<p>Frazzled, I see your point, but it’s important to note that this business of a law school hiring its own graduates only started relatively recently. If all these self-hires find jobs, great, but for a school with the reputation of UVA to need to do it-and to justify it-shows how difficult the market for new lawyers is.
And why padad is such an apologist for law schools will never cease to amaze me; as he points out, the LACs have been doing this for YEARS-not starting recently to beef up phoney-baloney USNWR stats. And I’m well-familiar with the LACs; unless I missed something, there’s no master’s degree of any type at the end of these “fellowships”. And I’ll point out that several name law schools-GU for one-have had actual fellowships for years; you’d work as an adjunct(usually in a clinic at the law school), recieve a stipend(years ago it was about $35K), write a thesis, and get your LLM. Again, if all these programs are offering that-and W&M’s webite makes no such indication that it does-then I stand corrected. What we’re talking about in most of these cases are “jobs”; not fellowships or anything similar. No teaching, no research, no LLM, so padad’s analogy is utterly inapposite.<br>
When I was in law school-30 years ago-this wholesale hiring of new grads by a school was absolutely unheard of. And now, no other professional school does this-when was the last time you heard a medical school brag about hiring their new grads? Or a dental school? Or pharmacy school?
This is only happening because the law grads can’t find jobs. WE live in an era where US Attorneys Offices across the nation are offering non-paid “jobs” to bar-admitted applicants-no benefits, either; and it’s made clear to any accepted applicant that a year’s commitment is required, but if a paying job does come open, that person gets no priority.
And using a school like UVA as an example doesn’t really further the discussion; OP wasn’t talking about attending a T14 school. OP may do very well coming out of W&M; I hope s/he does. That said, in making a decision about a professional school of any type, the prospective student needs to know what the job prospects upon graduation are.</p>