Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Duke Law: Full of Shit?

Facts and Statistics

Employment at Graduation & Nine Months Later

The quality of our students and of a Duke Law education makes our graduates highly desirable to employers seeking talented new attorneys.
Graduating Class200920082007200620052004
Employment at Graduation100%100%97.75%95.7%95.6%95.1%
Employment Nine Months Out100%100%100%98.18%100%100%
Does anyone else find it interesting [read: "a fucking lie"] that Duke Law has managed to have 100% employment at graduation during the Great Depression, and not during the boom years (2004 to 2006)?
This is such a ludicrous chart, that it should be disregarded and thrown out.  That's almost honest.  Try harder next time, Duke Law!
Here's more bogus and bullshit stats here.  Enjoy!

16 comments:

  1. Let's just say, the pigs are creative in "reaching" their 100% placement:

    http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/the-secret-to-100-employed-at-graduation-dukes-bridge-to-practice/

    “As Duke Law News reported, Duke worked hard to ensure its graduates had jobs. While it didn’t go the SMU route of paying employers to “test drive” its graduates, it does now provide stipends to some of its unemployed graduates to allow them to work for a couple months at no cost to employers. Using SMU’s car metaphor, the law school pays for the gas while Dukies and prospective employers take a little spin. Duke calls it “The Bridge to Practice” program.

    It started in 2008 — employing the nine graduates who would have otherwise ruined that nice round 100%. The numbers of participants have increased since then, as the economy has worsened.

    The program had nine participants in 2008 and 15 in 2009. The number will likely double this year.”

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  2. When you're in a fight to survive, no one ever plays fair. They fight to win. Schools like Duke are fighting for enrollment/ranking/profit, so why would they fight fair? I'm surprised these kinds of "programs" didn't occur to them sooner. When President Coolidge went fly fishing in South Dakota and became enamored with the "excellent" fishing there on vacations, it influenced his decision to build Mount Rushmore in that state. Of course the local authorities were stocking the ponds he fished at during the night and chalked it up to his excellent skills as a fly fisher.

    If there's one thing law school taught me it's that you fight to win and nothing else matters. That's why so many lawyers personal lives are wrecks and the research shows they're the most miserable fucks on the planet in any given population (even in the "good" years of employment). Like the good book asks--What does it profit a man who gains the world but loses his soul? If you're a law school scam beneficiary the answer is a shitload of money!

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  3. I guess the real post here is Nando's comment. BULL. I'm telling you! Do you feel employed if you're working for a stipend? I think not! They should definitely define "employment" when they put out bull like this. Thanks for the info Nando! I wish that shills knew that info when they "research" going to Duke Law.

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  4. I applied to, and was accepted to Duke law. But since I already had a job on the West Coast, I thought it was silly to pack up and move and start all over. I guess it was a good choice?

    the question is: I wonder if they're automatically including the stipend in their "average starting salary" or if they're conveniently leaving that out of the calculation.

    It just pains me to see that a T14 school has to resort to this.

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  5. Roderick Emerson Wordsworth IIIAugust 31, 2010 at 9:55 PM

    "Yale or fail."

    ReplyDelete
  6. Roderick Emerson Wordsworth III said...
    "Yale or fail."

    Hear, hear!

    ReplyDelete
  7. why stop at 100 percent

    Since it's all make believe anyways, every clerkship counts as 4 jobs and every different firm you do doc review for is a separate job that can roll over to another student.

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  8. This comment is from that story "Students are Not Worthless" I posted a while back:
    Anonymous said...
    I went to Duke Law School! I make $8/hour in their "Bridge to Practice" program. I'm going to be homeless next month.

    AUGUST 22, 2010 4:59 PM

    Employed, huh?

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  9. In all cases your law school knows that you can't sit around a wait. After 9 months, most new grads will take any job to get money income. You might be paid $9.00 hr in a temp job or $12.00 hr hanging drywall. This is far from the imagined $100 hr biglaw job.

    In effect, Lawschools can tell the truth and say you are employed. Yet lie, because they imply you are employed as a lawyer. They uses to call this "disinformation" in the 1980s.

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  10. Edububble just did a quick audit. Anyone want to do a better one? It only takes 1 to spoil a claim of 100%.

    http://edububble.com/dpp/?p=608

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  11. She found 10 at least that had questionable "employment" like "Entrepreneur". I think my point has been made.

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  12. Damn that Ivy League law school, I should have gone to Duke!

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  13. I commend the Bridge to Practice program. A law school actually reaching out and "selling" its graduates at least you are getting something other than a degree and debt for your tuition money. However, I do NOT agree with Duke including the BtP participants in their employment statistics. Completely misleading although very "lawyerly" of them to skew the information in this way. Wonder if that's a skill they teach their graduates?

    Sallie Mae's Bitch
    www.almostdebtfree1.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  14. As a Duke grad I can confirm the numbers are completely made up. I estimate that 15-20% of 2010 is unemployed. I know a couple students from 08 and 09 who never found jobs (outside a temporary volunteer/bridge position). When I filled out my graduate survey online, the box was already pre-checked that I was employed. They don't really advertise the employment survey so no one goes in to change the default settings.

    The bridge program pays $1,500 a month for two months. While it's better than nothing most of the students end up unemployed after that and you bet your ass those students will be counted as employed while their bridge money will not be reported as salaries.

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