Bravo to Professor Fish for standing up for the values that made law a profession -- rather than the trade school the whiners would have it be. As a practitioner, and the owner of a law firm with 7 other lawyers, I find the current attitude of whining by recent former students to be pathetic. These folks who have the ability to engage in research and analytical thinking chose to embark on a career in the naive and bizarre belief that they were entitled to earn large sums helping big companies takeover or sue other big companies, or legally evade regulations and taxes. Now, because of a periodic hiccup in our capitalist economy, the entitled have to figure out how to add value -- ie sell their labor, instead of being fawned over. 16 years ago, I quit a position with a large firm to start a small firm to bring justice for individuals. I love my work, and the people I hire are passionate about using the law to help make America work for all citizens. If people don't want to practice law in areas or at salary levels that the market will pay them for, then I would ask: Why are they any different than factory workers, farmers or any other Americans?
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Stop your sobbing
I will have more to say about Stanley Fish's defense of what could be called a graduate school model of legal education shortly, but for now I just want to highlight the following response in the comments, as an illustration of what the reform movement is up against (Note this is from an actual lawyer, not a law professor):
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There are two gaping holes though...one in his head and the other in his argument.
ReplyDeleteLawProf - here's something for you and the others who have such a boner for transparency. http://wp.me/p10Kk8-uIn
ReplyDeleteDon't underestimate Mr. Nacht. He was named to the 2011 edition of Michigan Super Lawyers, so he must be Really Super.
ReplyDeleteIf I were this guy, and thought I knew what this guy thinks he knows, I'd probably feel the very same way. If it really were the case that this whole "scam" movement was about people upset that they can't have the $160,000 jobs they feel entitled to, then yes, it would be a movement of deplorable whiners.
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't this guy realize that we're actually talking about people who have already spent months, or even years, looking for any $40,000 job that will take them? I blame the law school mouthpieces for that. How many times have seen somebody representing a law school write a piece or do an interview where they say something about how law school shouldn't be just about money and that law school graduates should be happy about all of the great, but lower-paying, public interest opportunities they have?
The word will eventually trickle down to guys like this.
I have one question, and one question only for Mr. Nacht:
ReplyDeleteAre you hiring?
(I'm guessing the answer is no)
10:30. Thanks for the link but Jesus why can't the writers on ATL learn a little something about ***brevity***. I don't have time to read a four page article.
ReplyDeleteKudos to Chicago (10:30) for reporting honest statistics. To quote from ATL,
ReplyDelete"The salary data is (or “are,” if you want to quibble) robust as well. For the class of 2010, for example, there are 180 salaries for 191 employed graduates, or 94 percent. "
94%! Compare that to like 11% for a school like NYLS.
Good job to Leiter's school. They're leading the transparency push. Of course, it's easy for them since they probably place really well.
They seemed to have taken stuff that was in the alumni publications and put it on the website.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to congratulate U of Chicago for having a tiny 200 person class size. That shows (what's the word meaning the opposite of greed? not altruism, but just lack of greed. any way whatever that is).
ReplyDeleteCompare that to NYU with its 400+ person 1L class and 500 person LLM classes.
Coder2000 - its the debt load that makes anything less than a big law salary unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteNot to be Steroid Boy, but can someone please sincerely write Mr. Nacht to see if he will hire him or her? Then please tell us what he said. Best case scenario you will soon have a job as a lawyer. Worst case scenario you will expose Mr. Nacht's message as a lie (he claims the problem is lack of biglaw jobs, not lack of lawyer jobs).
ReplyDeleteI can't do it because I'm not in his time zone, but if anyone in Michigan is looking for work I think it's a must that you call and/or write him. For yourself and for the movement.
Wow! A Boomer for whom everything went right criticizing young graduates for not being more successful? Never saw that before.
ReplyDeleteHe has a "contact us" form on his website. I wrote him something nice. You should too.
ReplyDeleteWhen I apply for jobs, I sent a letter or email and follow up with a phone call.
ReplyDeleteAfter 7 years of higher education and $150,000 of non-dischargeable debt people don't want to be told the value of their labor is equivalent to or less than a factory workers.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice that Chicago and Yale have posted some information, and their ability to ascertain salaries is a good example to emulate. But their form will be a disaster if adopted by other schools--and may even be masking some important information at these top schools. Where is the information about part-time work, jobs created by the law school, and temporary (non-judicial-clerkship) positions? Perhaps only a handful of grads from Chicago and Yale take those kinds of positions, but the numbers will be much larger at other schools.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that other law schools will seize upon this model and use it to justify publication of even more misleading data. This is particularly true because, as I understand the NALP rules, part-time jobs get counted as part of "employed" but not as part of the salary counts. That leaves room for a lot of obfuscation among other schools. On balance, I'm more discouraged than encouraged. And I used to be such an optimistic person....
@DJM:
ReplyDeleteChicago and Yale are setting an example, which is useful for those below them in prestige. Law schools are nothing if not obsessed with what those above them are doing (witness my school's throwing out Criminal Procedure in 1L, in favor of Legislation), and if Chicago and Yale encourage everyone else to be more candid, then God bless them.
