Even at Top Chicago Law Schools, Fewer Grads Go to Law Firms
Chicago’s elite law schools have released employment statistics that show fewer grads are going to law firms.
The Chicago Tribune noticed the decline. At the University of Chicago, 71.2 percent of its 2010 law graduates went to work at law firms, down from about 80 percent in the previous two graduating classes, the story says. At Northwestern University, 62 percent of its 2010 graduates went to work for law firms, compared to at least 73 percent for the four previous classes.
The numbers don’t mean the other grads are jobless. At the University of Chicago, for example, more grads found work in business and obtained clerkships.
The article quotes Indiana University law professor William Henderson, director of the Center on the Global Legal Profession. “There are still plenty of opportunities for students at the top-tier schools,” Henderson said. “But they are displacing graduates from other schools.”
More detailed employment data that will be reported next year is “going to be pretty embarrassing for a lot of schools,” Henderson added.
