Georgetown Will Do ANYTHING for its Grads....

As far as career advice goes, cold calling has to be the worst of the acceptable methods to find employment.  It comes after applying for open positions, networking and contacting alumni.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, when all of the above methods fail, you literally contact whomever begging for a job.  The chances of scoring a job this way have to be about those of winning at the slot machines in Atlantic City, but I suppose it's better than doing nothing.


What about cold-emailing?  Sending out emails to potential employers who probably aren't looking to hire someone.  Are you chances of getting hired worse or better when a cold-email may end up in a potential employer's spam box?


Well, desperate times calls for desperate measures and Georgetown is going to make sure that Georgetown Grads are employed, even if they have to resort to cold-emailing.


A BIDER reader forwarded me the following email with the caveat: "FYI, I did NOT go to G'town undergrad or law.  Also we are located several hundred miles from Washington DC.  This just appeared in my in-box.  How they got my name, I have no idea."


From:    "Laura Hosid" <lar9@law.georgetown.edu>
To:    DELETED
Cc:    <amp273@law.georgetown.edu>
Date:    02/07/2011 02:58 PM
Subject:    Georgetown Law - Legal Interns


I am writing from Georgetown University Law Center to inquire as to whether you will be hiring interns in your legal department this year.  We have a number of highly qualified students seeking employment for the upcoming summer.  In addition, we understand that most corporations do not hire new graduates for lawyer positions, but if you have a need or interest in considering a talented young lawyer for a post-graduate legal or non-legal position, please let us know.
 
Please feel free to get in touch with either myself or Abe Pollack, Director of Employer Outreach, if you would like to post a position for our students.  I can be reached at (202) 662-9303 or lar9@law.georgetown.edu, and Abe Pollack can be reached at (202) 661-6560 oramp273@law.georgetown.edu.  Thank you for your time and consideration.  
 
Sincerely, 
 
Laura Hosid
  
 
Laura R. Hosid, Esq.
Associate Director, Office of Career Services
Georgetown University Law Center
600 New Jersey Avenue, NW - Room 328
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 662-9303



For those that don't know (live under a rock), Georgetown is a Top Tier School.  This is what the legal job market is coming to.  What do you guys think?  Is this enough to keep the lemmings from taking the plunge?  Lord have mercy on us all.


Thanks for the tip!  

Stanford Law Launches Another Study of the Legal Profession. YAWN.

Does anyone believe that Stanford Law School with research support from the Sidley Austin Foundation will produce anything that will rock the boat in the legal profession? Here is a description for our non-lawyer readers who have never heard of Sidley Austin and its foundation (i.e. tax relief and marketing tool) :

About the Sidley Austin Foundation

In 2006, the international law firm Sidley Austin LLP formed the Sidley Austin Foundation. The Foundation was created to provide organizations in need with the means to support their philanthropic goals. Since the creation of the Foundation, the Foundation has made donations to such organizations as Legal Aid Society, Equal Justice Initiative, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, among other legal interest charitable organizations. The Foundation also supports a range of nonprofit activities throughout the nation.

Back to the what they plan to learn from the study:

The objective of the multi-year study is to describe and understand the state of the profession, including trends and emerging developments. The study will seek to develop policy recommendations to help law firms adapt their business models to better meet the needs of their clients and of a rapidly changing legal market. It will also consider the implications of these changes for legal education.

This sounds like another biased Biglaw study in conjunction with a top 3 law school to look for ways where Biglaw firms and top law schools can adapt (i.e. continue to make their millions while ignoring deferred and laid off lawyers with $200k student loans) to the imploding legal market rather than find solutions to stop the bleeding. Their findings will likely not reflect the broader legal market, the offshoring of legal jobs, and the implications the changing market will have for the thousands of unemployed attorneys, current law schools students, and recent graduates.

Some of our unemployed readers may also be all too familiar with Sidley Austin as they laid off 229 of their employees last year. Sure sounds like a great firm to trust to produce unbiased, statistically accurate numbers and recommendations to build a better business model, right?

University of Miami Law School Pays Unemployed Grads $2500 Each Month to Work at ShitLaw Firms

Several days ago, Angel wrote about Georgetown Law manipulating its employment statistics by providing $4,000 stipends to unemployed graduates to participate in law-related volunteer programs. TTT schools such as University of Miami are also getting into the act to boost its employment numbers. Firms and courts will get free labor in the form of unemployed UM grads who in return will receive a $2500 monthly stipend from UM.

