your best friend. Look it up and you can compare all of those schools and more. You will find employment data and salaries, if the latter are reported.

[igo2northwestern]

Look at their websites, see the number of students who actually provided data. For one of those schools, only 27 students submitted information. You want to compare this to their class size, of course. You should also know that some schools will discourage students from reporting information, if they are in fact unemployed. This is to inflate percentages.

[Louis1127]

and the salaries on here seem to be a lot higher than on US News. I know that rankings shouldn't really matter

1. That's because most people here go to really prestigious law schools, and many are employed in biglaw (search function if you don't know what that is).

2. True, rankings themselves don't matter. But employment outcomes of graduates do. Higher rankings tend to correspond with better job prospects for graduates (with exceptions), but missing from this little equation is debt.

You mentioned that you are interested in some schools in different regions of the country. I would advise (in my lowly 0L opinion) that if you go to a lower-ranked school, you go:

1. On a full-tuition scholarship with super reasonable stipulations (like staying in the top 2/3 of your class at a bare minimum).

2. To a school in the region in which you have significant ties.

Hope that helps!