Employment Statistics by School - C/O 2019 rolling out + C/O 2012-2017 data

[Sinoper]

Also, Northwestern just released their JD-MBA numbers separately, and it's by far the largest percentage of BL folks in that crowd in at least 8 years (21/27 in 100+ firms).

So, for the first time in a long time (maybe ever), NU's BL+FC percentage actually dropped when you remove the JD-MBA's from the numerator and denominator, though only by 0.24%.

This vindicates the practice of dropping JD/MBAs from the percentages, IMO. It just took a good year for the b-school crowd and NU pulled to basically even with Chicago.

Agree. It was still a big year for NU, so a nudge behind Chicago I'd still say. But without JD-MBAs it's typically a 2.5-3.0% bump in the BL+FC numbers (and over 5% in 2013). With just JDs, NU has been over 68% since the c/o 2013 and over 70% since the c/o 2015. Essentially the type of numbers that makes "take the money" probably the right answer for generic biglaw goals (all else equal) when comparing NU at even $30K cheaper COA than T6 options.

I agree. I also think it's worth noting for those who look at these charts that no school ever really (has ever?) crested the 85% mark. No matter what T13 you go to, even at 0% unemployment, there is always at least 15% that want to end up wanting to doing PI/Gov't/JD Advantage. IMO, taking 15% out of the denominator really shows a schools BL+FC numbers.

[Jubo]

Also, Northwestern just released their JD-MBA numbers separately, and it's by far the largest percentage of BL folks in that crowd in at least 8 years (21/27 in 100+ firms).

So, for the first time in a long time (maybe ever), NU's BL+FC percentage actually dropped when you remove the JD-MBA's from the numerator and denominator, though only by 0.24%.

This vindicates the practice of dropping JD/MBAs from the percentages, IMO. It just took a good year for the b-school crowd and NU pulled to basically even with Chicago.

Agree. It was still a big year for NU, so a nudge behind Chicago I'd still say. But without JD-MBAs it's typically a 2.5-3.0% bump in the BL+FC numbers (and over 5% in 2013). With just JDs, NU has been over 68% since the c/o 2013 and over 70% since the c/o 2015. Essentially the type of numbers that makes "take the money" probably the right answer for generic biglaw goals (all else equal) when comparing NU at even $30K cheaper COA than T6 options.

I agree. I also think it's worth noting for those who look at these charts that no school ever really (has ever?) crested the 85% mark. No matter what T13 you go to, even at 0% unemployment, there is always at least 15% that want to end up wanting to doing PI/Gov't/JD Advantage. IMO, taking 15% out of the denominator really shows a schools BL+FC numbers.

I don't think that 15% is entirely self selection. The bottom 10%, no matter where you are at, is going to struggle to find biglaw/fed clerkships. At that point we're talking about kids with a good number of discretionary low grades that weren't caused by the curve.

[Stranger]

It's that time again, so I'm going to post what I've found of the Class of 2019 employment data.

Michigan - 68.1% (+0.4%)
Duke - 79.6% (+2.3%)
Vanderbilt - 61.9% (-2.3%)
Boston University - 49.0% (+1.2%)
Fordham - 48.7% (-4.1%)
Boston College - 49.8% (+3.3%)
Illinois - 39.3% (+11.8%)

That'll get us started.

[somelawperson]

It's that time again, so I'm going to post what I've found of the Class of 2019 employment data.

Michigan - 68.1% (+0.4%)
Duke - 79.6% (+2.3%)
Vanderbilt - 61.9% (-2.3%)
Boston University - 49.0% (+1.2%)
Fordham - 48.7% (-4.1%)
Boston College - 49.8% (+3.3%)
Illinois - 39.3% (+11.8%)

That'll get us started.

you're a hero, stranger

[64Fl]

Damn, that's an impressive bump for IL. Just did a deeper dive, though. Graduating class of 122, so it's very easy to have large swings in BL+FC placement. I also noticed that IL was the top employer with 90 (go figure), and second place when to California/NY with a legendary tie of... 3 graduates a piece. Talk about regional.

[somelawperson]

is it rude to bet on who is gonna tank

[Stranger]

It's that time again, so I'm going to post what I've found of the Class of 2019 employment data.

Wisconsin - 22.6% (+2.1%)

[Stranger]

Stanford - 75.8% (-2.4%)
Notre Dame - 53.4% (+10.0%)
UC Irvine - 31.9% (-4.1%)

Congratulations to Notre Dame on a pretty substantial improvement.

