<p>The job market for lawyers is poor right now because of the recession. The job market for PhDs in English seeking academic employment has been poor for the past forty years and shows no sign of improvement (quite the opposite, in my opinion). There’s really no comparison.</p>
<p>On the bright side for prospective students, the tight job market for English PhDs means that there are very smart faculty all over the place, not just clustered in a few top schools. </p>
<p>The tippy-top English Departments in the country are: 1) any of the Ivies 2) any of the top LACs, 3) many state flagships (Berkeley, Michigan, Virginia, UNC, Rutgers, Wisconsin, Illinois, UCLA, UC Irvine, Davis, Santa Barbara), and 4) any of the tier of Ivy-equivalent schools such as Chicago, Northwestern, Emory, Hopkins, etc. I thought it was very valuable to attend a university with an excellent PhD program (I went to Cornell) because it gave me more advanced curricular options and because the faculty were so heavily involved in top-flight research, which fed into their teaching. However, many people get fine educations at more teaching-focused LACs. Since you will ideally get a broad humanities education with plenty of foreign language, history, art history, etc.–not just take English courses–you would do well to pick an overall academically strong school. You want plenty of smart peers because most English courses, especially at the upper levels, are discussion based.</p>