And none of this would have happened if a lot of people hadn't gotten together on the Internet to say mean things about law schools and law professors. To all of you bitter, underemployed recent graduates out there, congratulations - your misery is actually starting to pay dividends for future generations.
Apparently Michigan State published similar placement data http://law.msu.edu/career/placement-rates.html and I don't see how you could be so disappointed when the alternative is deliberately misleading or non-existent data. Michigan State shows a median salary of $58,000 with 43% of students placed into bar passage required jobs. That is half the info a prospective student needs, we're making progress here.
ReplyDelete11:20 - You nailed the crux of this issue, that young people are spending years of their lives accruing crushing non-dischargeable debt. In exchange for this, investment of time and money, they gain job opportunities no better than what they already had.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, their education has in no way prepared them to perform the most basic tasks of their new profession. The attorney commenter acknowledges that he had the opportunity to be trained at a large law firm, but that opportunity is simply not there for a large and growing number of recent graduates. The path that this gentleman recommends, selling your labor, is not a realistic option for the unemployed recent graduate.
To take it one step further, this structure is creating a class of underperforming bright young people, who are financially prevented from being meaningful participants in the economy.
It's a generational thing. Every lawyer under 35 gets it, even those that have 160K/year jobs, because they also have debt and realize just how bad things would be if they lost their job. But those who came of age back when law degrees were cheap and legal jobs plentiful just can't relate to the reality of genuinely poor law grads. Back then many graduates had a real choice between "selling out" for big bucks or taking a more modest salary to help the little guy. Older lawyers, members of the most privileged generation (aka boomers) don't understand that for many young lawyers the choice is: (1) hang out your own shingle with zero experience, (2) doc review, (3) do something else despite the millstone of debt for a now worthless degree. The problem with this country isn't too many "whiners," it's too many entitled middle-agers who take the view that if things worked out for them then there can't be anything wrong with the system. In short, this guy is a self-congratulatory jackass who lacks the slightest clue of what he's talking about.
ReplyDeleteMichigan State's posted data are *much* better than Chicago/Yale's because they indicate grads with part-time jobs, as well as those with jobs funded by the law schools. These are two of the crucial categories that have to be reported by schools--at least by those outside of the very top ranks--in order for prospective students to get useful information. From Michigan State's site, you can see immediately that only 43.1% of their 2010 grads got full-time jobs requiring a JD. That's a pretty grim statistic, and kudos to Michigan State for reporting it!
ReplyDeleteOf course, the salary data are still incredibly sparse: Only 85 out of 348 reporting. That in itself should provide some indication of the shakiness of the market, but needs to be improved. On this one, though, it's not enough to just tell lower-ranking schools to follow the lead of Yale and Chicago: Grads from the latter are much more likely to take positions at firms for which starting salary is publicly known and/or to happily report their starting salaries. It genuinely is harder for lower ranking CSOs to get the salary data from grads. I'm not saying we shouldn't press for it--I'm just saying that their situation is quite different from the T6.
My concern with the Chicago/Yale model is precisely because of their prestige: Other schools down the chain will say, "We're following the standard set by Yale and the University of Chicago," then fail to disclose part-time, temporary, or school-funded work (because Chicago and Yale don't disclose any of that). I was all set to send my dean a link to the Chicago site, urging him to follow their lead, when I realized that Chicago is disclosing less than our dean has committed to disclosing here. I'm still waiting for that page to go up, but the Chicago/Yale model would be a step backward for our prospective students. For once, we need to follow Michigan State and Hastings instead!
I'm very thankful for all the transparency movement has done, but genuinely worried about what this Chicago/Yale model could do as applied to many schools. When a school has a significant number of grads in part-time jobs that require a JD, failing to disclose part-time status is quite misleading (possibly even more misleading than failing to report the JD required, because the latter without the former gives a false sense of security).
"Apparently Michigan State published similar placement data http://law.msu.edu/career/placement-rates.html"
ReplyDeleteMichigan State's data is as misleading as Cooley's. They claim a high employment rate, and lots of people in law firm jobs, but when you look at the percentage reporting salaries you do not see the 94% in University of Chicago's statistics. Rather, you see a low 20% which is around what you find in other scam schools like New York Law School (whose salary reporting rate was 12%).
So no, Michigan State does not deserve any accolades. Their statistics are as fraudulent as all the other low ranked schools claiming 100% employment but only 10-20% with reportable salaries.
"Michigan State's posted data are *much* better than Chicago/Yale's because they indicate grads with part-time jobs, as well as those with jobs funded by the law schools."
ReplyDeleteDJM, I am seriously disappointed in you and kindly as you to please not ever comment on this topic again as you do not understand the problem.
Putting someone into an "employed" bucket, whether you call that employed at a firm, employed in business, employed part time or whatever is worth nothing unless you know that person's salary. As long as someone is breathing you can put them into the employed category, but it's not so easy to make up a salary. That's why Chicago is to be commended for having salary data on 94% of their graduates, and why MSU and their shill on this blog should be derided for publishing bullshit with a meager 20% salary reporting rate.
