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More opportunities for recent grads, but fewer get jobs

By: Eric Heisig//June 26, 2014//

More opportunities for recent grads, but fewer get jobs

By: Eric Heisig//June 26, 2014//

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Despite more job opportunities for new law school graduates, the percentage of law school grads who get jobs out of college fell for the sixth straight year, according to a study released this month.

According to the study, conducted by the National Association for Law Placement, the percentage of new law school grads who are employed fell nationally to 84.5 percent. That is about 5 percent lower than the percentage of Wisconsin law school graduates who were employed.

The study looked at 44,637 graduates from 2013 and whether they had a job by Feb. 15. The number of job opportunities grew in 2013, according to the study, but so did the number of law graduates.

According to the results, the number of graduates nationally who are hired by firms with 500 or more attorneys jumped again. It accounted for 20.6 percent of jobs taken in 2013, whereas it accounted for 19.1 percent in 2012 and 16.2 percent in 2011.

Those numbers are much lower in Wisconsin.

In 2013, 10 of the 252 University of Wisconsin Law School grads took jobs at firms with more than 500 attorneys. Marquette Law School only sent four of its grads to firms that large in 2013.

Paul Katzman, assistant dean for career planning at Marquette University Law School, said he has seen a small increase in the number of students who take another bar exam in the hopes of working out of state – at a large firm or otherwise. However, Wisconsin is the only state in the country where a graduate of a school doesn’t have to take the bar exam, which can persuade some students to work in the state.

Katzman also said the trend involving larger law firms may not be seen as much in Wisconsin because there simply aren’t many large law firms.

Still, Katzman said he remembers when some of the state’s largest firms would take more than 30 people into its summer associate program and later offer them jobs. Those numbers are much lower now.

The hiring trends at Quarles & Brady LLP, which has 468 attorneys, seem to comport with the national study. Nancy Peterson, chairwoman of the firm’s Legal Personnel Committee, said 30 entry-level associates were hired in 2008. Some had a delayed start date once the recession hit, she said.

However, since 2011 – when the firm hired 12 new graduates — Peterson said the numbers have climbed. This year, Quarles & Brady is expected to hire up to 18 new associates.

graduates_Peterson characterizes the uptick as “growing modestly,” but she said the key hires have been in areas where there is more litigation, such as intellectual property and health law. She also said, though, that the firm has hired more attorneys with one to seven years’ experience since 2008.

But despite the percentage trending downward nationwide, UW Law School assistant dean of career and professional development Michael Keller said he has seen a small uptick overall of new grads being hired since the recession. Of the school’s 252 grads in 2013, 167 took jobs where a law degree was required; 22 of the graduates are unemployed.

Keller said the growth isn’t necessarily in one specific area, though he noted that over the past 10 years more grads are being hired out of law school to work at firms with 10 attorneys or less.

Still, he said, a lot of the firms hurt by the recession “haven’t gone back for robust days they used to have,” and that, overall, the slight trends are fairly consistent with what is going on nationally.

At Marquette, 140 of its 235 graduates in 2013 were employed with a job where they needed a law degree. Twenty-three graduates are unemployed.

Katzman pointed out, though, that those numbers can be a bit deceiving because not all law grads take a job where they practice law.

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