I'm at the University of Texas.
As for graduates, it really is a “Tale of Two Job Markets.” Most schools really inflate their graduate employment data–that information really lacks trustworthiness. However, if you can get into one of the Top 20ish law schools (Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, NYU, Chicago, Penn, Michigan, Virginia, Duke, Berkeley, Cornell, Northwestern, Georgetown, Texas, Vanderbilt, UCLA, USC, Washington U @ St. Louis, Notre Dame), then the job prospects are still really bright. At the top of the list, you can mostly finish anywhere in your class, get a job, and start out at 160k. These jobs (known colloquially to law students as “Big Law” jobs) are the places where the real “legal” action takes place–like the securities litigation and the sexy work done by deal lawyers. Between schools 10-20, if you're in the top 1/3 to top 1/4, you'll get the same type of job as the kids coming out of the Top Ten schools. And, if you have a good undergrad GPA/LSAT score, a number of people get into a school ranked 10-20 with a full ride for the whole three years. People that are able to swing a full ride and end up in the top 1/4 of their class live what we in the business call “The Sweet Life.”
After those top 20 schools, the pickings become much slimmer and a lot more regional. For “regional” schools, the top 5% of a class may be able to get pretty good jobs out of school, but the rest of the kids will either be jobless or will have to go work as a district attorney somewhere—it's not the best system.
I do think that accountants are particularly well-suited for law school, though. We spend our entire undergrad careers (and professional careers) learning rules and using logic and analytical reasoning to interpret those rules. That is ALL that law school is. Accordingly, accountants really have a leg up on their counterparts that have undergrad degrees in political science, history, or liberal arts.
IL Candidate
FAR - 75
BEC - 84
REG - 59, 83
AUD - 50, 74, 69, 89!
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