Michigan State's numbers are as bad as New York Law School's and Cooley's.
@DJM What are some examples of part time jobs that could be hidden away in U of C's and Yale's reports?
ReplyDeleteThere is a glaring contradiction at the heart of one of the central arguments advanced by the “we hate law school” complainers.
ReplyDeleteA standard complaint is that people can’t get law jobs because law school doesn't provide sufficient "practical training." This is certainly the number one complaint being lodged in the comments to Professor Fish's op-ed in yesterday's NYT. Here's a gem from that rant-filled stream:
"1150 words have never before so clearly relayed the law school experience. Endless blather that moves you no closer to understanding the legal system, how best to serve clients, or how to run a law firm. Be thankful you too are not $80k in debt for having spent time listening to blowhard law professors. . . . Law professors should spend less time examining dead legal arguments and more time examining the morality of the business they are in, i.e. educating future non-lawyer debtors."
Let's call this the "skills thesis" -- it is, essentially, that law students are disserved by law schools because most of their theory-obsessed professors are incapable of, and don't even attempt to, prepare students for the nuts and bolts of practice (e.g.the now-standard examples of filing merger documents, serving process, drafting discovery requests, etc.). Therefore, the argument runs, law professors and law schools should ditch the theory (in part or entirely) and direct most or all of their energy toward practical training. Leave aside that the factual premise of the skills thesis is obviously false (law schools now provide FAR more practical training than ever before); there is no doubt that the argument is one of the most often repeated on this blog and similar forums.
Now observe that Fish teaches at Yale – surely the most theory-laden law school with the most theory-driven law faculty in the United States – and it is the Yale students who are having the LEAST trouble landing the legal jobs that do exist. Yale of course has extensive practical training opportunities, but the ratio of theoretical to practical classes at Yale is much more heavily weighted toward the former than is the ratio at lower-ranked schools (probably even at Colorado).
Hopefully some of you will see that this invalidates the skills thesis. It should at least give you pause before continuing to press the skills thesis as though it is self-evidently true. Resolving the paradox requires a conclusion that is inconsistent with the skills thesis: An education emphasizing theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives on law –- like what Yale, Harvard, Chicago, Stanford, etc., provide –- is, empirically, much better for your chances of landing a high-paying legal job than one that is mostly concerned with skills training. The reason might just be that a Yale-style education produces a more sophisticated, nuanced mind more capable of dealing with the challenges of law practice. Employers might know that and might make hiring decisions accordingly. The typical skills-thesis conclusion-—that theoretical training should be ditched in favor of practical training--is misguided. What you should be clamoring for is more theory, for your law schools to strive to be more like Yale, hire more theory-focused faculty, stop looking so much like a trade school, etc.
And, please, don’t resort to the bunk about how Yale’s prestige is self-perpetuating and employers only care about the name of the school on the diploma –- it’s a weak dodge. At best, it explains only some and not all of the results; at worst, since there is zero evidence to support it, it may be either made up or, if true, indicts legal hiring practices so devastatingly as to have the same effect of wholly undermining the skills thesis (if employers are that obsessed with prestige, everyone who didn’t go to HYS might as well go home).
We may just have to accept that law professors' theoretical orientation is, in fact, valuable after all, both for legal scholarship and for law students' education.
"@DJM What are some examples of part time jobs that could be hidden away in U of C's and Yale's reports?"
ReplyDeleteExactly. I don't know what the hell DJM is talking about in her praising of MSU's method (with its 20% salary reporting rate) over U of Chicago's.
12:33 please learn brevity. I wanted to see the contradiction you were talking about, but after a few paragraphs I decided you were too long winded and not worth my attention. However, if you would like to repost your thesis in three sentences I'll consider it.
ReplyDelete"And, please, don’t resort to the bunk about how Yale’s prestige is self-perpetuating and employers only care about the name of the school on the diploma –- it’s a weak dodge. At best, it explains only some and not all of the results; at worst, since there is zero evidence to support it, it may be either made up or, if true, indicts legal hiring practices so devastatingly as to have the same effect of wholly undermining the skills thesis (if employers are that obsessed with prestige, everyone who didn’t go to HYS might as well go home).
ReplyDeleteWe may just have to accept that law professors' theoretical orientation is, in fact, valuable after all, both for legal scholarship and for law students' education."
LOL
"everyone who didn’t go to HYS might as well go home"
ReplyDeleteIdeally, it stops being your home after you can vote.
No one said that Yale graduates get jobs because of legal theory, its because they have to be geniuses to get into Yale.
ReplyDeleteDJM, I think the most crucial missing component from the Chicago numbers is a breakdown of temporary versus permanent employment. Of course this distinction is going to be almost meaningless at a T6, since almost all of the "temp" jobs will be federal judicial clerkships. But at the median law school an enormous percentage -- more than a quarter -- of the nine-month out jobs are temporary jobs other than federal or state supreme court clerkships. Far more people whose employment status is known are in temporary positions (27%) than part-time (11%).
