Updated below
In the wake of much criticism regarding the lack of transparency in their employment numbers, Columbia and NYU have just posted most of their data they reported to NALP for their graduating classes of 2010. The numbers are rather curious. For one thing, the NALP reporting deadline for the class of 2011 was two weeks ago, so we can assume that these schools simply chose not to post the most recent data they have compiled regarding employment outcomes for their graduates.
In the wake of much criticism regarding the lack of transparency in their employment numbers, Columbia and NYU have just posted most of their data they reported to NALP for their graduating classes of 2010. The numbers are rather curious. For one thing, the NALP reporting deadline for the class of 2011 was two weeks ago, so we can assume that these schools simply chose not to post the most recent data they have compiled regarding employment outcomes for their graduates.
As for the 2010 stats, Columbia reports that 415 out of 430 graduates were employed nine months after graduation, and that 76.1% of employed graduates were working for law firms. According to the school, 68.7% (285) of employed graduates were working for firms of more than 250 attorneys, while another 3.1% (13) were working for firms of 101 to 250 attorneys.
Let’s compare these numbers with last year’s National Law Journal’s annual survey of the nation’s 250 largest law firms, published in February of 2011. In 2010 the smallest of the 250 largest firms in the country employed 160 lawyers. Note that the NLJ survey includes all attorneys (partners, partner-track associates, “permanent” associates, staff attorneys, of counsel attorneys) who work for these firms, with the exception of “temporary or contract attorneys.”
What this means, of course, is that according to Columbia somewhere between 285 and 298 of its 2010 graduates were working for NLJ250 firms, depending on how many of the 13 graduates purportedly working for firms of between 101 and 250 lawyers were working for firms with 160 lawyers or more. Surprisingly (or maybe not, given what we’ve learned about this subject over the course of the last couple of years) NLJ 250 firms reported only 239 2010 Columbia grads working for such firms. This is not, needless to say, a trivial discrepancy.
What could account for this? One possibility is that NLJ250 firms are misreporting their data. Another is that graduates are misreporting their employment status. We can measure the extent to which one or both of these things are likely to be true by looking at the employment statistics posted by other law schools, and comparing them to the NLJ250 numbers. We can do this by adding together all the graduates a school lists as having jobs with firms of 250+ lawyers (since all these firms are in the NLJ250) and then making an estimate of what proportion of their graduates listed as being with firms of 101-250 lawyers are with NLJ250 firms. The latter step is slightly speculative, but since at elite schools very few people get jobs with the latter category of firms this isn’t too big of a practical obstacle. Since there are probably quite a few more firms with 101 to 159 lawyers than there are firms with 160 to 250, we can estimate that perhaps a third of graduates employed by 101-250 lawyer firms are with NLJ250 firms.
Using this method, Columbia’s self-reported employment statistics for the class of 2010 contain exactly 50 more BigLaw jobs than are attested by the NLJ250 stats -- 46 with firms of 250+ lawyers, and four with firms of between 160 and 250 lawyers. This represents nearly one out of every five 2010 Columbia graduates who supposedly got jobs with big firms.
Now let’s compare this estimate to those which can be extracted from similarly ranked law schools’ self-reported data.
Chicago: Chicago reports 136 2010 grads working for law firms. Of these, 112 are working for firms of more than 250 lawyers, while five are working for firms of 101-250 lawyers. Range of possible NLJ hires: 112-117. We would predict Chicago would place 114 2010 grads with NLJ250 firms. The actual number reported by NLJ was 115.
Michigan: Michigan reports 160 grads working for firms of more than 250 lawyers and 20 working for firms of 101-250. Range 160-180. This predicts a total of 167 2010 grads with NLJ 250 firms. NLJ reported 158.
Virginia: Virginia reports 177 grads with firms of more than 250 lawyers and 13 with firms of `101-250. Range 177-190. Predicted total of NLJ250 jobs: 181. NLJ reported total: 175.
Penn: Predicted total: 153. Range 149-160. NLJ reported total: 145.
Obviously all these numbers are close enough that the fairly minor discrepancies between the data reported by the schools and that reported by NLJ could be accounted for by a handful of graduates misreporting their status, and/or inaccuracies in our estimates regarding how many graduates in the 101-250 lawyer firm category are actually with NLJ250 firms. (Note that all the law school numbers correlate almost precisely with the NLJ250 numbers if one simply disregards the ambiguous 101-250 firm category).
What about NYU? For the class of 2010, NYU reported 480 employed graduates, with 61.7% of these graduates (296) working for law firms. Of these, 91.2% (270) were said to be working for firms of more than 250 attorneys, while 3.7% (11) were supposedly working for firms of 101 to 250 lawyers, meaning that we would predict the NYU class of 2010 placed 273 attorneys with NLJ250 firms. In fact the school placed 209.