[icechicken]

Duke > sTTTanford confirmed

[Stranger]

Penn - 79.6% (-0.6%)
Cornell - 74.2% (-0.8%)

[Stranger]

Minnesota - 29.7% (+1.1%)

[Stranger]

Emory - 35.6% (-3.2%)
George Mason - 21.3% (+0.1%)
Wake Forest - 29.2% (+2.9%)
Colorado - 19.9% (+6.9%)
Pepperdine - 18.0% (+3.1%)
UConn - 16.2% (+2.9%)

I went ahead and grabbed a bit more data from further down the list than I'd been searching before. Consistent with our established policy of not bothering to report the numbers for schools checking in at under 10%, I've left off Arizona, who do have their abysmal data available if you care to find it. Hastings, who do not have their data available for this year yet, have perhaps the worst organization on their website, requiring a reader to scroll past previous years' data starting with 2011 before finding out what the most recent report released is. Shame. Also, thanks to one of the schools in Texas, I now know that the ABA extended the deadline to April 30 this year, so we have more of an idea of when this will roll in.

[Stranger]

Chicago - 79.7% (+0.6%)
Berkeley - 69.8% (+1.8%)
Indiana - 29.5% (-4.7%)

[Stranger]

Yale - 65.0% (+2.7%)
Texas - 52.5% (-4.5%)
Ohio State - 29.2% (+0.6%)

[Stranger]

Harvard - 74.1% (+1.4%)
Columbia - 84.0% (+2.0%)
Virginia - 78.3% (-5.0%)
UCLA - 51.4% (+3.0%)
WUSTL - 52.3% (+0.1%)
Florida - 24.2% (+7.3%)
Washington & Lee - 35.5% (+9.8%)

Barring a surprise off the top rope from NYU or Northwestern, I believe we're able to crown Columbia as the elite employment champion of the year.

[Stranger]

William & Mary - 22.2% (-9.9%)
SMU - 30.5% (+4.7%)
Houston - 24.7% (-1.0%)
Loyola Marymount (LA) - 19.9% (+2.8%)
UNLV - 10.7% (+3.2%)
Villanova - 23.7% (+2.0%)
Kansas - 13.7% (+0.3%)
Tennessee - 18.6% (-0.7%)
Case Western - 18.9% (+0.6%)
Georgia State - 19.4% (-1.3%)

[Slytherpuff]

Harvard - 74.1% (+1.4%)
Columbia - 84.0% (+2.0%)
Virginia - 78.3% (-5.0%)
UCLA - 51.4% (+3.0%)
WUSTL - 52.3% (+0.1%)
Florida - 24.2% (+7.3%)
Washington & Lee - 35.5% (+9.8%)

Barring a surprise off the top rope from NYU or Northwestern, I believe we're able to crown Columbia as the elite employment champion of the year.

NYU does a lot of school-funded PI fellowships so I doubt it!

[Stranger]

George Washington - 33.4% (-2.2%)
Georgia - 33.2% (+10.6%)
Tulane - 29.7% (+7.1%)
Temple - 26.4% (+8.2%)
Texas A&M - 10.8% (+4.3%)

This year's reports were due yesterday. So far, the following schools have not posted their results:
NYU
Northwestern
Georgetown
USC
ASU
Iowa
UNC
Alabama
BYU
UC Davis
Washington
Utah
Maryland
Baylor
FSU
(a whole bunch of lower-tier schools, too many to list)

Let's hear it for this year's employment report scofflaws!

[necho2]

SLS takes a lead over YLS in the clerking numbers this year! Also LOL@ their defensive-sounding specificity w/ the JD-Advantage jobs... "THESE ARE THE COOL ONES, NOT THE LAME ONES GUYS!!!" In all seriousness, those are quite impressive JD-advantage gigs though!

Harvard continues to lag Chicago on clerkships huh? Tsk tsk... I suspect UChi is a little inflated by the quality of the Fed Soc pipeline + a broader pool of potential candidates who aren't averse to clerking in far-flung non-coastal places, but I think some of it too is just how strongly the school/internalized student pressure pushes folks to apply pretty aggressively.

[icechicken]

Harvard continues to lag Chicago on clerkships huh? Tsk tsk... I suspect UChi is a little inflated by the quality of the Fed Soc pipeline + a broader pool of potential candidates who aren't averse to clerking in far-flung non-coastal places, but I think some of it too is just how strongly the school/internalized student pressure pushes folks to apply pretty aggressively.

Class size gives Chicago (and Stanford/Yale) a huge edge on Harvard for some of these per-capita stats. It's easier to place 1/4 of your class in clerkships when the that means 50 people and not 150, given the personal nature of these positions.

To put it another way: HLS is about as big as Yale/Stanford/Chicago combined, and it places about 80% as many people into federal clerkships as those three schools combined. That's pretty impressive IMO.

[Stranger]

Georgetown - 55.8% (-4.8%)
UC Davis - 17.5% (-1.7%)

[RichardMilhousNixon]

Harvard continues to lag Chicago on clerkships huh? Tsk tsk... I suspect UChi is a little inflated by the quality of the Fed Soc pipeline + a broader pool of potential candidates who aren't averse to clerking in far-flung non-coastal places, but I think some of it too is just how strongly the school/internalized student pressure pushes folks to apply pretty aggressively.