ReplyDeleteUnderemployment is a huge element of the crisis, and grads moving from one temp job to another make up perhaps the single biggest piece of that phenomenon.
DJM and Law Prof, how will it be determined that a job is temporary? Will the graduates be the source of this information?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, biglaw is effectively temporary these days (meaning it probably will not last more than one or maybe two years).
ReplyDeleteLawProf: Strange choice of comment to post -- when I read it, it didn't suggest anything to me about what some "reform movement" is up against but, instead, that there actually is no "reform movement," just a small group of people (including you) shouting the same things at each other over and over again with nobody else paying attention.
ReplyDelete10:28 -- What is the "gaping hole" in his argument?
I think that the problem with the comment is that he appears to label everyone as a whiner who was only looking for a big payday.
ReplyDeleteFor the folks that actually did blindly rush in looking for a big payday and are now whining about not finding it, his comment is more or less valid. However, for most of the folks who really can't find any employment that allows for the service of loans and to pay rent and 3 bowls of Ramen Noodles per day his comment totally misses the mark.
"What is the "gaping hole" in his argument"
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding?
The people commenting on the Fish article are so absolutely clueless its scary. Pontificating about "ideas" and "passion." Here's a passionate idea - pay off the student loans that helped support your little fantasy about ideals and the law. You like it so much you can pay for it.
ReplyDelete12:33 makes a point. The "skills thesis" is not the main problem with law school. The main problem with law school is the supply/demand problem. When supply is small and demand is high (such as it is for graduates of the #1 ranked law school) employment comes easy without any particular skills training.
ReplyDeleteThe saturation of the job market is THE problem. If this problem were to correct itself, complaints about skills would go away (mostly). In some ways, I think focusing on skills does distract from the larger problem and undermines the credibility of the "scam" movement.
I think the "skills-thesis" is two things. First, its an attack on law professors, an attempt to to lower the status of law professors and to this end it is is motivated purely out of spite for them. It's that, and its also a defense/explanation/justification for the unemployed. You can't just "hang a shingle" when you have no skills.
Sigh.
ReplyDeleteAnother person jumping to conclusions that the only reason someone in their 20s went to law school today was to make big bucks.
No, none of the 20 somethings went to law school because they wanted to help people - such noble aspirations only belong to other generations. As for everyone else complaining about the whiners, can some individuals point out without being a whiner that the high cost of law school is preventing very good, dedicated, and talented people from entering the profession - people who want to make a difference?
As someone who is not in her 20s, I think it's interesting that the 20 somethings are all categorized as whiners for pointing out something that those of us who are older in the profession should have pointed out long ago: the greediness of the law schools is really changing the profession from one that use to be a noble one to one that encourages and is all about greed. Mabye the older and more established attorneys are simply angry that they weren't the ones who pointed this out.
Has anyone called him to ask for a job yet? Tell him you will work for $50,000 because you want justice and to help people.
ReplyDeleteLawProf: does CU have data as comprehensive as U of Chicago? At a minimum they must have more data than is currently on their website. Have you advocated providing more disclosure to the administration/faculty (I'm guessing you have)? if so, how have they argued that CU shouldn't provide more disclosure? You can talk about this in the abstract if your hands are tied by confidentiality.
ReplyDeleteWhy would you assume that LawProf has that kind of influence at CU?
ReplyDelete1:57 here again: I posted the comment above before I actually looked at CU's website assuming that it was pretty space. There are actually some good things on the site, for example, the NALP biomodal distribution of salaries. However, one thing that was shocking/disturbing was that I couldn't find the percentage of graduates reporting for the medium/maximum salaries. Maybe I'm just an idiot and overlooked it, but if it really isn't there then that is just embarrassing.
ReplyDelete2:20 If the faculty meetings at CU are anything like they were at the law school I worked at then you could easily advocate for such a change and start a discussion on the topic. I'm not saying you could necessarily influence change, but you could get people to express the rationale for limiting disclosure.
ReplyDelete12:33 and 1:33. 12:33 is wrong. The skills issue is a real issue. 1:33 you are correct in saying that there is a saturation issue, but that is only for positions that provide actual on-the-job training. It is not true for overall demand for legal services.
ReplyDeleteThe skills issue is a real issue. If a student after paying $160,000 for an education, and dedicating 7 days a week 8 to 15 hours a day cannot feel confident enough to hang a shingle, there is a problem plain and simple.
The Law curriculum is designed so that it expects students have to a certain level of "soft skills" prior to arriving. The LSAT does not weed out whether a person contains these skills. Not all students arrive equally. In addition, the format of classes throws so much at a student at once, that it becomes close to impossible for a student to diagnose a missing skill. The skills are not isoltated. As a result, it is not uncommon for a student to graduate having missed some of the essential "legal skills" associated with "thinking like a lawyer". Rather, the student developed complex coping mechanisms to get through law school. It is only when students get real experience do they realize whether they learned skill, or coping mechanism. The problem with the latter is that it may not transfer to real world application. Skills will always transfer.