Remarkably, NYU’s stats appear to be even more inaccurate than those of its intra-city rival. Columbia and NYU claimed to have placed approximately 562 2010 graduates with NLJ 250 firms – indeed the minimum they could have possibly placed according to their own stats is 555, with a maximum of 579 – when in fact they placed only 448. In other words, collectively Columbia and NYU overstated the BigLaw placement rate for their 2010 graduates by between 23.9% and 29.25%.
Whoops.
Update: After some conversations with the National Law Journal, I've learned they employ a survey methodology that doesn't rely solely on responses from firms (even though "the vast majority" of firms reply to the survey per the magazine), and which seems quite comprehensive (hence the very high reporting rate from firms regarding hiring from top ten schools other than the New York pair). I've also learned that, unlike its calculation of firm size, which counts all attorneys other than temporary contract workers, the law school placement survey counts only partner-track associates. This could, I suppose, account for at least some of the discrepancies in the CLS and NYU numbers, if a very disproportionate number of their grads are taking "career associate" and temporary contract attorney positions straight out of law school in comparison to other top ten schools. Why that would be the case is something that would require an explanation.
Update II: To fill out the picture a little I calculated the number of 2010 graduates employed by firms of 250+ lawyers at some other schools, as reported by those schools, and compared it to the number of graduates reported by the NLJ to be employed by NLJ250 firms.
Update: After some conversations with the National Law Journal, I've learned they employ a survey methodology that doesn't rely solely on responses from firms (even though "the vast majority" of firms reply to the survey per the magazine), and which seems quite comprehensive (hence the very high reporting rate from firms regarding hiring from top ten schools other than the New York pair). I've also learned that, unlike its calculation of firm size, which counts all attorneys other than temporary contract workers, the law school placement survey counts only partner-track associates. This could, I suppose, account for at least some of the discrepancies in the CLS and NYU numbers, if a very disproportionate number of their grads are taking "career associate" and temporary contract attorney positions straight out of law school in comparison to other top ten schools. Why that would be the case is something that would require an explanation.
Update II: To fill out the picture a little I calculated the number of 2010 graduates employed by firms of 250+ lawyers at some other schools, as reported by those schools, and compared it to the number of graduates reported by the NLJ to be employed by NLJ250 firms.
Duke: 82 grads listed with 250+ firms. 81 grads listed with NLJ250 firms.
Georgetown: 259 grads listed with 250+ firms. 242 grads listed with NLJ250 firms.
UCLA: 119 grads with 250+ firms. 123 grads with NLJ250 firms.
George Washington: 134 grads with 250+ firms. 127 grads with NLJ250 firms.
In short after analyzing the data from ten schools, at eight of those schools the number of grads reported by the schools to be working for firms of more than 250 lawyers was essentially the same as the number of grads reported by the NLJ to be working for NLJ250 firms.
For whatever reason, CLS and NYU remain huge outliers in this regard. How much so? The eight other schools list a total of 1196 2010 grads working for firms of 250+ lawyers. The NLJ lists 1170 2010 grads from those schools as working in partner-track positions at NLJ250 firms, i.e., a correlation of 97.8% between the two numbers. At CLS and NYU the correlation is 80.7% (448 of 555).
"Obviously all these numbers are close enough that the fairly minor discrepancies between the data reported by the schools and that reported by NLJ could be accounted for by a handful of graduates misreporting their status, and/or inaccuracies in our estimates regarding how many graduates in the 101-250 lawyer firm category are actually with NLJ250 firms."
ReplyDeleteIf the concern is about the precision (or lack of precision) of numbers, that is a major and problematic concession.
I wonder about smaller, fancy boutique-y firms that are more present in New York (and Los Angeles?). Do those employers represent enough hires to make a sizable difference in the NLJ numbers? Probably not, but worth thinking about.
ReplyDeleteNever mind - your post is specific enough to make 6:58 not an issue. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteOf course, the schools have also had the NLJ numbers for two weeks but reported these numbers anyway. This is beginning to resemble the bad comedy sketch where the husband denies there is a naked woman in his bed when his wife is standing there looking at the naked woman in his bed. "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes"?
ReplyDeleteIsn't there a time gap between the two reports that could explain the difference? The NALP numbers are almost exactly a year old, whereas the NLJ numbers are presumably from January or February of this year. It seems plausible that the 90 or so people who seem to have "disappeared" from NLJ250 firms (555 reported by CLS and NYU - 448 reported by NLJ) could have been working in NLJ firms as of March 2011, but not as of February 2012.
ReplyDeletePart of this is likely explained by attrition (layoffs, resignations, laterals, suicides), but it seems to me a large part of the decline is likely contract or temporary attorneys. Those who may have been doing doc review or due diligence at an NLJ250 firm in March of 2011 (and so were reported by the schools to NALP as employed by a 101+ person firm) but are no longer doing so as of February 2012.
