Law Schools Work to Make Students More Employable

Welcome to the new normal for anyone considering law school: The people who have the best shot at landing a job these days have carved a strategic path from the get-go.

"It used to be the case that you could be a generally smart person and rely on getting a job," says Phil Weiser, dean of the University of Colorado--Boulder Law School. "Those days are over."

The stats bear that out. The percentage of new J.D.s who were employed nine months after graduation has fallen for five straight years, according to the National Association for Law Placement. Just 60.7 percent of the class of 2012 had found a full-time job requiring bar exam passage.

Starting salaries, while lately ticking up to a median of $61,245 and $90,000 at law firms, are still considerably lower than they were in 2009: $72,000 overall and $130,000 at firms.

Given the bleaker job prospects and high debt loads required, it's not surprising that law school has become a less attractive proposition. Applications for the 2013-14 academic year fell to the lowest level in decades, according to the Law School Admission Council.

At some schools, that'll undoubtedly mean less competition for admission. But many are also adjusting supply. Some 54 percent of admissions officers polled by Kaplan Test Prep say they reduced their class size for the current school year, and 25 percent will do so again in the next one.

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Bad times for graduates have drawn attention to law schools' failings. An American Bar Association task force draft report last fall recommended further focus on practical skills, like how to draft a brief and work in teams and more hands-on learning.

Plenty of administrators are having conversations with employers about what should be taught, says Alli Gerkman, director of Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers, an initiative of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver.

And many, as a result, have integrated much more practical work into the curriculum. A Kaplan survey found that 71 percent of schools are in the process of introducing more clinical courses and practical training. Washington and Lee University School of Law in Virginia has made its third year entirely centered around practice-based courses, for example.

Starting this summer, two University of Colorado law students will work as paid interns at IT giant Cisco Systems' San Jose, Calif., headquarters for seven months rather than going to class. They'll also avoid a semester's tuition, completing all their requirements in 2 1/2 years.

"Working in a state-of-the-art law department" on such corporate issues as open-source licenses and nondisclosure agreements will definitely "make them more employable," says Weiser.

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Back in the classroom, law schools are also reconsidering what they need to be imparting. Many schools have been shifting attention to "soft" skills like leadership and teamwork and the importance of "putting your blood, sweat and tears into someone else's problems, needs and goals," says Michael Madison, a professor and faculty director of the Innovation Practice Institute at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Hard skills in new areas like business and technology are increasingly important as well.

Students at Michigan State University College of Law can take classes in entrepreneurship and quantitative analysis through the school's ReInvent Law Laboratory, an initiative sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation that focuses on ways to apply technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in the tradition-bound legal field.

The program tries to anticipate what hard skills lawyers will need in the future -- and then imagine ways to apply those skills.

"We need to be preparing lawyers to practice in ways that haven't really been invented yet," says Renee Newman Knake, associate professor at MSU law school and co-founder of ReInvent Law.

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And this kind of prep is needed for all the positions springing up off the traditional track, too. Jobs in the compliance arena at corporations and at the growing number of litigation finance firms -- which fund lawsuits in exchange for some of plaintiffs' winnings -- are ripe for J.D.s, says Michele DeStefano, associate professor at the University of Miami School of Law.

William Henderson, professor and director of the Center on the Global Legal Profession at Indiana University--Bloomington's Maurer School of Law, predicts that legal solutions architects, who work within law firms to create technological solutions for lawyers and clients, will be holding down "six-figure jobs" in a year or two.

Beyond resolving to take advantage of the new offerings, how can you raise the odds from the outset that a huge investment will pay off?

To start with, know exactly why your path leads to law school. That way, you'll position yourself for success early. It's certainly not a good bet to make law school your Plan B.

Assuming the law is a heartfelt Plan A, most advisers counsel working for a few years first. While plenty of students put in time as paralegals or in other legal positions, admissions officers and potential future employers find value in many types of jobs.

Finally, to give yourself maximum flexibility as you job hunt, "keep your borrowing as low as possible," advises James Leipold, executive director of NALP.

"No one should be paying full retail," Leipold says -- especially now, when schools are giving away "a lot of money." If you don't come out of law school bogged down by debt, he says, you can make your first moves a lot more nimbly.

This story is excerpted from the U.S. News "Best Graduate Schools 2015" guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.