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Chicago Law Jumps to the Top of the Full-Time Job List

By Jonathan R. Tung, Esq. on May 31, 2016 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Do you want to actually have a job as a lawyer after you graduate? Then you should really do your best to get into University of Chicago. Data by the ABA and analyzed by The National Law Journal suggests that 91 percent of grads went out with a full time job, more than any other law school in the nation.

It's another stellar year for the school that had similarly great results for the year 2014.

Actual JDs Required

On top of maintaining such great results from a smaller class size, the school managed to send a greater percentage of its students into jobs that actually require a JD, and fewer students by proportion into JD-advantage jobs. Increasingly, more students also decided to move away from the traditional legal jobs as a good chuck opted for JD/MBAs.

In the Running

Other schools that had very respectable employment rates at full-time gigs were UPenn, Cornell, and Duke with about 90 percent of those students finding full-time work within 10 months of leaving the campus. Notice that the clock starts ticking upon graduation, so this number presumably also includes those students who took the bar exam and failed, or indeed, didn't take the bar exam at all. They can't all be lumped up in the 10 percent category. We hope they got somewhere, because it only gets tougher the more times you fail.

California: "Hardest" Bar Exam, Worst Employment Numbers

The Golden State unfortunately is picking up the reputation of simultaneously having the hardest bar exam, while also having some of the most discouraging employment results. Law schools in California represent about five of the top 10 law schools for jobless grads in 2015. Those grads are either unemployed and seeking work, are temps, or are in part-time non-professional jobs.

Since we've mentioned the state, we might as well mention the schools who are suffering the most according The National Law Journal: Southwestern School Law School, Golden Gate University School of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law (yes, that's right), and Thomas Jefferson School of Law. UC Irvine, one of the freshest law schools in the country, managed to escape this odious list.

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