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Marquette University Law School
Where Do
Graduates Go?
Nearly 88 percent of the class of 1999 took jobs in Wisconsin, which
was down to 78 percent for the class of 2000. Assistant dean for career
planning Paul Katzman says he's made a bigger push since he came to Marquette
three years ago to seek more out-of-state employment opportunities for
graduates. "The diploma privilege (whereby Wisconsin law school graduates
automatically gain entrance to the bar, without taking a bar exam) encourages
students to stay in state after graduation," Katzman says. "But Wisconsin
isn't a large legal market. We can't find positions here for everyone."
One challenge Katzman faces is sparking more interest in out-of-state
positions among students. Another is getting more out-of-state employers
to consider Marquette graduates. In the last three years, "we've increased
the number of out-of-state participants in our on-campus interview program
by 500 percent," Katzman notes.
The median starting salary was $48,250 for 2000 graduates employed in
full-time legal work, compared to $42,000 in 1998 (the earliest year for
which a median figure is available). A vast disparity appears in the salary
range for the 2000 graduates, from $23,400 to $125,000. Compare the latter
number to salary maximums of $90,000 for the class of 1998 and $73,000
for 1997. The high end of the current range is skewed by large law firms,
where salaries have mushroomed in recent years to keep pace with starting
salaries at high-tech companies. As associates' salaries have climbed
to six figures, large law firms' annual billable hour expectations have
soared, too, now running about 2,000 hours, at a minimum. "I know many
law graduates, however, who would gladly take less pay if the billable-hour
demands were cut," Katzman says. "But it's kind of a runaway train at
this point, and I don't know where it's going to stop."
Among 2000 graduates, the types of practice settings they entered broke
down as follows: 64.7 percent private practice, 20.3 percent government,
12 percent business, 1.5 percent public interest, and 1.5 percent academic.
At graduation, 71.5 percent had found legal-related jobs; nine months
later that figure stood at 91.4 percent. Still, those numbers don't tell
an important part of the story, Katzman notes. Most graduates have jobs,
but are they doing something they want to do? Career advisors can emphasize
the importance of finding a job that's a good fit and the wisdom of waiting,
if need be, to find it. "But," Katzman points out, "that's difficult for
graduates to do when they're faced with a tight job market and $1,000-a-month
loan repayment bills."
The gap may be widening between the salary expectations of debt-burdened
graduates, who invested three years to earn an advanced degree, and the
salaries that hiring employers - except for the very largest firms - feel
they can afford to pay in today's rising-cost environment. "The conflicting
interests of graduates and legal employers are difficult to reconcile,"
Katzman says. "Perhaps it's a matter of making each party aware of the
realities facing the other."
University
of Wisconsin by the Numbers
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