Is UM Law doing this out of the goodness of their heart or is it another way of boosting employment stats to match Cooley Law's 100% employment rate? You decide. After all, a few hundred thousand dollars spent on temporary employment for doomed graduates is a small investment for fake employment statistics that will surely fool thousands more into taking the LSAT and borrowing $150k for a useless degree. The article also mentions fellow law school scam blog Shilling Me Softly and the now defunct Big Debt, Small Law written by Seton Hall graduate Scott Bullock:

A righteous anger has been seething from the most unlikely and urbane of American institutions. Inside ivy-shaded law schools from Columbia to Berkeley, students facing six-figure debts and zero job prospects are howling that JDs aren't much more than university-approved scams.

Dozens of blogs such as Shilling Me Softly have stirred the wrath, and last month a Boston College student earned headlines by begging his chancellor to give him back his tuition. "It's really just a Ponzi scheme," a Seton Hall law student and blogger named Scott Bullock told the New Jersey Star-Ledger this summer.

The latest sign of law grads' dire straits comes from Coral Gables, where the University of Miami is trying to bolster the grim market for the 350 new lawyers set to graduate next spring by offering their services — for free.

The program, called the Legal Corps, will place graduating students without job offers at public interest organizations or judicial chambers. The firms and courts will pay nada, while UM will pick up a $2,500 monthly stipend.

"It's great to know that we've got this as a fallback option," says Irma Khoja, a 26-year-old South Florida native who will graduate next spring.

UM's program has earned accolades for its realistic approach. In 2009, the school asked incoming students to consider deferring enrollment for a year and asked would-be lawyers to check their motivations before committing.

Now, UM is perhaps the first school in the nation to offer its new grads' talents for free to public service-minded firms. The pragmatic message might be tough to stomach, but most law students appreciate it, Khoja says.

"What's great about UM is they're very practical and realistic compared to other schools who see this as just an opportunity to get more applications and more revenue," she says.

Like the vast majority of her classmates, Khoja doesn't have any offers lined up. She won't apply to the Legal Corps unless nothing else materializes — but at least it's there, forestalling any urge to join the ranks of enraged law school bloggers.

"I'm just trying to stay as positive as I can," she says, "because it's the only way to get through the semester."

Isn't it sad to see this UM student believe her school is starting this program because they actually care about her job prospects after graduation, not because they want more applications and revenue? Our colleges and universities have become corporations that only care about making a profit at any and all costs. I hope more students begin to realize this so they can stop depending on their schools and career services to find them jobs.

Harvard to Homeless and Other Anecdotal Evidence Not to Go to Law School

First off, just in case you didn't know where you and the millions of unemployed graduates fall on the hierarchy of all things important:

On Wednesday, lawmakers passed a bipartisan resolution to honor dogs.

Specifically, service dogs. H. Res. 1614, which passed by a voice vote Wednesday afternoon, recognizes "the extraordinary efforts and dedication of these service dogs."

Don't get me wrong. We love dogs here at BIDER. But with one in seven Americans living in poverty and the unemployment rate at unprecedented numbers, you'd think there'd be more pressing issues on their agenda...such as the private loan bankruptcy bill. Well, that barely made it out of subcommittee and will likely never get passed:

The Private Student Loan Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2010 (H.R. 5043), which has been offered in several preceding congressional sessions, would restore provisions previously included in the bankruptcy code. In 2005, Congress voted to amend federal bankruptcy law to make private student loans unforgiveable debt in bankruptcy unless a borrower is able to demonstrate that loan repayment would be an "undue hardship."

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the bill faces long odds for a final passage. Many Republicans oppose the measure, warning that it would drive up interest rates and further shrink the market for private loans. Additionally, the congressional legislative session has only four weeks before the House's target date to adjourn.

Just say no to private loans. The Damned Generation will not find any student loan relief from the government beyond IBR and even that has its problems.

In other news, all of us has a story about someone they know or have come across who is facing a lifetime of soul-crushing student loan debt and unemployment. Several of us scambloggers who went to top schools know these people all too well. Some of our readers have shared their stories about making it into a top 14 law school only to see their world fall apart before their very eyes.

I have plenty of stories about classmates who graduated cum laude from T14 School of Law only to find themselves unemployed with $100k debt two years after graduation. Maybe I will share more of these stories with our readers sometime. That being said, I didn't attend Harvard Law where everyone assumes will guarantee their graduates a lifetime of wealth and success. Well, think again.

I won't give away all the details in order to protect the identities of everyone involved, but I know of someone who graduated from Harvard Law School and currently works at a motel. Not even a hotel, a motel in a seedy area where no one who graduates from Harvard Law School dreams of ever spending an hour of their life let alone the rest of their life. This HLS grad is forced to work there in order to have a place to live and to pay off the remainder of their student loans. I wish I could share more, but I won't embarass anyone with specific details. Have any of you come across a T14 or even a T3 graduate down in the dumps? Please share in the comments.