Class size gives Chicago (and Stanford/Yale) a huge edge on Harvard for some of these per-capita stats. It's easier to place 1/4 of your class in clerkships when the that means 50 people and not 150, given the personal nature of these positions.

To put it another way: HLS is about as big as Yale/Stanford/Chicago combined, and it places about 80% as many people into federal clerkships as those three schools combined. That's pretty impressive IMO.

I'm not sure that really makes sense unless judges are collectively deciding not to recruit too many students from any one school. There are also way more students in the top 10% at HLS than at Chi.

(But I agree with your conclusion that I don't think this shows Chi is somehow far superior to HLS. This statistics show only students who clerk the year after they graduate. It's important to remember that many elite judges conduct their hiring several years out, which makes it literally impossible to clerk for them right out of school. This is why, for example, NYU and UVA's clerkship numbers look drastically different, even though proportion of students who clerk at both schools are nearly identical.)

[Stranger]

Harvard continues to lag Chicago on clerkships huh? Tsk tsk... I suspect UChi is a little inflated by the quality of the Fed Soc pipeline + a broader pool of potential candidates who aren't averse to clerking in far-flung non-coastal places, but I think some of it too is just how strongly the school/internalized student pressure pushes folks to apply pretty aggressively.

Class size gives Chicago (and Stanford/Yale) a huge edge on Harvard for some of these per-capita stats. It's easier to place 1/4 of your class in clerkships when the that means 50 people and not 150, given the personal nature of these positions.

To put it another way: HLS is about as big as Yale/Stanford/Chicago combined, and it places about 80% as many people into federal clerkships as those three schools combined. That's pretty impressive IMO.

I'm not sure that really makes sense unless judges are collectively deciding not to recruit too many students from any one school. There are also way more students in the top 10% at HLS than at Chi.

(But I agree with your conclusion that I don't think this shows Chi is somehow far superior to HLS. This statistics show only students who clerk the year after they graduate. It's important to remember that many elite judges conduct their hiring several years out, which makes it literally impossible to clerk for them right out of school. This is why, for example, NYU and UVA's clerkship numbers look drastically different, even though proportion of students who clerk at both schools are nearly identical.)

What it does show, however, is that for fairly generic goals, $$$ at Chicago or Columbia (and realistically, several other T13 schools) is likely a better long-term play than sticker or close to it at H.

[RichardMilhousNixon]

Harvard continues to lag Chicago on clerkships huh? Tsk tsk... I suspect UChi is a little inflated by the quality of the Fed Soc pipeline + a broader pool of potential candidates who aren't averse to clerking in far-flung non-coastal places, but I think some of it too is just how strongly the school/internalized student pressure pushes folks to apply pretty aggressively.

Class size gives Chicago (and Stanford/Yale) a huge edge on Harvard for some of these per-capita stats. It's easier to place 1/4 of your class in clerkships when the that means 50 people and not 150, given the personal nature of these positions.

To put it another way: HLS is about as big as Yale/Stanford/Chicago combined, and it places about 80% as many people into federal clerkships as those three schools combined. That's pretty impressive IMO.

I'm not sure that really makes sense unless judges are collectively deciding not to recruit too many students from any one school. There are also way more students in the top 10% at HLS than at Chi.

(But I agree with your conclusion that I don't think this shows Chi is somehow far superior to HLS. This statistics show only students who clerk the year after they graduate. It's important to remember that many elite judges conduct their hiring several years out, which makes it literally impossible to clerk for them right out of school. This is why, for example, NYU and UVA's clerkship numbers look drastically different, even though proportion of students who clerk at both schools are nearly identical.)

What it does show, however, is that for fairly generic goals, $$$ at Chicago or Columbia (and realistically, several other T13 schools) is likely a better long-term play than sticker or close to it at H.

Couldn't agree more.

[icechicken]

Harvard continues to lag Chicago on clerkships huh? Tsk tsk... I suspect UChi is a little inflated by the quality of the Fed Soc pipeline + a broader pool of potential candidates who aren't averse to clerking in far-flung non-coastal places, but I think some of it too is just how strongly the school/internalized student pressure pushes folks to apply pretty aggressively.

Class size gives Chicago (and Stanford/Yale) a huge edge on Harvard for some of these per-capita stats. It's easier to place 1/4 of your class in clerkships when the that means 50 people and not 150, given the personal nature of these positions.

To put it another way: HLS is about as big as Yale/Stanford/Chicago combined, and it places about 80% as many people into federal clerkships as those three schools combined. That's pretty impressive IMO.

I'm not sure that really makes sense unless judges are collectively deciding not to recruit too many students from any one school. There are also way more students in the top 10% at HLS than at Chi.

A lot of the infrastructure/pipeline for clerkships is personal and therefore harder to scale: the clerkship office, faculty relationships, stuff like FedSoc and affinity groups, etc. You can scale these things up, and Harvard does a great job, but there are diminishing returns. I'm certain that, if HLS cut their class size in half, their clerkship % would increase substantially.