<p>I love the U of C, bordering on the fanatical. And people who have read my other posts will know that I have first-hand experience at number of other universities and that I went to Yale for law school and am now enrolled in a PhD program at Princeton. </p>
<p>The metric that is cited here, “2012 graduates with full-time, long-term law jobs that require passing the Bar exam,” ([Law</a> school no. 1 for post-graduate employment ? The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“Laureate discusses themes in contemporary poetry – Chicago Maroon”>Laureate discusses themes in contemporary poetry – Chicago Maroon)), is not particularly relevant. It seems to exclude things like judicial clerkships and fellowships (like the Skadden), which are not “full-time, long term law jobs” but which correlate strongly with success in law school and entry to the highest levels of the legal profession. It is appellate clerks and Supreme Court clerks who generally are the most sought after recruits for legal jobs – but only <em>after</em> they finish their clerkships.</p>
<p>If you are leaving law school and going straight into a law firm job and you graduated from a top law school, it is probably because you were passed over for a clerkship or fellowship. That is, you were <em>not</em> as successful as many of the the graduates who are not in “full time, long-term law jobs.”</p>
<p>That is almost certainly why Yale, which is ranked higher than Chicago in law overall, is lower by the measure at issue here: Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of Yale Law grads clerk.</p>
<p>Yale has an 82% placement rate in the NLJ survey and so if clerkships are being ignored the figure does not match up with 1/3 to 1/4 of yale grads doing clerkships.</p>
<p>It’s possible that only 18% of YLS grads clerked for the covered period – that’s lower than in the past, but would not be impossible. But it is unlikely that clerkships are counted in the metric because (1) they are by definition not “long-term” (They last a year (occasionally two).); and (2) passing the bar is not required in order to clerk.</p>
<p>Clerkships are included. UChicago is also #2 in terms of NLJ hiring.</p>
<p>LawSchoolTransparency is a source of data in both of the articles, and they describe their calculations as follows:</p>
<p>“These jobs: require bar passage or are judicial clerkships; and are for at least 35 hours per week and have an expected duration of at least one year.”</p>
<p>I’d imagine the reason that Yale (and Harvard and Stanford) are lower than Chicago is self selection, actually. A lot of people who go to those schools have aspirations to go into politics… if they just wanted to make a lot of money, they probably would have gone to Chicago (or Columbia or NYU) with a large scholarship.</p>
<p>Thanks for clearing that up. I’m surprised that the criteria actually used diverge so sharply from how they are described in the NYLJ and Maroon pieces.</p>
<p>Interesting, too, that according to the finer breakdown of data, about 34% of YLS grads went on to clerk. And I agree, that we are probably looking at a question of self-selection – rather than something fundamental about whether one can expect to find employment coming out of either the UofC or YLS – or Stanford, Harvard, etc. for that matter.</p>
<p>I suspect the difference lies with the other top law schools having slightly more joint-degree candidates whose ultimate job is in the non-law field. For example, I know quite a number of Yale Law School graduates who have teaching jobs in a non-law field, and Stanford JD/MBAs who are in jobs for which the JD or bar membership is not a prerequisite. Needless to say, that doesn’t mean those jobs are second-rate.</p>
<p>Princeton’s president-to-be is a Chicago Law grad who (I believe) has never held a job that required bar membership. His Supreme Court clerkship didn’t.</p>