GoodCall analyzed more than 900 metropolitan and "micropolitan" areas based on four criteria to come up with the rankings: average lawyer salary; job availability and competition; housing prices; and amenities, such as restaurants and arts and entertainment venues.Four criteria for 900 separate geographic areas? Sounds as infallible as US News and the Gospel of S & M.
I don't want to steal thunder and publish the whole list, but I would be remiss not to point out some highlights:
- Los Angeles. Yes, that Los Angeles, the one with the museum-quality collection of law schools rivaling only that found in Boston, NYC, DC, and Chicago, indisputably the epitome of mass legal education west of the Mississippi and east of Tokyo and it's still a great place for new lawyers.
- An inordinate amount of these locations appear to have super-affordable "third rate" law schools located right in the metro area: Orlando, LA, Nashville, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Houston, Tulsa, Charlotte, and Naples Motherfuckin' Florida, the home of Ave Maria, God's law school.
- The Number 1 slot goes to Hot Springs, Arkansas, the 35k hometown of Bill Clinton and Billy Bob Thornton, and no doubt completely open to lawyer tourists overstaying their welcome in the middle of Arkansas to compete with Arkansas and Arkansas-Little Rock grads.
You don't even have to use the imagination that you're missing. They fucking made a list for you. So, uh, "go to Fort Collins!"
Well, the pigs at TTTs always tout their "location in the state capital" or "We are located in the heart of the legal and business community!" It's a TTT thing.
ReplyDeleteLawyer JOBS!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am wetting my pants and my heart is racing just thinking about that BIG COIN. I know at least two lawyers who drive Le Sabres with the primer showing and another driving an '03 Accord with a squeaking serpentine belt. We need JOBS....WORK....FEES....this is great.........I feel like Flounder on Animal House.....This is GREAT...... 98,000 lawyers in Illinois, I am so gone.....
ReplyDeleteHis firm receives an "incredible number of applications" and sees 750 to 1,000 resumes annually for a handful of positions, Bulloch said.
ReplyDeleteDidn't see that coming. Nope. I looked at the firm's site. Expected to see a bunch of Vandy and Emory grads plus some Ivys -- there actually aren't many -- but it looks like Univ of Florida with a journal or honors is a minimum. Florida Coastal grads need not apply.
Professor Caron covered this story too. http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/09/the-top-25-cities-for-law-school-graduates.html. The comments are perceptive. No commenter believed the list was true.
ReplyDeleteActually, the data relied on are just a few clicks away. There are 796 cities. One data column is for "Available Jobs per 1,000 Lawyers." Would you believe 475 of those cities have "NO" data in that column?! That includes 23 of the "Best 100" cities.
Such an incomplete dataset on the critical jobs factor makes this list totally useless.
A quarter of the "best" cities have no jobs for lawyers? How are they better in that respect than the worst?
DeleteTalk about randomness. Without any connections whatsoever or any preparation for a state's bar, law grads are just supposed to hop on over to some random metro area because it has some nice restaurants and what some non-lawyer at a "personal finance and career advisory website" thinks about law job competition. This is about as useful as an Agilisaurus fart. I especially enjoyed the fact that New Orleans made the list. There are 4 law schools in the state and according to Tulane's ABA Report for the Class of 2015, only 145 out of 241 graduates found full time/long-term employment where bar passage was required. So kids, just bone up on the ol' Napoleonic Code and go cage fight with the connected graduates from local schools.
ReplyDeleteYou would not believe how many non-lawyers think we are all rich. They see a few on-line stories about "best careers" or they read how somebody snagged a 160K job. One attorney was profiled in Parade Magazine as earning in excess of 1.0 Million. I once asked a "political" guy I did some pro bono legal for about helping me get a job. He told that lawyers are rich and don't need his help. He said he needed MY HELP. He then snarkily told me that he saw an armored car in town and though it stopped at my house. Folks think like that....
ReplyDeleteYou think? I think he was a political type and, according to the playbook, always turn it around if someone asks you for a favor.
DeleteHot Springs? For what, exactly? Geriatic law? Wills and estate planning? Wild animal law?
ReplyDeleteHot Springs and the surrounding area is nothing but 75,000 retired old people and wilderness. There is literally very little else. Fine if you want to have an extremely modest practice, AFTER you've lived there for 40 years and all the Old people trust you. Otherwise, there's nothing.