This, if true, at least gets the schools off the hook for blatantly lying to NALP. It doesn't resolve the larger question of whether reporting contract/temp attorneys working in a basement in New Jersey for NLJ250 firms as "employed by" those firms.
Perhaps you want to look at both sides of this equation - are you so sure that the NLJ data is perfect? Did every firm in the 250 respond to their survey? Did they check the firms self-reported numbers against anything? If even 10% of the firms did not respond, and NLJ didn't do any research to fill in the numbers, then there could be substantial discrepancies with the school numbers without any bad behavior on the part of the schools. If you want transparency, demand it from the journalists too - how did they collect and verify their numbers? Did every single firm provide data? I don't think it's fair to accuse the law schools of misreporting by comparing it to data that may or may not be accurate or comprehensive.
ReplyDelete7:07 here.
ReplyDeleteThe obvious response to my post immediately above, which I'm not sure why I didn't realize when I posted it, is: if the time gap does explain the discrepancy, why doesn't it show up in the numbers for the other schools LawProf used as comparators?
I suppose there are two responses to that. First, I wonder what the numbers look like for schools beyond the 6 referenced in the post. Are there more with similar discrepancies to CLS and NYU, which would make the 4 comparators with no discrepancies--rather than CLS and NYU--the exceptional cases?
Second, part a: is it possible that CLS and NYU have more 2010 JDs who took jobs as contract or temp attorneys, or who have left the NLJ250 rolls in the year between March 2011 and February 2012? They are both NYC-centric (where most NLJ250 firms are) and they both have significantly larger class sizes than the comparators.
Second, part b: is there any evidence that CLS and NYU report contract/temp attorneys the same way they report partner-track associate attorneys, whereas the other schools may report them as unemployed? I can't imagine this is the case, but maybe.
In any event, my hypothesis (that the discrepancy is explained by attrition and contract/temp attorneys) may be completely incorrect, in which case this is all moot.
@7:13, that was really my point at 6:21. Everyone should be as precise as possible-- the schools and those subjecting them to scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteThere's another way to explain this discrepancy: "staff attorney," "doc review attorney," and other "less than associate" positions at law firms. People holding these positions aren't posted on their firm's website. They add to the total count of attorneys at a given firm, but they're "invisible" from an outside perspective. I should know--I worked at a big firm that employed 2010 Columbia grads to do paralegal-level work for $20/hr and no benefits. Not all big firm jobs are created equal.
ReplyDeleteLawProf is a genius. I love this blog more and more every day. I wish that the site had a "Best of" section so that I could efficiently forward them on.
ReplyDeleteI should know--I worked at a big firm that employed 2010 Columbia grads to do paralegal-level work for $20/hr and no benefits.
ReplyDeleteSounds rough.
The Brooklyn Law School 2010 grads are selling candy bars on the subway, and stealing rims by putting cars on milk crates, seventies style.
@7:23
ReplyDeleteI posited that in 7:07 (and refuted myself, to a degree, in 7:17). I ask you the same questions I put to myself in the 2nd post: why would CLS and NYU have so many more staff attorneys than the 4 schools LawProf used as comparators, who apparently have a near-zero number?
@7:21 - of course, everyone should be, but LawProf's initial post seemed to think that the only sources of this discrepancy were schools/graduates misreporting or his own calculations in the 100-250 group. Nowhere does he seem to entertain the thought that the NLJ 250 list might be inaccurate, or that it might not tell the whole story. LawProf has the clout to ask NLJ to disclose their methodology of collecting and verifying information, and that would be a good use of his time if he's going to try to determine if the schools really are lying.
ReplyDeleteI guess the question to ask is what is going on with Columbia and NYU compared to the other schools? Why would NLJ be more on target with the other schools Law Prof listed than with those schools. Could there be something going on in New York? I agree that it is strange to assume that one outfit is doing everything right-- with no verification of that-- while assuming that another outfit is lying, or has screwed up in some way, with no verification of that either.
ReplyDelete"This is beginning to resemble the bad comedy sketch where the husband denies there is a naked woman in his bed when his wife is standing there looking at the naked woman in his bed. "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes"?"
ReplyDelete---
Except for the fact that the husband is high powered and “desirable” and not only will the low self-esteem, needy (broke/desperate) wife accept the husband’s behavior and look the other way; the naked woman will stick around too.
In this world there's a few who have it all and then there's everyone else... left fighting among themselves like dogs; or blindly looking the other way.
For what it's worth, the NYC area is one of two major doc review hubs in the country (along with DC) and you will probably find more "staff attorneys" in those cities for that reason.
ReplyDelete@7:07 is likely correct.
ReplyDelete"Isn't there a time gap between the two reports that could explain the difference? The NALP numbers are almost exactly a year old, whereas the NLJ numbers are presumably from January or February of this year. It seems plausible that the 90 or so people who seem to have "disappeared" from NLJ250 firms (555 reported by CLS and NYU - 448 reported by NLJ) could have been working in NLJ firms as of March 2011, but not as of February 2012.