Has Lifetime considered a sequel to Homeless to Harvard? How about Harvard to Homeless: The Postgraduate Years. Just a suggestion.

For the Millionth Time: Don't Go to Law School

I’ve been on vacation so don’t ask me about Zenovia Evans or what new idiotic marketing strategies TTT schools are coming up with to lure unsuspecting prospective students. All you need know is that we are going to be in this depression for many more years. This more than likely means that there will be very little job creation for laid off workers, recent graduates, and future graduates to get back to work.

This is why I disagree that going to a T8 school means you will be in good shape. Whoever came up with the motto “Yale or Fail” has the right idea. Going to a top school no longer ensures your professional and economic safety unless you graduate at the top of your class and have the connections to secure and keep your job long-term.

I will say that college and graduate schools are good places to weather the storm IF you get a full ride. I have friends in other countries that are doing this but the big difference is that they only pay $10k or less per year in tuition compared to $30-50k per school year in the United States. I absolutely do not advocate going to any law school right now if it means you have to risk $200k and a possibility of lifetime debt to get a law degree. If you search hard enough, once in a while you can find some truth in a few of the employment statistics for law school graduates. One example is The National Law Journal’s annual rankings based on the percentage of grads that landed first year BigLaw jobs:

Here are the Top 10 in the NLJ ranking followed by the percentage of grads who
landed first-year positions at the nation’s largest firms.
1. Northwestern University School of Law - 55.9 percent

2. Columbia Law School - 54.4 percent

3. Stanford Law School - 54.1 percent

4. University of Chicago Law School – 53.1 percent

5. University of Virginia School of Law – 52.8 percent

6. University of Michigan Law School – 51 percent

7. University of Pennsylvania Law School - 50.8 percent

8. New York University School of Law – 50.1 percent

9. UC Berkeley School of Law – 50 percent

10. Duke Law School - 49.8 percent

Only 55.9% BigLaw employment for the “top law school”. Think about that. Since schools rarely if ever publish honest statistics about their graduates, I can only go on anecdotal evidence from our readers and I believe that even the NLJ rankings can only be taken with a grain of salt. I have heard that only half of last year’s Columbia Law School class received job offers. We have read the articles about some Harvard Law graduates being unable to find employment. Last year’s Georgetown Law graduates went on NPR to discuss their unemployment woes. And no, the other 50% did not land government jobs. Give me a break. They are more than likely unemployed or working in jobs that paid less than what they could have made straight out of college. I know quite a few people who went to these "top BigLaw" law schools who are reading this from their parents' basement. Don't be arrogant to believe that you can beat the odds just because you got into a T14 school.

Let’s be clear. If you do not graduate in the top quarter of your T14 law school, do not count on any job be it BigLaw, ShitLaw, or with the government. Bottom half of the class? Forget about it. You future was doomed the moment you saw your first semester grades. That is the risk you take when you go to law school in 2010. You can go to a T8 school and come out with no job prospects. It is happening to thousands of students today. Even if you do find a job, who says that you will still be employed a year later? Plenty of my law school classmates were laid off from BigLaw less than 2 years after graduation. Most law students with less than 2 years of law firm experience are in big trouble in this economy. That is not significant experience to compete with folks like Angel who have a decade’s worth of experience. I know people from T8 schools who are unemployed and I know a few “lucky” T14 and T30 grads with jobs as staff attorneys, aka BigLaw doc review. This is the gamble you take when you go to law school today. Is it worth the misery and the stress and the horrible work life to spend $200k and 3 years of your life so you can put JD on your resume?

A BIDER reader emailed me about his cousin who is applying to law school. The BIDER reader thought of all the reasons he decided not to go to law school and all of the reasons not to go to law school that Angel and I have laid out here for the past year. He told his cousin that there were scambloggers from T14 schools who could not find a job. His cousin isn’t even applying to a top school and is applying on a whim after getting laid off from his job. Here is the kicker: this guy doesn’t even want to practice law! He says he wants to be a consultant for the pro sports industry and believes the JD will make him more marketable. No, this is not a joke!

This is why BIDER is so important. We may be unable to save everyone, but people are listening and I think those who do their research deserve to be warned. This BIDER reader was unable to save his cousin, but after a year of reading BIDER he now questions the reasons why people go to law school with no intention of practicing law or believe that if they don’t find a law firm job that they are marketable in other fields. This is the biggest lie of the law school scam. You will be less marketable than the entry level candidate right out of college. And if you are among the majority of law students with not so stellar grades, there is a good chance that employers who care about grades will ask for your transcripts from college and law school. That has happened to me before. That C+ in Contracts could come back to haunt you when you are competing for the handful of respectable jobs left in this economy. For the millionth time, do not gamble with your future at a time when so few opportunities exist for anyone let alone a law school graduate three years out of college with no real world experience or marketable skills, just $200k in debt and a transcript peppered with Bs and Cs. Your life will be ruined.

