The job market for recent grads appears stagnant, which might explain why half of prelaw students don’t plan on seeking legal jobs once they graduate. But if you do want a law job, it matters where you go to school.
- The employment rate of recent grads might be disappointing, but at least it’s consistent. Data from the American Bar Association shows that for 2012, 82 percent of graduates were employed nine months after graduation—the same percentage as in 2011. And 56 percent of the 2012 grads got a job that required bar passage, which was only 1 percent higher than last year.
- Greedy Associates think Washington, D.C., is a great place to find a legal job—even though one in 12 residents are lawyers (versus 1:260 nationwide). Among the five reasons D.C. is tops are that it’s “Hollywood for ugly people” and thanks to all the free food at the seemingly endless receptions, you may never have to buy groceries again.
- Given the stark reality of the legal job market, it’s not much of a surprise that only half of surveyed prelaw students plan to use their law degrees in the legal profession. That’s according to a recent survey by Kaplan Test Prep. Of the 200 prelaw students surveyed, 43 percent plan to use their law degrees in the business world.
- However, if you do want a job in the legal market, it matters where you go to school. That’s the finding of The National Law Journal, which dug through the ABA’s data and discovered which schools did the best in offering school-funded jobs, clerkships and jobs in that require bar passage.
- If what you really want is a federal clerkship, Above the Law covered the top 10 schools that offered the highest percentage of federal clerkships to its graduates. In a related post, ATL reported that clerkship hiring is getting earlier—so if you want that clerk job, you better start now.