Part of this is likely explained by attrition (layoffs, resignations, laterals, suicides)..."
Up until 15 or 20 years ago, it was somewhat unusual to layoff first year associates, but it is now exceedingly common for biglaw firms to lay off first and second year associates. This often happens if a big litigation matter settles, if a rainmaker partner leaves, if workflow becomes less than anticipated, etc.
Given that most of the elite law schools are reporting data that is in-line with the NLJ estimates (i.e. Chicago, Michigan) why don't the New York law schools release their raw employment data to clear up this "discrepancy"?
ReplyDeleteHas it occurred to anyone that some of the explanations offered here for the discrepancy -- the schools may be counting contract attorneys, temps, doc and due diligence reviewers, hell, janitors for all I know -- represent, if these schools are reporting such people as "employed at a firm of over 250 attorneys," a level of integrity you would expect of a bag man trying to explain to the grand jury that he didn't actually "know" that all those envelopes he was delivering to judges and elected officials contained cash?
ReplyDeleteRPL
Awesome detective work, LawProf! I have been looking at the NLJ numbers for other reasons, and may be able to answer some of the commenters' questions.
ReplyDeleteFirst, although the NLJ surveys are a type of journalism, I think that law firms take this particular journalism pretty seriously. For law firms, these rankings are like USNWR for law schools--they want their stats and rankings to look good. My understanding is that NLJ gets a high response rate from firms. And the firms' incentive on this particular ranking, I think, would be to show as much new associate hiring as possible; that demonstrates their vigor to the market. Hopefully partners at some of these firms can comment on whether that's correct--or, more generally, on how firms respond to these surveys.
Second, NLJ takes data from both firms and law schools to compile these particular numbers. That increases reliability to me, because a double-check is built in.
Third, if there's a time-lag issue, it's different from the one mentioned in one of the comments. NLJ published these 2010 numbers a year ago (Feb. 2011), at the same time law schools reported their 2010 9-month figures to NALP. NLJ, in fact, has already reported its 2011 figures--the same numbers that law schools now have internally but haven't yet released. So there shouldn't be any discrepancy based on attrition.
Depending on how NLJ phrases its law firm survey, I can think of one "time-lag" issue that might affect some of the numbers. If NLJ asked the firms in late 2010 about 2010 JDs who "had joined" the firm, a firm might not report JDs scheduled to join in January or February (deferment dates that some firms were using). On the other hand, the law schools would report all graduates who had employment offers in hand--even if they hadn't yet started at the firm. Someone from a big firm or NLJ might be able to answer this.
It seems unlikely to me that this explains the discrepancies. In particular, it would be hard to explain why NYU and Columbia were particularly affected--although I suppose NY firms might have used different deferment practices than firms in other cities.
It seems to me that Columbia and NYU have a lot of explaining to do. Among other things, if Columbia really is placing so many of its grads at BigLaw firms, why are they pleading with alumni to pay for more of these interviews? I await Columbia's press release! As an alum, I'll let you know if some type of email response arrives.
Honestly, for the class of 2010, Chicago seems like the best bet of the bunch.
ReplyDeleteIf you add the above ~115 to the clerkship numbers 56 (http://www.law.uchicago.edu/students/careerservices/clerkships)
The school yielded an 85% chance of landing in a big firm or federal clerkship. Small schools for the win.
@RPL-- Not necessarily, the alternative explanations have arisen because we do not really know what is going on. That's part of the takeaway. Law Prof has hit upon something that warrants a deeper look and an explanation. We don't have either yet, so proceeding on the assumption that these identified schools have lied fits a favored narrative, but may not be true.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, the NYC area is one of two major doc review hubs in the country (along with DC) and you will probably find more "staff attorneys" in those cities for that reason.
ReplyDeleteBut then that would show up in UVA or Penn's numbers with the close proximity to DC/NY. Most UVA/Penn folks go to NY or DC. Keep in mind also that Columbia and NYU are the worst offenders in the transfer game - admitting 60-80 transfers a year and getting a lot of extra revenue from people paying full price in the bargain.
http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2012/02/transfer-game.html
The NLJ survey excludes "temporary or contract employees" from the "employed" category while the NALP survey seems to allow inclusion of these temporary workers.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.luc.edu/law/career/pdfs/NALP_Survey_FAQ.pdf
DJM, I appreciate your analysis, but we have only your say-so on the incentives for firms to respond and the checking with the law schools. NLJ doesn't say anything about the law schools (all they say is that the list is based on their survey of law firms) and we know nothing about what percentage reported (that being such a key transparency point for the law schools and salary, right?). All I'm suggesting is that if Campos is going to accuse the schools of lying, he should see if the NLJ data is perfect - we're talking pure quantities here and if some firms aren't reporting, then of course the quantities would be different. Any discrepancy could be explained by 20% of the firms not responding to the survey, especially if those are mostly NY firms. But he's assumed that the NLJ data is perfect and made serious accusations based on that, when we don't even know what methodology was used to collect and verify the data.