Having been a student who found out too late that he was missing some essential skills, I can tell you the difficulty in identifying them. I can also tell you it extremely difficult to get help to correct them. It is also an experience I wish on nobody.
Now you can blame the victim, but if the student is near the top 15% fo the class, that is a curriculum problem. Short and simple.
ReplyDeleteTeaching skills can be academically rigorous and can support and enhance theory education. One should not be taught to the exclusion of the other. Making something unnecessary confusing or challenging, for the sake of making it confusing or challenging for the purpose of creating stress, is not teaching theory, rigor or challenging - its hazing, and counter productive to actual work place norms or student learning.
The purpose in investing in an education versus doing an apprentice program like some states offer is to develop efficiency skills over such skills you could garner from an apprencticeship program. The hope is your education add more value so that you would be more attractive to an employer and clients. For those who could not get a public interest job that provides real training and mentoring, and for those who come from schools where the big firms do not recruit heavily, skill training is essential.
A $1500 to $2200 month payment before IBR payment is a scary thing. It is a scarier thing when you are mid-career student and not a 20 something student. However, the debt and job prospects were risks that I evaluated prior to law school. I accept those without complaint.
I struggle with the fact, that I don't have any valuable skills that I offer to a small firm. While no one is expecting law school turnout turn key lawyers right out of law school. One would expect that a new graduate of law school to have more skills and knowledge than a paralegal or legal secretary, and thus add value to a small firm. Unfortunately, many of us have heard and been told repeatedly that is not the case. We have even been turned down for those positions as a result.
I am not saying everyone graduates without the necessary skills. But schools do pick and choose within the school who gets helps and who doesn't. Help, Coaching, and mentoring is not provided equally. Thus two students from the same class at the same school can graduate miles apart skill development wise. That is a problem, especially when grades do not reflect the disparity.
So to your point that lawschools are doing more skill training than ever before. That is a good thing. No one contests that. But just because the amount of skills being taught is more than before, it does not mean that the quality and amount of training a student receives before graduation is sufficient or that the training is provided equally across the class. As a result, the advances while trending in the right direction, fall short for many graduates.
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ReplyDelete@12:33 p.m.:
ReplyDelete"The reason (that Yale grads are hired over those from TTTs the nation over) might just be that a Yale-style education produces a more sophisticated, nuanced mind more capable of dealing with the challenges of law practice."
Or maybe people who hire at law firms are as preoccupied with branding as any prospective law student with a 4.0 UGPA and a 175 LSAT, and Yale wins?
Certainly clients are so impressed with the value of a Yale-style education (from Yale, even!) that they ask firms who predominantly hire their graduates not to assign them to their cases until they have had firm-specific training on how to do things like actually practicing law. Fortunately, the social network that comes with the standard Yale cachet package can get most of Yale's graduates a job: the sort of job where they can learn how to perform these rote tasks that are so incredibly easy that top law firms pay the most expensive new lawyers in the country to spend six months learning them after law school.
This claim that there's a theory/skills split makes me crazy. There's theory about doctrine. There's theory about process. Neither is taught a whole heck of a lot in most law schools. Then there's doctrine (the meat and potatoes of law school) and process (the red headed step child of law school). We like to talk about theory because it sounds fancy. But there is VERY little deliberate teaching of theory in law school. Like skills training, it seeps in here and there.
ReplyDeleteIn other words - appellate cases =/= theory.
ReplyDeleteYale can place it's graduates because Yale students are among the smartest law students in the country. Firms want to be able to tell clients their legal work is being handled by Yale, Harvard, and Stanford graduates. This is overwhelmingly the reason that Yale graduates have much better job prospects.
ReplyDeleteLet's say you attend a lower ranked law school that teaches you everything about how to represent a giant corporation in a merger. Then a firm hires you over a Yale graduate. What do you offer the firm? You're not getting clients, that's the partner's job. You're not going to be directing the diligence or the substantive aspects of the deal- that's a job for the midlevels and seniors. You're going to be doing the same monkey-work that the other juniors from "top" schools who took classes in underwater basket-weaving law are going to be doing. And by the time you are put into a position where you are able to use what you learned, a few years into your career, the other juniors are going to have picked up everything they need to know from watching the more experienced associates, and whatever "advantage" you had is going to be nullified.
The failure to teach skills is only a real problem when the response of the schools, the profession and the society at large looks at new graduates who can't find work because of simple math, i.e. more attorneys for every available job, and say what's the problem? You've got the degree- go practice.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is exactly what is going on these days.
In other words, BigLaw (and maybe lots of other employers, I'm not sure) doesn't care all that much what you learned in law school. They just care about the signaling that high grades at a good school accomplishes.
ReplyDeleteGood point 2:51. I'd also say that law school's failure to teach skills (rigorously and well) probably does impact lawyers' ability to effectively serve their clients. It just doesn't (much?) impact new grads' ability to get a job.
