A R T I C L E

It's a lot different than just a few years ago

"Challenging" is the word Vanderbilt University Law School's Elizabeth Workman uses to describe the current job market for law school students.

That's not to say there aren't jobs out there, the school's assistant dean for career services adds quickly, and that students won't be able to land their dream jobs. But like their peers already working in the legal profession, Workman says, students will have to work a little harder or a little smarter to get what they want in these slow economic times.

That's an opinion echoed by officials at law schools across the state in varying degrees. All see opportunities, but acknowledge it's not the same market law students were entering a couple years ago, when dot.com companies were aggressively hiring and pressuring starting salaries to increase.

At the University of Memphis' Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, Assistant Dean Charles DeWitt says students there are facing a particularly difficult time finding jobs this year. "It's probably as bad as I've seen it in seven years, both for graduates and law clerks," he says.

The top 20 to 25 percent of students going to major firms are still successfully finding jobs, DeWitt says, but those looking for careers with smaller and midsize firms are having more trouble. Particularly since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he says, "it's the small firms and mid-sized firms that are holding still, waiting to see what happens."

And since the majority of the school's graduating class of about 150 generally goes to work with small to mid-sized firms, that's left many still looking for work, DeWitt says.

Karen Britton has also seen some of that caution at the University of Tennessee"s College of Law in Knoxville. The college’s director of admissions, financial aid and career services expects to maintain a high placement rate for graduates, and says recruiters are still coming to campus in about the same number as in the past. Once there, however, recruiters are being more selective. Britton says they're scheduling fewer interviews, calling back fewer students for follow-up interviews and making fewer job offers than in the past.

Still, Britton says, the school should continue to place nearly all of its students within nine months of graduation. For 2000 graduates, the figure was 99 percent and early figures for 2001 graduates suggest similar performance. Normally 60 percent to 70 percent have jobs at graduation, she says.

At Vanderbilt, the picture is a little different. Its graduates are more often competing on a national level instead of just within the state or region, so economic downturns in financial or high tech centers on the coasts can have an impact on recruiting. Of 135 graduates in the 2001 class, for example, more went to work in California and New York than in Tennessee.

Even with the slower economic times in those areas, Workman says there are still lots of opportunities for graduates from top-tier law schools such as Vanderbilt. Lots of job openings are coming in, she says, but students "may not get their dream job as easily" as in the past few years. For the class of 2001, 90 percent had employment at graduation.

Students at other schools are also having to do more to get what they want. In Knoxville, Britton says students have to be more flexible and mobile in where they want to work. In addition, she says, more are looking at judicial clerkships as an opportunity to make themselves more marketable. While those positions had been popular in the past, the sudden jump in starting salaries in 1999 caused many graduates to ignore the lower-paid positions.

In Memphis, students are also looking at alternative career opportunities, DeWitt says. Some students are looking to post-graduate work in intellectual property, taxes and other fields to make themselves more marketable. Others, he says, are looking for work in non-traditional fields either as a career or simply as a bridge until the economy improves and there are more opportunities in the legal industry.

At Nashville's School of Law, most students are already working in another field, so they're not entering the legal market from the same place as students at other law schools in the state, according to Janet Naff, who handles career placement at the school. So instead of competing in the open market, most are able to continue work at their present employer.

For those graduates who are looking to change jobs, Naff says, there has been a steady flow of job openings coming in that has not been hurt by the economic slowdown.

Officials at all of the Tennessee law schools say salaries for new lawyers remain stable, but without the big hikes seen a few years ago.

Apparently this somewhat stable market for new attorneys is encouraging more and more people to consider a legal career. UT's Britton says applications to the College of Law are up and people are flocking to take the LSAT admissions test. The Law School Admission Council reports that 38,045 people took the LSAT in December. That’s a 26.3 percent increase over the previous year and the largest percentage increase in a decade. Registrations for the February test were up about 25 percent.

Barry Kolar is the Tennessee Bar Association's Communications Circle leader and TBALink editorial coordinator.