Canary in the Legal Coal Mine: T14 Temp Jobs in India

Slave work in Mumbai: Cotton gin worker or Michigan Law graduate in the depths of an Indian doc review basement?

Can't say I'm surprised! I've been telling BIDER readers for months to consider non-legal employment outside of the U.S. if they want any chance of finding a full-time job with health care and to be free of student loan debt. Looks like the T14 schools are jumping on the same idea with a different twist. While I've promoted fleeing the country as a new adventure that could lead to happiness outside of the legal field, law schools are trying to sell the idea of document review in India as a great international opportunity to their students! I don't think this is the type of work aspiring international lawyers were thinking of when they decided to attend Michigan Law School. You can't make this stuff up. Above the Law has the story:

Michigan Law School — the 9th best law school in America — is now posting job opportunities from India.

Has it really gotten bad enough that graduates from a top law school should consider international LPO opportunities? Yes, yes it has…

The job is for Pangea3, one of the largest legal outsourcing companies on the market. Look at how they try to spin the “opportunity” for a bunch of Michigan students:

Role: Legal Research – Associate.
Designation: Associate.
Department: Litigation.
Reports to: Sr. Manager – Litigation.

Job Description: Pangea3 is looking for a recent law school graduate who’s looking for an alternative to the law firm route. The position will offer a U.S. attorney the opportunity to gain a global perspective on the legal services industry by joining a cutting-edge, dynamic, and fast-growing industry in an exciting, rapidly changing part of the world…

The Associate will be based in our state-of-the- art, ISO-certified facility in Mumbai, India. Candidate Profile: Recent Law graduates; Remuneration: Compensation includes competitive benefits and bonus.

There it is, folks. A Top 10 school shilling for a legal sweatshop in India. Maybe T14 grads will become the 21st century version of slave masters of the outsourced legal sweatshops. If this isn't the canary in the coal mine for OL lemmings, I don't know what else will convince them that law school is a bad investment.

The Ceiling is Dropping: Deferred BigLaw Associates Offered Discovery Positions!?

What ever happened to those hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deferred associates from 2009?  Are they all gainfully employed at this point?  Does anyone care?  Well, we should.  The final outcome for the industry's best and brightest is a good measure of the health of the legal industry as a whole.  McDermott Will & Emery  "extended offers to 54 members of the class; of those, 37 first years started last fall; 17 were deferred or seconded to clients; and 3 offers were rescinded."  But those 3 weren't rescinded altogether. Instead, they were offered positions as discovery attorneys (or permanent contract attorneys) at a rate of $77,500 plus bonuses and benefits.  Yes, I realize that this is a sweet deal for most of our readers.  But, this is not what these elite associates signed up. I can only guess, but I'm assuming that these associates were T14 and law review, moot court, etc.  There is no hope for partnership in this new fangled position as a "discovery" attorney.  Also, since they will only be dealing with discovery, there is little chance that they will gain enough experience in any field of substantive law to become an associate at another firm.  And partnership, forget it!  It's not option.

To be fair, McDermott Will has been perfectly open that it has two classes of associates. In 2007 it created a staff attorney track, according to The Recorder:

The idea is that the new hires--the firm is looking into starting with a pilot group of 15--will be lawyers 'with good pedigrees' who have practiced for a few years but don't want to deal with big-firm hours, said McDermott Will partner Robert Mallory said. Instead, they'll put in more like 30 to 40 hours and be paid something like 25 percent less, though an exact pay range hasn't been decided.

At that time, Mallory explained that economics was behind the decision: "In a market where high compensation for lateral partners, lateral associates, and associates [is] creating pressures, we're trying to bring the best-quality service at the lowest price to our clients."

Okay, so let's recap.  These non-partnership positions have been available to many lawyers in the past--not only at McDermott.  But these were positions that were easily attainable by T50 graduates.  Now that associates at BigLaw are being put on non-partnership tracks, you don't need a T50 for a non-partnership track attorney.  You can get a Stanford, Yale, Georgetown graduate to do the very same thing--forcing scores of T50 into the market with TT and TTT and TTTT schools.  So, you can see the impact of this type of move now?   The market for everyday normal attorneys is being inundated by the scores of graduates coming in from the bottom (40K+ annually) and then from the T14 at the top.  So, you should care about the deferred associates from the class of 2009, chances are you'll be seeing them in jobs that you could have gotten in 2008, before the meltdown.