ReplyDeleteIt's a little ironic to tell a law graduate after 6-8 years of post-secondary education, with a mid six figure investment, to not expect to make six figures of income after graduation.
ReplyDeleteIt's even more ironic that I've yet to see someone advocating the above in the legal profession make less than six figures per year.
2:45 You are incorrect. What it enables you is the ability not to be beholdent to Big firms. It allows you to either join a boutique practice specializing in such transactions and add immediate value, make lateral transfers, or start your own firm, assuming you can attract clients for such transactions.
ReplyDeleteI just came in here to pose and flex.
ReplyDeleteLet me explain in more detail why the Chicago/Yale approach is a poor model for 2010. First, I'm talking only about 2010 info. I'll say more about 2011 and future years in a separate post. But 2010 is very important because those numbers are having an effect right now, as current applicants finish up their applications and start weighing their admissions. I would really like to get the best possible info to those students--and the Chicago/Yale model isn't the right one for most law schools *this year.*
ReplyDeleteFor 2010 grads, the schools have stopped collecting data; they're already deep into gathering info from 2011 grads. So it's too late to get more salary info from 2010 grads at any school--no matter how much we might wish to have it. (And note that even Yale collected salary data from only 81% of its employed grads--far less than Chicago managed and, notably, less than it collected in either 2008 or 2009.)
But all of the schools *do* have data on whether 2010 jobs required a JD, whether the jobs were full or part-time, and whether the jobs were paid for by the law school. Those 3 pieces of information aren't perfect, but they can go a long way toward exposing the real employment outcomes for 2010.
Of these key pieces, Chicago disclosed only the first. That may be fine for Chicago--they may have no grads in PT jobs or school-funded positions. But for other schools, who do have a significant number of 2010 grads with part-time work and/or jobs funded by the law school, omitting that information leads to very misleading statistics.
On that score, it's interesting to look a little more closely at Yale's disclosures. In a footnote, Yale reported that all of its grads had FT jobs--which is what I would expect. But another footnote discloses that, even at Yale: "The public interest and government percentages include a significant number of fellowship positions." There is then a link to the Yale funded fellowships.
I'm not worried about this for Yale grads--their school-funded positions probably are quite prestigious and may offer great opportunities. Some may even have pre-dated the recession. But this FN disclosure is a very bad model for most other law schools. If other law schools omit information about part-time jobs and/or school-funded fellowships, or put the info in small-print footnotes as Yale did, the 2010 data for those schools will be quite misleading. And the schools will be able to say that they are "following the lead of Yale and Chicago," which will give this method of "disclosure" a strong stamp of approval. That's what I see as the problem here.
If we could persuade all schools to disclose the data they have already collected for 2010, those data would be shockingly revealing. They don't have the full salary info we want, but they do have numbers that show very low (declining by tier) percentages of grads employed in FT jobs requiring a JD. Even without full salary info, having all of the other info would make it much easier to show applicants that the missing salaries almost certainly fall below the 25th percentile. I've already offered to make those sorts of demos for LST, but we need the data on PT work and school-funded jobs, as well as the limited salary info and JD-required status.
I don't think Chicago and Yale did this on purpose (although Yale's footnote disclosures bother me somewhat), but their model could inadvertently harm the dissemination of 2010 data. If I and others had from all schools the type of 2010 data that Michigan State and Hastings have disclosed, we could paint a fairly realistic--and very, very grim--picture for law school applicants. That's why I'm concerned about this--we need better data immediately for this year's applicants.
The last time David Nacht was looking to hire a new associate, he was seeking someone with experience:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.michiganemploymentrights.com/tp-110213135136/post-111021054353.shtml
So I guess that when he said his firm was looking for someone with "significant deposition and motion practice experience," what he actually meant was that they were looking for someone with three years experience in sitting in classrooms, being questioned by professors about useless and impractical nuances and theories.
I do however find it puzzling that there is no mention of "passion" as a requirement for the job.
DJM:
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right. The 2010 info I've managed to gather so far is simply shocking. The 2011 info is worse. BTW I only recently learned that NALP doesn't even gather data on temporary versus permanent employment -- only the ABA and USNWR (both of whom are two years behind in their publication schedules) request that from law schools. That needs to change.
Looking toward 2011 and future years, of course I think we should press law schools to gather and publish as much salary data as possible. In that sense, the Chicago/Yale disclosures are useful. But there is an upper limit on reaching that goal, one that is drawn by grads themselves. A large number of Americans consider their salary very private information--they won't reveal it to their best friends, much less to a career services office. I'm not trying to make excuses for schools here; I know that many aren't trying hard enough to get the salary data.
ReplyDeleteBut at the end of the day, a lot of graduates won't disclose their salary to anyone--not to an anonymous surveyor, their best friend, their classmate, LST, LawProf, or any other person/institution you could name. If people were willing to share their salaries, transparency would be easy: Grads themselves would easily gather the data through social media networks and we would have the data already available.
