Law students safe in down job market so far

Despite a nationwide decline in demand for legal services stemming from the recent economic downturn, Penn Law graduates have not found much difficulty securing jobs.

According to Associate Dean for Career Planning and Professionalism Heather Frattone, 98 percent of Penn Law students were either employed or continuing their educations upon graduation last year. Shortly after, another one to two percent found employment.

Frattone attributed the decline in demand for legal services to recent changes in a dynamic, client-driven market.

“If clients aren’t doing deals or if there isn’t financing to do deals, there’s not going to be a demand for those kinds of legal services,” she said, noting that in recent years, the number of Penn Law students looking beyond “big law firms” for employment opportunities has increased.

“They’re looking at anything from judicial clerkships to government employment to smaller firms,” she said.

Large law firms conduct the majority of their recruiting two years before students are to start as associates, hiring them in the fall of their second year with the intent of making them an offer of full-time employment based on performance, she said.

While Frattone expects a decline in employment numbers for the class of 2010, the vast majority will still be employed at graduation, she said.

“We’re doing as well as can be expected in this market,” Frattone said, attributing graduates’ job search success partly to a “supportive dean” and the individualized counseling provided by Penn Law’s career services office.

In response to heightened employer demand for students who have cultivated “professional” skills beyond material taught in the classroom, Penn Law is currently developing and incorporating communication and relationship-building skills into its curriculum, she said.

However, Frattone emphasized that most employers have not found Penn Law graduates lacking in experience, as students are given ample opportunity to acquire practical experience by participating in clinical programs and fulfilling requirements which have students help lawyers doing pro bono work.

According to Penn Law student Elena Aidova, both the school’s prestige and the education it provided were integral in helping her secure a full-time job offer in Miami.

Aidova, who hopes to specialize in transactional law, said she is practicing editing contracts in an entrepreneurship clinic.

While she acknowledges that most law school classes are more “theory than practice,” Aidova emphasized that practical experience is easily obtained by anyone who seeks it.

Though the market is still suffering, Frattone added that it has changed considerably since the start of the financial crisis in fall 2008 — and may even be improving.

“Litigation is picking up, [dealwork] is picking up … in some ways it’s unclear what the future will look like because the market is really beginning to recover,” she said.

March 18 — This article is different from the print version. Ninety-eight percent of last year's Penn Law graduates were employed or continuing their educations upon graduation, and that shortly after, another one to two percent found employment. The article previously stated the numbers as 90 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.

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