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<p>You are actually much less likely to put yourself in dire financial situation attending a top public law school than most privates. </p>
<p>[Best</a> Value Law Schools | the National Jurist](<a href=“http://www.nationaljurist.com/content/best-value-law-schools]Best”>http://www.nationaljurist.com/content/best-value-law-schools)</p>
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<p>“There is no evidence the reported data is biased towards those who have the highest salaries.”</p>
<p>If you had actually bothered to look at the link, you would see that the bias is patent on its face. Every one of the large firm lawyers reported their salary, while only slightly more than half of the smallest firm lawyers reported. Similarly, the lawyers in Connecticut–the group with the lowest salaries–were much less likely to report their salaries than those in the highest paying region.</p>
<p>MOWC, as the parent of a recent VULS grad well placed in his class, I can corroborate your statement! I continue to follow Paul Campos’ Inside Law School Scam blog and his stats last Friday indicate there are only half as many jobs as there are graduates. A significant portion of the 2011 class is currently working on public service stipend.</p>
<p>Cellardwellar, the article you cite on public service jobs is dated. I have two nephews who graduated from top 10 law schools in the last three years and several other family members who are 3L’s now. The competition for those low paying public service jobs is intense and includes kids who made law review at top tier schools, kids graduating magna cum laude with publications and honors and competitive clinic experience to boot. The only public sector jobs that are reasonably attainable for a strong but not stellar graduate is in JAG. For a kid that wants to make a 5 year commitment to the military that’s great-- but don’t think you’re going to waltz into a job in the court system in any jurisdiction with the current highly competitive market. (And even Public Defender jobs are hard to get given the evisceration of their budgets).</p>
<p>Read two days worth of articles on “Above the Law” for an earful about how many more new lawyers there are than jobs.</p>
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<p>I never claimed that getting a public service job straight out of law school was easy. My point is that public law schools attached to the state flagship often have a hold on many of the in-state legal jobs. that is certainly the case for UCONN law school. Most of the members of CT Supreme Court and most of the Federal and state judges are graduates of the school and many actually teach at the school. The courthouse is walking distance from the school.</p>
<p>From the reported data, between 20%-25% of the UCONN graduating class ends up with state or federal clerkship or in government jobs. Clearly not the $160K/year positions but again most students are not loaded with debt either. The average student debt at UCONN law school is only around $65K on graduation.</p>
<p>I am in contact with lawyers at the top regional firms in the southeast and in other parts of the country on a daily basis. I always ask about hiring and how law firm grads are faring. These firms are still hiring, but levels are way below what they were 4 years or so ago. They are hiring from Vanderbilt, Emory, Tulane etc., and are willing to go deeper in the class at the Vandy/Emory level of schools. They ARE still hiring from Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, etc., but do not go very deep in the class. Some hires have been deferred to a January start date (May 2011 grads). We get emails all the time from the law schools asking for help with placing the grads- even from Vanderbilt. It is VERY tough out there, and I can not imagine why UConn would be any different. In fact, I would expect less success due to the huge number of higher ranked law schools in the northeast. The jobs simply aren’t there right now- and might never be again.</p>
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<p>Nobody said it was easy out there finding jobs. UConn is only of two law significant schools in CT (the other being Yale) and it is located in the state capital where it is a feeder for most corporate and government legal jobs in the state. Most Yale law grads seek jobs out of state while 60% of UConn grads stay in state. CT is a small state but with a large service industry, especially finance and insurance. There is very little competition for the instate legal jobs from other law schools. Huge difference with NY state for instance.</p>
<p>Cellar- where do you get your information? My company does business with several law firms in CT- Hartford, Stamford and Greenwich, and I just checked the bio’s and not a single lawyer we work with is a U Conn Law grad. I do not believe that firms in Stamford consider U Conn a “feeder” school, given that NYU, Columbia and Fordham are all closer than U Conn.</p>
<p>Not to mention all the Harvard, BU and Penn grads that want to work in that area.</p>
<p>I’ve hired in big law firms in NYC for two decades. I have never seen an example of a UConn grad hired at one of the firms with which I am familiar. Never. Many from St. Johns and many more from Fordham. Even one from CUNY Law.</p>
<p>Zoosermom:</p>
<p>I just pulled some names from my business contacts at LinkedIn and came up with the following list of NYC firms in just a few minutes. I only pulled firms with more than one UConn law grad. Again, this is only my personal contact list and in no way comprehensive. I could probably pull three times as many large NYC firms with UConn grads with a little research. I mostly deal in IP so my contacts are typically in boutique firms. </p>
<p>-Skadden, Arps (3)
-Wilson, Elser (3)
-Day Pitney (3)
-Fitzpatrick, Cella (3)
-Dickstein, Shapiro (3)
-Kelley, Drye (2)
-Edwards, Wildman (2)</p>
<p>For whatever my anecdotal experience is worth–I graduated from UConn law in 1988, another terrible time for law jobs. About 20th percentile in my class. Clerked for a federal judge, then worked at a mega Wall Street international firm, at the time one of the 10 largest firms in the US, for 3 years. Now on the management committee of one of the ten largest firms in Connecticut. Graduating from UConn was not a problem for me in getting the clerkship, I had very strong recommendations from profs who knew the judge. The NYC firm really did not care where I had gone to school, they cared about the clekship. I passed on higher ranked law schools because of cost–as did many of my classmates–and graduated with much less debt than I would have if I had gone to another school. I would argue that it has worked out pretty well for me, attending UConn law served me well. In terms of the Hartford legal market–we usually hire 2 UConn grads every year. Yale students don’t stay in the state, and we see some but not a lot of resumes from out of a state schools. My extremely rough guesstimate is that something like half of lawyers that are at firms in Hartford went to UConn. I agree with cellardweller, more UConn grads are going to NYC firms. When I was there, I was somewhat of an oddity, but I don’t think that is so true anymore. Talking to colleagues in NYC, UConn is viewed the same as say Rutgers, which always has had people get jobs in the City. I do think that someone who wants to work in NYC is better off going to school there. But if the idea is to practice in Central Connecticut, I think you are just as well off to go to UConn as any other school, there are so many UConn alums around that it probably is an advantage over attending higher ranked schools. MomofWildChild, I’m not sure where Vandy grads did not fare that well, but if you are talking about NYC that would not surprise me. Vandy is a terrific school, but to people in NYC Nashville is like a different planet, it would not surprsie me if UConn would be more recognized in NY than Vandy would be.</p>