ReplyDeleteWhy would the firms get anything out of this "ranking" that would make them jump to participate? They're not ranked - the only thing the NLJ report shows about them is which schools they like to hire from, which is already pretty clear from their own self-reported list of where they interview. The only thing the "firm favorites" list really shows is which elite schools have the largest classes, and maybe which firms (out of the small number of firms shown) like to hire from a large number of schools. I can't imagine why this would get every single one of the 250 firms to participate, especially since there's no disclosure of the fact they did or didn't.
ReplyDelete9:12: The OP explicitly *didn't* assume the NLJ data was "perfect" -- it suggested that one possible explanation for discrepancies between law school reported data and NLJ250 data was misreporting on the part of firms. That's why I compared the CLS/NYU numbers with those of other schools placing large numbers of grads with NLJ 250 firms. It turns out that there's only a very minor discrepancy between the numbers those schools report and those reported by the firms -- a discrepancy that could be accounted for by just five people in each class who are working as temporary contract attorneys being reported (possibly inadvertently) by their schools as employed as associates with those firms.
ReplyDeleteBy contrast, there's an enormous discrepancy in the numbers reported by the two NY schools -- we're talking about more than 100 BigLaw jobs. Unless you've got some theory about why NLJ250 firms report their data accurately for elite schools other than CLS and NYU, but then report extremely inaccurate data for those schools, focusing on the possibility that the problem here is with firm reporting makes no sense.
Don't believe the hype at Columbia. I recently received a resume from a 2010 grad who was a Fiske Stone scholar. Oddly enough, the ad she was responding to was for a paralegal position. She had worked one year at Biglaw and was presumably laid off.
ReplyDelete@9:31pm Let's not be silly here. At no point has anyone argued that individual firms are misreporting their data for CLS and NYU grads but not for other grads. If a few individual firms misreported, the effect wouldn't be nearly this big, nor this localized. (If there's systemic misreporting, such as counting graduates in the year when they started in the firm, rather than with their graduating class, that would mess up the data, and who knows how it would affect individual schools. With bad survey directions, anything is possible.)
ReplyDeleteThe OP took into account that the firms might have "misreported" but not whether some percentage of firms didn't report at all (a percentage that the NLJ does not disclose). If every school placed equally across all the NLJ 250 firms, then your comment would make perfect sense, as would the OP's cross-comparison. But they don't place the same, and there are substantial geographic differences as well as individual firm differences. As I said, all that needs to happen is for 20% of the firms to not report, and for those to be NY firms, or firms that hire more heavily from Columbia and NYU, and there would be a major differential impact on those schools. If the other schools had most of the firms that they have students at report, their numbers would appear to be accurate, whereas any school where a large number of the firms where they place graduates not report would look inaccurate, when all that would be inaccurate would be the NLJ's data. And errors here tend to compound as class sizes get bigger.
Again, I'm happy to be proven wrong - but let's base this on proof, not a general assumption that the schools are evil. Just as everyone (rightly) screams bloody murder when the schools report salary medians based on only 30 percent of the class reporting, we should know what percentage of the firms reported - and which firms reported - before we go deciding that the schools are lying.
Lawprawf -- What did you think about the numbers of the other schools? Is there a different between larger/smaller schools in terms of employment outcomes, like the Chicago example?
ReplyDeleteFour years!!! in law school to get a US and Canadian law degree. Notice the article says that it reduces (the selling point) the time to get a law degree from both countries from 6 to 4 years! So, just add one more year of student loan debt!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202544638134&slreturn=1
@ 9:36-- what does that story tell us about the hype at Columbia? A person was hired, then may have been laid off. So,graduating from a particular law schools is a guarantor of lifetime employment?
ReplyDeletegraduating from a particular law schools is a guarantor of lifetime employment
ReplyDeleteAt one of the top five law schools in the country, in the largest legal market in the country, the payoff from a three year $150,000 plus investment was one year of legal employment.
If that isn't a relevant data point, I don't know what one would look like.
9:45. So your theory is that maybe 50 of the top 250 firms don't actually report their data, that the National Law Journal omits to mention this fact, and that these 50 firms just happen to hire a very disproportionate number of their associates from CLS and NYU relative to other top schools. Is that about right?
ReplyDeleteAt "terry malloy" I don't agree. I would not be dissuaded from attending CLS because someone told me on a blog that they knew of a Columbia graduate who worked at a large law firm and got laid off after one year. It would take better information than that. Better data is what Law Prof may, albeit in an imperfect way, trying to get at. The point is that anecdotes don't cut it.
ReplyDelete"may be, albeit..."
