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Law Students' Lawsuit Dismissed, Yet Legal Jobs Are Expanding
December 06, 2012
December 06, 2012 — Pasadena, California — Several law school graduates just had their lawsuit dismissed against several law schools, after claiming the schools misrepresented employment statistics and the likelihood of graduates finding employment. The cases in reference were: Jonathan Phillips v. DePaul University, No. 12CH03523 (Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois) Rachelle Evans v. Chicago-Kent College of Law, No. 12CH03522 (Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois) Jorie Johnson vs. The John Marshall Law School, No. 12CH03494 (Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois) While the students may have had a point, legal jobs are still out there, as evidenced by the most recent numbers released by LawCrossing.com. The legal job site recently reported over 98,000 open positions with nearly 11,000 new openings listed just in the past week alone. This bodes well for the entirety of the legal profession, says LawCrossing.com CEO, A. Harrison Barnes. “We're seeing more and more attorney jobs being posted all the time, which seems to point to the industry being on an incline,” says Barnes. However, he notes that the law students who raised the suit may have had a point. “Schools do inflate their employment statistics and while that doesn't mean jobs aren't available, it can give graduates a false sense of the market, especially in terms of how much they'll be making right after leaving school.” Learn the 10 Factors That Matter to Big Firms More Than Where You Went to Law School Along the schools that were sued were three Chicago schools including Chicago-Kent, DePaul, and John Marshall. All three suits have now been dismissed but the students did have some valid points. For instance, in the suit against DePaul, the students claimed the school told them as many as 89-percent of graduates would find work. However, this number did not include the stipulation that many of those positions were only part time, resulting in fewer Chicago attorney jobs than the students originally thought. This is definitely problematic for those counting on finding employment right after graduation. However, some of the problem might be graduates looking in the wrong places, says Barnes. “Our site lists law jobs from all across the country, giving graduates access to positions they might have otherwise never known about.” It's tradition to seek employment at firms near to the school from which one graduates, however students may need to be more resourceful for the twenty-first century. CONTACT: Andrew Ostler LawCrossing 626-243-1801 aostler@er.org https://www.lawcrossing.com About LawCrossing: LawCrossing.com was founded in 2003 by A. Harrison Barnes. It's now a part of the Employment Research Institute.
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