Schools currently infer a lot of their published salary data from published sources; NALP and the ABA allow them to do this. The starting salaries at big firms, for clerkships, and for certain government jobs are public info. Once a school knows that a grad has landed one of those positions, it can report the publicly known salary, even if the grad doesn't report it. But for other positions, like working for DJM and Associates, the starting salary isn't public. Unless the grad is willing to report the amount to the school, that salary will remain unreported.
In pressing for more transparency, it's important to remember that there are three reasons for skewed salary data: (1) Schools may not try as hard to get data from low-placed grads as from high-placed ones; (2) grads with high salaries are more likely to report than those with low salaries; and (3) big firm and government salaries are more likely to be matters of public knowledge. Pressure on law schools can address the first problem (maybe) but can't fix the other two roots of this problem. And my guess is that the second two problems are as big or bigger than the first; gathering reliable salary information is a challenge in any type of surveying. (Note, for example, that the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers info from payrolls, *not* individual reporting. That produces another problem: Lawyer "salaries" are reported only for those who are employees--not for those who are partners or solo practitioners.)
This perennial challenge of gathering salary data, is why I think it is so essential to keep gathering other types of info about starting law jobs (PT v. FT, funded by school, more specific job titles). I agree with LawProf that it would be good to gather info about temporary status, although that is harder to define. Just adding more fine-grained job titles to the disclosure list--which I think LST advocated at the very beginning--would do a lot. I may not be able to get Grad X to tell me her salary, but she probably will tell me if she's a traditional associate, a "career associate," a document reviewer, etc. The latter info can be paired with more general knowledge about salaries in those categories to help applicants make better decisions about both the type of job they might get after graduation and what that job would pay.
I'm going to try, by the way, to get the fullest salary data I can for the 2010 grads of my school--through a separate anonymous survey with a small reward (e.g., an iTunes download) for completing the survey. If it works, that may provide a model for how schools can gather better salary data. But one reason I advocate for gathering/disclosing other types of info is that the salary numbers are hard to get out of people. And I can't do my survey until I write a full proposal for our human subjects review committee and get it approved--gathering salary info as a researcher is that sensitive.
LawProf--I think my last post (on gathering salary info) went into the spam filter. Could you rescue it if you have a chance--or let me know if I need to repost? Although I don't blame your filter for rejecting the second of two long posts in a row :)
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, even the Chicago and Yale figures show how bad 2010 was: At Chicago, the percentage employed at law firms fell from 80% to 71%, and a quarter of the class earned $63,000 or less. And that's not all judicial clerkships--there's a clear migration from private practice to government/public interest jobs. I'm a big fan of grads choosing the latter, but I doubt that was all personal choice at Chicago's tuition levels. And then there's the notable decline in Yale's reported salaries and their grads in school-funded fellowships. Still very rosy compared to other schools that have made disclosures, but quite revealing in its own way.
1. Re: your statement, "So it's too late to get more salary info from 2010 grads at any school--no matter how much we might wish to have it"
ReplyDeleteYes, it's metaphysically impossible to get that salary data. It would take two or three days of phone calls by a $12/hour secretary, which on a difficulty and realism level is akin to asking for a manned mission to Mars.
2. Re: your statement, "But all of the schools *do* have data on whether 2010 jobs required a JD, whether the jobs were full or part-time, and whether the jobs were paid for by the law school. Those 3 pieces of information aren't perfect, but they can go a long way toward exposing the real employment outcomes for 2010."
These buckets are completely misleading because the data is garbage. A large percentage of students with "full time legal jobs" actually do not have them, but they are counted in this category because the schools lie. They can lie because they are not required to get salary information (the salary information would expose the lie). For example, someone interning for free or for $10/hour can be counted in this bucket. Someone who the school heard has a full time job can be counted in this bucket ("we heard from so and so that they were working at a small firm . . ."). There are hundreds of other devious ways to put people in this bucket when you don't have to verify the job by collecting salary data.
Actually, a correction, they can lie because they are not required to get salary information AND because the data is not independently audited.
ReplyDeleteAssuming 400 students in a school, and assuming very generously that it takes one hour of work to track down and get each student's information (this is a ridiculous overestimate but any way) . . . even assuming all of that it would take only 400 hours - or $4,800 @ $12/hour - to get this data for a 400 person graduating class.
ReplyDeleteOne professor could get two research assistants and finish the project in a month for their school. Heck professors make $5,000 in literally two weeks.
We need to please stop this "the data is impossible to get" self imposed limitation.
Any Canadian lawyers here? It seems that there are no Canadian law school's with 75% LSAT's lower than the upper 150's; why is this? In your experience are the students any sharper, does the score cut-off exclude large numbers of visible minorities? Full disclosure I had a GPA under 3.0 and an LSAT in the lower 150's, I now have a legal job, all of which I guess would have been highly unlikely in Canada.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I'm sorry to be harsh but Chicago's data is absolutely outstanding, and a model to be emulated. Chicago's 200 person class size is also a sign that they are a school that values academics not revenue. I know it's Leiter's school, but you have to give them their due credit.
ReplyDelete7:25. Aren't Canadian law schools directly funded by the government? Maybe the government refuses to open unnecessary law schools.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding find 6:26.