ReplyDeleteDJM: My experience in biglaw is that the incentives to report to AmLaw and NLJ are very much as you say. Firms are hugely sensitive to their rankings. And, while these data are nominally used to rank schools firms are not so naive as not to know that what they report goes into the NLJ database that will later be used to evaluate them. I also think you can assume the firms report accurately. This is not because law firms wouldn't fudge data for NLJ or AmLaw if they could; they fudge like law deans when they can get away with it. Rather its because this data is so easily assembled and so publicly available as to be unfudgable -- they have already published the composition of their first year class on their web site, in press releases and client updates and all sorts of other places. Its also cross checkable in bar directories, Martindale listings and many other places NLJ reporters can actually check. Unlike NYU and Columbia, few law firms are likely to report to NLJ data that contradicts other publicly available sources and will raise all kinds of awkward questions.
ReplyDeleteRPL
I didn't say it was a slam-dunk do not attend Columbia Law School data point. It shows how badly things can go for elite law school grads, for whom I generally could (couldn't?) give a fuck. This person got shafted and they we're supposed to succeed. How about your chances after three years and 150,000 of non-dischargable debt coming out of Brooklyn, NYLS, St. Johns, etc.
ReplyDeleteYou would have better chances at the battle of the Somme.
@ terry malloy-- the Somme? No you would not.
ReplyDelete"They were supposed to succeed"?! Do you know this person? Anyway, who says he or she won't succeed? Do you think life is determined by your success or failure at your first job?
Did anyone email Columbia and Nyu to see how they explain this discrepancy? I think it might be related to people losing jobs- like b1ly- through lathering and to people having contract jobs.
ReplyDeleteOr it is possible that Columbia and Nyu grads lie about their jobs. Lol.
I would like to hear the school's explanation.
@10:10 that's one theory. My point is not that that is guaranteed to be what happened, but that the OP's analysis assumes the perfection of the NLJ data with nothing to back it up, and doesn't apply the same demand for transparency to the NLJ that it does to the law schools. Get the NLJ to disclose what their data is based on before you decide that the data proves that schools are lying.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of assumption in this thread- we assume that firms report correctly, we assume all firms report, we assume that NLJ validates their data, we assume that what the firms report matches up with publicly reported data, we assume that any errors would affect all schools in the same way, None of these things is, at the moment, verfiable, as NLJ isn't disclosing their methodology, their percentage reporting, their list of firms reporting, or firm-by-firm data. Frankly, they can do this more readily than the schools- neither the firms nor the NLJ is subject to the privacy laws that schools are.
Why the willingness to assume that the NLJ and the firms are perfect? Why not demand transparency from them too?
@10:45:
ReplyDeleteDo you think life is determined by your success or failure at your first job?
Right now, out there (taps on glass of office window), the success of your legal career is. full stop. That's why I won't be a lawyer, even though I paid full freight for it. Never got my foot in the door.
At life, I am a success. I am a failed lawyer. I am upset that I was mislead into believing that failure was a rare event, when in fact is it common, and from my school likely.
@ 10:52, For the same reason that Terry Malloy gets mad at Columbia Law School when a graduate gets laid off, rather than at the law firm that laid the graduate off.
ReplyDeleteThe working theory of the "we don't know how these stats were assembled" person seems to be that it's possible 70% of Columbia and NYU grads got BigLaw jobs in 2010 (as the schools reported) but that the National Law Journal reported that only 55% and 50% did, respectively. Even if you knew nothing else about this issue, does it seem plausible that these schools would let such a significant error go uncorrected?
ReplyDeleteWhen law firms start convincing 22 year olds to take on 150,000 of non-dischargable debt I'll be the first to start shouting.
ReplyDeleteWhy the willingness to assume that the NLJ and the firms are perfect? Why not demand transparency from them too?
ReplyDeleteI have no reason to assume they're perfect, but the NLJ and the firms have no financial incentive to lie about the graduates they're employing, or not employing. Schools assuredly do.
also @ 10:45.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it would be ridiculous for success or failure at one's first job to determine one's life. The better approach would be to use one's first-year law school grades for that purpose.
As someone who with friends is establishing a firm - and whose main competitors are all AmLaw 250 or Magic Circle (or both) let me the clear that over the last few years if any of these journals ever ask us for information they get it. Being well regarded in these places helps you get over the "your hired who?!" problem - and corporate managers all know about the old "no-one ever got fired for buying IBM" shibboleth (that said we do not respond the the law firm surveys that come with a request that we buy advertising like the legal 500 (also because I used to get it for free as a GC, laugh at its listings for several cities and use it as a doorstop.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think the law firms answer the NLJ survey honestly - I think the law schools might not. Though giving how big the controversy is getting, you think law schools might try to be careful.