<p>I’m not talking about NYC. I’m talking about EVERYWHERE, but mainly the south/southeast! And it isn’t just Vandy- it’s ALL law grads. The Vandy grads are doing better than most, by far. I’m glad you had so much success, but I really believe things are hugely different now. The profession has never been in the state it is in right now. I agree that for central CT, UConn would be great. That is what I said above about any state school and it’s own state. BUT- you better be in the top 10% of the class.</p>
<p>I really wish things were not the way they are, but it is the reality right now.</p>
<p>I know the market is bad now, but in my legal lifetime this is the third time it has been like this. In the few years after I graduated, the market was terrible, people said it would never get better. Whole recruiting classes were being told not to show up, there were mass layoffs of associates at large firms. Happened again in the early 2000s. Things will come back around. In terms of needing to be in the top 10%–really depends on what you want and expect. In Connecticut, if you are looking for a job at say one of the 10 or 15 largest firms in the state, then yes, you probably need to be in the top 25% or 30% of your class. But there are jobs out there for others. The associates that started here this Fall tell me that they believe that approx. 2/3 of the people they graduated with have jobs 6 months after graduation. The jobs might be with small firms in the suburbs doing residential real estate closings, slip and fall type PI, etc., but there are jobs.</p>
<p>“The associates that started here this Fall tell me that they believe that approx. 2/3 of the people they graduated with have jobs 6 months after graduation. The jobs might be with small firms in the suburbs doing residential real estate closings, slip and fall type PI, etc., but there are jobs.”</p>
<p>You think that 2/3 of the class getting some kind of job within 6 months is GOOD? With the kind of debts many of these young people have? Easy for you to say.</p>
<p>Even if one assumes that the economy will come back any time soon, this time is different in another way. A number of the big firm lawyers that I have spoken to recently tell me that they have come to the realization that it doesn’t make sense to have large summer programs or hire lots of young associates right out of law school. Instead, they prefer to hire experience lawyers from smaller firms laterally. Assessing the overall impact of this trend on the legal profession is complicated, but it surely is not good for those coming right out of law schools.</p>
<p>Nepop,What about Quinnipiac?</p>
<p>It’s a whole different world now. One of the problems is that law schools are a cash cow for universities and communities. The # of new law schools opened is a travesty. There are just way too many attorneys. The # of law school grads has increased much more than the growth in population. </p>
<p>The following law schools did not exist in 1990: Ave Maria, Appalachian, CUNY, Charlotte, Elon, Florida Coastal, Florida International, Liberty, Roger Williams, U-Mass Dartmouth (I’m not sure what the law school is called.) </p>
<p>There may be more. </p>
<p>It’s absurd. </p>
<p>Step #1 to solving the current crisis is to ban the accrediation of any more law schools.</p>
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<p>This is no different from past recessions. A number of UConn law students who graduated with me in 2009 joined smaller local firms in CT where they were able to get the experience necessary. Several of them have since become associates with NYC firms. As nepop said, a few years out of law school, what really matters is your experience. If you have valuable experience in a high demand field, any law firm will be interested in you. It is very much like physicians: where they do their residency is much more important than where they go to medical school. My clients could not care less where I went to law school, what they care about about is whether I can get their patent applications filed and allowed expeditiously or their technology licensed. They will pay (a lot) for performance. If my qualifications ever come up to get a client contract, my MIT engineering degree will beat a HLS degree any day, because the work in my field is so complex. </p>
<p>It also very much depends on the specialty. No law graduate in his right mind will want to specialize in real estate law right now. Some areas like IP are red-hot right now and graduates in that field have no problems finding very good jobs. Other specialty areas like tax law, bankruptcy and insurance law are also strong. Good litigators are always in demand. Government legal jobs are not going away. Biglaw is restructuring and most firms will survive the downturn. That’s not where most of the legal jobs were anyway.</p>
<p>The biggest concern is the recent accreditation of for profit law schools (Charleston, Florida Coastal, Charlotte, John Marshall, Phoenix, ). Most of these were founded over the past 10 years and are quite large. I would not be surprised if the University of Phoenix gets ABA accredited eventually. Graduates can already apply for the California bar.</p>
<p>“This is no different from past recessions.”</p>
<p>With respect to hiring practices at large law firms, you are simply wrong on the facts. Even during prior recessions, such firms typically both maintained substantial programs and followed a model of hiring and training associates directly out of law school (in addition to doing some lateral hiring, a practice that became more common in the late twentieth century). The point is that a substantial number of large law firms have dramatically reduced or entirely abandoned their the traditional model, with a significant negative impact on the prospects of those freshly out of law school.</p>
<p>It is very different from prior recessions. And-lots of government legal jobs HAVE gone away. There are available in-house positions for experienced attorneys. Approximately 400 resumes are submitted for every opening. And that is EXPERIENCED attorneys. If you think, on the whole, that middle of the class law grads are getting jobs, you are not living in reality. Yes, some do. Many, many are not, and they are saddled with huge debt.</p>