NALP Bulletin, January 2019
Law school graduates from the Class of 2017 who were transfer students were more likely to be employed as of March 15, 2018, compared to the class as a whole — and to have obtained a job in a large law firm. These are the bottom-line findings based on information on graduate transfer status collected for the first time for the Class of 2017.
The overall employment rate for graduates who were transfer students was 90.1% of the approximately 1,400 such graduates for whom employment status was known. This compares with 88.6% for the class as a whole. More notable, for graduates who were transfer students, the rates of employment in bar passage required/anticipated jobs and in private practice exceeded those of the class as a whole by about 5 percentage points. For example, among employed graduates as a whole, 54.4% obtained a job in private practice. For graduates who were transfer students, the figure was 59.6%. (See Table 1.)
It is also evident that the private practice employment of graduates who were transfer students is more likely to be in large firms of more than 500 attorneys compared to graduates as a whole taking jobs in private practice — 36.7% and 28.1% of private practice jobs, respectively. It follows that the median private practice salary for graduates who were transfer students exceeds the overall private practice median by more than $30,000. A salary differential is not necessarily evident in other sectors.
| Graduates Who Were Transfer Students | Class as a Whole | |
| Employment Status* | ||
| Employed | 90.1% | 88.6% |
| Job is Bar Passage Required/Anticipated | 76.4 | 71.8 |
| Job is JD Advantage | 11.7 | 12.3 |
| # of Graduates for Whom Employment Status Was Known | 1,415 | 33,966 |
| Employment Sector** | ||
| Private Practice | 59.6% | 54.4% |
| Business | 12.4 | 13.9 |
| Government | 11.1 | 12.0 |
| Clerkships | 9.2 | 10.7 |
| Public Interest | 6.2 | 7.2 |
| Education | 1.2 | 1.6 |
| # of Employed Graduates | 1,283 | 30,104 |
* Figures are based on graduates for whom employment status was known.
** Figures are based on employed graduates.
| Employment in Law Firms by Size of Firm | ||
| Size of Firm (# of attorneys) | Graduates Who Were Transfer Students | Class as a Whole |
| Graduate Is Solo Practitioner | 1.8% | 2.5% |
| 1-10* | 32.2 | 35.3 |
| 11-25 | 9.8 | 10.4 |
| 26-50 | 5.0 | 6.1 |
| 51-100 | 4.4 | 4.9 |
| 101-250 | 4.6 | 5.9 |
| 251-500 | 5.6 | 6.2 |
| 501+ | 36.7 | 28.1 |
| Firm Size Unknown | 0.4 | 0.7 |
| # of Private Practice Jobs | 765 | 16,390 |
* Includes graduates working for a solo practitioner.
| Graduates Who Were Transfer Students | Class as a Whole | |
| By Kind of Job | ||
| All Jobs | $76,000 | $70,000 |
| Bar Passage Required/Anticipated | 80,000 | 70,000 |
| JD Advantage | 65,000 | 65,000 |
| Other Professional | 52,500 | 65,000 |
| Employment Sector | ||
| Private Practice | $150,000 | $117,000 |
| Business | 67,800 | 75,000 |
| Government | 59,000 | 60,000 |
| Clerkships | 53,810 | 56,750 |
| Public Interest | 50,400 | 50,000 |
| Education | 55,000 | 50,000 |
Note: All salary figures are based on salaries reported for full-time jobs lasting at least a year. A total of 19,719 salaries were reported. For graduates who were transfer students, 875 salaries were reported.