MacK
I agree with the guy arguing that the NLJ methodology is important. If more information can be obtained about that, it should be. However, I disagree with the idea that we must withhold judgment until that happens. We're long past the point where law schools deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to reporting salary and employment statistics. As far as I am concerned, they are all guilty until proven innocent.
ReplyDelete@11:13 - The NLJ also has no incentive to be comprehensive or even accurate. Why track down every single firm and get complete and accurate results if everyone takes what you say as gospel truth regardless?
ReplyDelete10:45, here. I am sorry to hear of your experiences. But failure, in one form or another, is always a possibility. You are right, some circumstances make it more likely. I have no idea where you went to school or what your story is. My only point was that going to a particular school does not guarantee lifetime employment-- or even long term employment. When I went to a firm, I knew that. I went knowing I did not want to stay. Of course, getting fired is different from deciding to leave. But, for me, the firm was a means to an end.
ReplyDeleteThe person we are discussing got a job, and may have been laid off in the wave that disrupted lots of people's lives. It's not surprising that now the lateral market is relatively hot because the firms acted hastily and have found themselves short of third and fourth year associates. There is no question that it's a tough scene out there.
For years, schools simply took their respondents' answers, at face value.
ReplyDeleteCheck out then-dean Carolyn Jones's email, when I asked why the school published a high salary of $750K.
http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/2009/12/open-letter-to-iowas-law-dean-and-her.html
"Thank you for your note regarding salaries for our law school graduates. The very high salary you note is quite high, but it is what was reported to us."
In essence, someone could have simply claimed to make $200K or $1 million, and the school would have accepted the figure as valid. By the way, anyone familiar with statistics would understand that you should discard the very high and ridiculously low end - as these outliers can skew the results. (The schools seem to have no problem not including the unemployed grads' income of $0 - when calculating average starting salary.)
It's weird, but having graduated in '09 it's still hard for me to believe some of this stuff. Not that I doubt it's truthfulness, it's just generally mind blowing to me. For example, my law school's tuition has increased by almost $15K since when I graduated. I see it, I know it happened, but it's still hard for me to accept that it's true.
ReplyDelete@1:14 Sort of like survivor's remorse (or in this case incredulity). I know, I have it as well.
ReplyDeleteJust curious about your analysis of Berkeley, Cornell and some of the other top schools. Are these drastic data discrepancies incidences isolated to NYU/Columbia. Or are some of the other T14 also fudging their numbers this way?
ReplyDeleteFrom NLJ's explanation of its methodology:
ReplyDelete"METHODOLOGY
Although most of the charts are self-explanatory, we've provided some information about the process, criteria and definitions. The lawyer totals are based on the average number of full-time equivalent attorneys for the period Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2010. The NLJ sent surveys to about 300 law firms to determine the 250 largest. Lawyer counts do not include contract or temporary attorneys. A firm must have more lawyers based in the United States than in any other single country to be included on the list. Firms are ranked by the number of full-time equivalent attorneys, rather than headcount. Numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number. In case of a tie, we rank firms by the actual number of attorneys before rounding. If the tie persists, we rank firms by the total number of partners, and then the number of equity partners. The city listed next to the firm name is the firm's principal or largest office."
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202489565842&slreturn=1
In addition to the differences between NLJ and NALP methodologies pointed out in comments above, could it also be that Columbia and NYU -- programs known for their international and "global" law programs -- send relatively more grads to firms in which fewer than half of the lawyers are based in the US?
And really, you publish this stuff without making a single phone call to the law schools to ask how they explain the alleged discrepancy? Shoddy.
Why don't you make a phone call or two 2:18? Or do you just need to walk down the hall?
ReplyDeleteAs a commenter points out, at this point the burden of persuasion is on law schools to demonstrate that they're not cooking their books. The numbers for CLS and NYU, unlike those of every other school I've checked, don't come close to adding up. If somebody has a more plausible explanation than that they each sent 50 2010 grads to Magic Circle firms I'd be interested in hearing it.
This is a blog, it's not a scholarly article. I think we should expect that everything Prof. Campos writes is true - so far as what he explicitly tells us about the source of his data and his method of analyis - but I don't think we should expect that he has done comprehensive research or verified the information taken from other, identified, sources. The whole point of a blog is to point out interesting things and give an opinion about them - follow-up can be conducted by Prof. Campos later, or it can be conducted by the blog's readers and posted in the comments.
ReplyDeleteAgree heartily 2:58 and nice job with the "Or do you just need to walk down the hall" slam Prof. Campos. I think maybe 2:18 doesn't even need to walk down the hall; probably just look at his/her own computer to see if they can figure out how to mask the earlier statistics they made up. The point is there is NO reason why these particular schools should be such an anomaly, which at this point, based on other comparisons, they are an anomaly. It's not complicated. The commenter(s) trying to find other reasons remind me of the academic/student/staff policies I look over all day: not very smart people making something not that difficult really difficult. The world goes 'round on this fact. It's why the "market" is so distorted and why Syrians and Sudanese people get massacred and we argue about whether Rush is an ass. The world is f'ed up. We ain't nothin but mammals. My rant for the day.
