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."
Wisconsin
Lawyer