Ask and You Shall Receive

In the comment section of the last post, a good number of people seemed "concerned" about job prospects out of BLS:

"[Baylor has] the worst employment at graduation of any law school
in the top tier."

"im sure we can all get jobs at the burger-doodle w/in 6 months of graduation."

"WHY DONT WE HAVE JOBS! i dont need a job handed to me on a silver platter. i don't expect CSO to hunt down jobs for me. i know ill have to do that on my own. but if baylor is so well respected (2nd only to UT i think someone opined) then why are people out there for 11
months looking for jobs!"

"I will say that it was my experience that unless you were a top 10%er and going to Baker Botts or at least one of the big Dallas/Houston firms, career services was worthless."

"photocopied address lists!"

For fear Kat from CSO's comment will go unnoticed, I'm reposting here. I'm pretty sure it's the best explanation you could ask for:

_________________________

Some background on the "numbers" used by U.S. News.

First let me say that this is a huge source of frustration for CSO folks everywhere. An uproar two years ago led to U.S. News reducing the significance of "at graduation" to 4% because the schools pointed out that state and federal govermental entities and state prosecutors do not hire until bar results are in. If you want to work for the State or prosecute, you will more than likely be an "after graduation" hire.

"Do we really have the worst employment rate of the top tiered schools?" Did anyone see the Texas Lawyer article where the dean of the U.T. law school attributed its drop in rankings to a "fluke" in the reporting of employment figures? The UT CSO had reported the graduates studying for the February bar exam as "unemployed; studying for the bar fulltime" instead of "not seeking." Actually, the UT CSO reported correctly. If you are unemployed and studying for the bar full time, you are just that...and there is a place to check on the NALP exit interview form that every law school uses that asks:

Employed?
Unemployed-Seeking employment?
Unemployed--Studing for the bar full time?
Unemployed--Not seeking?
The "unemployed/studying for the bar" was added a couple of years ago with the express instructions that the grad would still be considered "unemployed." (This has been dropped for 2007 and will go back to employed/seeking/not seeking.)

"At graduation": This is supposed to be the date you graduate. NALP sent out a memo that schools should be using the actual graduation date. Baylor graduates 4 classes a year. Some schools have students graduate in December, but only have one graduation ceremony in May. So they use the May date as "graduation," giving their grads 5 more months and the Feb. bar results to determine "at graduation." Is it honest? No. Is there any way to stop it? Not that I can think of because NALP (National Asso. for Legal Recruitment Professionals) has all the schools reporting on an "honor" system. The numbers reported are never verified by any outside judge.

One 4th tier school regularly reports "100% employed at graduation." Why? Because most of its students are parttime and have jobs while they are in law school. Thus, they are "employed" at graduation, but it isn't a legal job. U.S. News doesn't report what type of job. Is if full time legal? Bartending? (that would be full or parttime "non-professional")

In 2005 (which is what the most current U.S. News used for employment stats), 87% were full time legal, 4% full time professional or JD preferred; 2.5% were LLM students (which U.S. News reports as "employed". 1.5% were parttime professional (no bartending here). 2% unemployed/not seeking; 2.6% were unemployed/seeking. 68% of our students went into private practice vs. 48% nationwide.

More on the "honors" system. One school is reporting in the current U.S. News a median starting salary in private practice of over $130,000!! (This is not an Ivy League school reporting NYC salaries) These are numbers from the 2005 employment stats, before the huge firms bumped their salaries to $140,000. Well, look at the percentage reporting salary. This school is reporting less than 25% of its graduates salaries. Which salaries do you think they chose to report?

What percentage of grads are reporting? Baylor reports almost 100% each year. To Anonymous 12:46 who hasn't contacted the CSO and yet we report you are employed? You bet we reported you. You are listed on the State Bar website with the name of your firm. If not that, you are listed on your firm's website. If not that, one of you law school friends has let me know where you are working. Or one of the profs has your info. Google and Facebook are also helpful. (Even old people like myself know how to use these tools.)

Eric S.: You haven't exactly beaten down my door for assistance, have you?! I can't do much if you don't come into the office! And employers do look at rankings. (Did I mention that 40% of the U.S. New rankings are based on less than 2,000 ballots (and even fewer responses) from all the practicing attorneys in the U.S....less than .ooo6%). I am not a fan of these arbitary rankings, but you are better off with Baylor as a top rank.

All this said, job hunting is a pain in the behind. About 30% of Baylor grads get their first jobs through Fall OCI (the national average is less than 25%). (This is also not a statistic reported by U.S. News, but in checking with sister schools like SMU and Tulane, they also place about 30% through OCI). So that means the majority of students, whether at Baylor or not find their first job through job postings, referrals from profs, networking. It's not an easy venture. It's time consuming and hard on the ego.

If you haven't logged into BEARister, please do. Your username is your baylor email (the full thing with @baylor.edu) and your default password is baylorlaw. You can change that when you log in. You can look at our posting. You can also look under "resumes and documents" and go do "document library." Various links to job sites. Among them the Intercollegiate Job Bank to check postings in all 50 states.

If you haven't come by the CSO, email me and come by. I can't make a job magically appear, but I may have suggestions or resources you haven't yet tapped.

Sorry to go on and on. If you have questions about what is reported and what it means, please email me at kat_logue@baylor.edu.

Katherine Logue
Baylor CSO