ReplyDelete@2:18. Columbia and NYU are not any more "international" than the rest of the top 14.
ReplyDeletePlus, people go to American schools to pass an American bar and work as an American lawyer (the Columbia stats show exactly 7 people working outside the US -- including 2 clerking for international courts).
Also the NLJ methodology didn't say that the firm had to be majority US (as you suggest), simply more US than any other country.
Any firm with a significant US presence will generally have more here than any other country (see e.g. DLA Piper, which is on the NLJ list).
The only other big firms with large US offices are the magic circle. I decided to do some research and it turns out that out of the entire magic circle employs a grand total of 1 Columbia 2010 grads:
This dude: http://www.linklaters.com/WhoWeAre/OurPeople/Pages/JohnEichlin.aspx
I've done my due diligence. A maximum of 6 people previously unaccounted for. Now you tell me, where are the other 50? Working twelve hour days in a basement in NJ perhaps???
Professor Campos, kudos on your appearance on the CBS Evening News today. You were concise yet informative. I think you just exposed a lot of television viewers today to the concept of the law school scam.
ReplyDeleteThanks 4:13. That story has been in pipeline for three months, and I was told I'd be given plenty of warning when it finally aired. Plenty of warning turned out to be ten minutes beforehand, so I haven't seen it yet.
ReplyDeleteThe story is on the CBS Evening News website in print form. I don't know if the video footage has made it onto Youtube yet. I assume it will shortly.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57393849/even-lawyers-struggle-to-find-jobs-these-days/?tag=mncol;lst;2
CBS should hire some unemployed law school graduates to edit the articles on its news website.
ReplyDeleteThe video link of the law school scam story is up on the CBS Evening news website.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7401431n&tag=contentMain;contentBody
Bless you Professor Campos
ReplyDeleteFor once I found something useful at JDU:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QEj-vIOIXk&feature=youtu.be
The above is an idea actually proposed by many economists in two fold: (1) Address the mortgage crisis issue and (2) forgive student loan debt, and this would have an enormous boost on the economy.
Bruh Rabbit
I'm not defending or apologizing for the schools. I am just curious what they would have to say about the discrepancy.
ReplyDeleteThat CBS News story made me want to puke. So disgusted by all of this.
ReplyDeleteAll of these problems and all of the problems of law school transparency, all of them, would be solved if the various state bars would survey the persons who had passed their bar exams 1 year, 3 years and 5 years after bar passage. William Ockham
ReplyDelete2:18 here. No, I am not affiliated with either school, and in fact I support the law school transparency cause very strongly. Which is why I care so much that the advocacy in favor it be as good as it can be. If you haven't tested your own evidence, you shouldn't present it publicly. Basic good lawyering. LawProf, you do in fact have the burden of persuasion -- you are the one claiming that the law schools are being less than honest. Investigate and support your claim. If you're right, then the law schools' responses (or lack thereof) to your inquiry will only serve to bolster your argument.
ReplyDeleteFrom the comments it is easy to tell who has biglaw experience. Everyone who has worked in biglaw knows how important those nlj reports are to a firm.
ReplyDeleteAs an alum of one of the NY law schools, I am mortified that they did not respond to the allegations on this blog or even announce they are taking a second look at the employmenr data they received for 2010. When a respected law professor announces in a widely read blog that the employment data for CLS and NYU does not match up to the data provided by the law firms, these schools ought to say they are taking another look at the data. If the data was correct, they can say they rechecked it and do not know the reason for the discrepancy. If the data is incorrect, they can correct it. Either way, a prompt public statement is called for by CLS and NYU.
ReplyDeleteIn all fairness, there are local laaw firms in various countries outside the Magic Circle that hire U.S.-trained lawyers. You need to speak the foreign language fluently, but generally do not need to be a graduate of a law school in that country. I know of law firms in Asia especially that do this and call the person "foreign legal consultant" or something similar. It is a permanent job though with all the perks of working in a sizable law firm. You basically need the connection to the country though to get that type of job. The run of the mill American with American born parents is not going to be qualified.
ReplyDeleteCritics of employment data published by law schools might want to check their own numbers before they cast aspersions. The NLJ statistics Paul Campos relies on for this posting are deeply flawed. Read the details--and about our challenge to Prof. Campos--here:
ReplyDeletehttp://law.nyu.edu/news/REBUTTAL
What about employment abroad? I'm at CLS and I know many of my classmates will be starting out at large firms in France, China, the UK. I can think of quite a few in this situation, actually. I can't speak for NYU, but I know that many US law students choose CLS for its international
ReplyDeletemarketability. Preaumably, a French firm of 250+ would show up on CLS' reported stats, but not in the NLJ, no?