ReplyDelete"And I can't do my survey until I write a full proposal for our human subjects review committee and get it approved--gathering salary info as a researcher is that sensitive."
ReplyDeleteWhat is the rationale behind this rule?
DJM It is pretty much conceded that 2010 was a disastrous year all around. The preliminary signs are that 2011 will be somewhat better. The big firms have increased their hiring slightly, but have not been doing deferrals. Prospective grads who are applying to top schools should be looking at several years worth of data-- 2008 through 2011-- when it is available-- and not just key in on 2010.
ReplyDeleteAs for gathering salary info, you can't make people tell you how much money they make. You can ask. You can estimate, but estimating will bring the charge of fudging.
"As for gathering salary info, you can't make people tell you how much money they make."
ReplyDelete1. University of Chicago's statistics have a 94% salary reporting rate.
2. If only a tiny portion of graduates is telling you their salary, then don't use that group's data to represent the entire class's salary.
Right, and that can be solved by stating how many people responded when asked their salaries.
ReplyDelete5:22: Why would a boutique firm hire a recent graduate when they can hire an experienced biglaw associate who has actually worked on client matters? Associate attrition is built into the biglaw model and those associate have to go somewhere.
ReplyDeleteEven if they wanted to, there are not enough boutique firms offering jobs to entry-level graduates to focus a law school curriculum around making their graduates attractive to these firms. If a school did, they would quickly find that they would be unable to attract talented professors and their US News ranking would fall as a result of this hit to their "reputation score."
8:49 p.m.: The rules on human subject research are designed to protect a wide variety of interests, from physical harm (as in biomedical research) to privacy interests. In the case of gathering salary data, it's primarily privacy interests. The biggest risks are that an unscrupulous researcher will pressure individuals into giving information they don't want to reveal, will disclose data about individuals, or will treat sensitive data carelessly.
ReplyDeleteAs applied to me gathering salary info, the risks might be that I would pressure graduates to tell me their salary info by threatening to withhold recommendations; that I might post here salary details that one of you could trace to a particular individual; that I might gossip with my faculty colleagues about what particular grads earn ("Do you remember that idiot, Y? He's earning $120,000, while good old X is getting only $30,000!"); or that I might leave the salary data on an unsecured laptop that gets stolen.
To help guard against those risks, the federal government requires researchers to file statements fully outlining the research they will do, the specific guarantees they will give subjects, and the steps they will take to safeguard data. These rules apply to any researcher at a federally funded institution--even if the individual researcher doesn't herself get federal money. And even federally backed student loans count as "money to the institution" so these rules apply to just about any researcher in higher education.
It's a lot of paperwork, but I take it seriously because there have been a lot of ethical abuses in human subject research over history. And it's too easy for each researcher to say "oh, I won't do anything wrong--why should this apply to me?"
The research rules don't apply to career services offices because they're gathering institutional data rather than conducting "research." Although it's an interesting question--at some point they might actually cross the line into research and then some of the above rules would apply. Simply as an ethical matter, I do think CSOs should follow rules like the ones that govern researchers. No matter how much we want the salary data, no grad should feel pressured into revealing it. And it's important for CSOs to maintain confidentiality (on the individual level) of salary data they do collect. But the CS people I know are already careful about that.
Those are the guidelines in a nutshell. Believe me, they weren't created by professors! But I think they're important for forcing researchers to think about the possible risks of their research for the subjects.
I think you should have titled this post as "Precious" rather than Stop Your Sobbing. #caring
ReplyDelete9:25, no that disclosure is not sufficient. If I write 4.0/4.0 GPA on my resume it is a fraudulent statement, even if I disclose that it was based on 4 courses. You would also need to disclose the fact that those salaries are not representative of the group, which no school does.
ReplyDeleteDJM how do the career services surveys get around that rule?
ReplyDelete"Why are they any different than factory workers, farmers or any other Americans?"
ReplyDeleteNo one shits on factory workers when they complain about their factory being shutdown, being unable to find a job. So yes, why are lawyers any different?
Does having the gift of intelligence, or the desire to use such a gift, somehow make you unworthy of sympathy?
What a bunch of b.s. This goes way beyond the problems of law school.
ReplyDeleteWe spend hundreds of thousands of dollars "educating" people and what do we get for it? Most Americans today can't even balance a checkbook, or prepare the a basic meal from scratch. Yet we have "educators" like Stanley Fish and Leiter who always try to claim there isn't enough of the theoretical and that our society is worse off for it. If high school isn't enough to soak up this garbage, isn't college enough? Now we need even more of this philosophical-psycho babble in law school? Really? Most of the German philosophers that Leiter gets off on were deranged psychopaths, drug addicts, and perverts. I hear that the Nazis were really into it. Students would be better off today spending more time taking basic personal finance, or watching old Julia Child episodes on PBS. Maybe they would know how to roast a chicken and not have to stuff their faces with McDonalds or other processed crap. No wonder the legal system and America is screwed up.