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Dickinson School of Law students

Placement statistics for Dickinson graduates have consistently been above the national average.

Dickinson graduates accept positions with law firms of all sizes in major metropolitan areas and small towns nationwide.

Dickinson alumni can be found working not only in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore, but also in Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, San Francisco, Atlanta, Anchorage and Honolulu.

Many graduates begin their careers as judicial law clerks at the federal, state and county levels; others pursue careers in the business sector or with federal, state and local governments, academic institutions or public service organizations.

The Class of 2007 employment profile for the school shows that 153 — five others went on to pursue advanced degrees — out of the 166 graduates landed jobs after school.

A total of 41 percent went into private law practice, while another 20 percent of the class ended up in government. The remaining class dispersed as follows: 16 percent in judicial clerkship, 12 percent in business/industry, 4 percent in public interest, 2 percent in academics and 1 percent in military government.

Four percent is classified as unknown.

—Source: Dickinson School of Law

By Jason Scott, Sentinel Reporter, June 29, 2008

Last updated: Sunday, June 29, 2008 9:59 AM EDT

Josh Autry knows a law school degree is no guaranteed career meal ticket.

However, it’s an investment the 24-year-old Virginia native is glad he made.

“Even though I will be paying it down for years to come, it has substantially increased my earning capacity,” he said, citing an education debt of approximately $150,000 — nearly all of it from law school.

Autry graduated from the Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Va., back in May. If he passes the bar exam later this summer, he will be the newest attorney at the Boyle, Neblett and Wenger law firm in Mechanicsburg.

“After clerking here last summer, I realized that the area has a lot to offer,” Autry said. “As the state capitol, Harrisburg’s political atmosphere is very attractive to many, like myself.”

It’s also a good area for lawyers with clients from D.C. to New York because it’s not too far from either, he added.

Autry, who discovered his passion for litigation as a competitive debater at Liberty University, said initially he wasn’t attracted to the Harrisburg region at all. Growing up in Virginia, he was looking to stay in the Richmond or Virginia Beach areas, maybe get in somewhere in Washington, D.C.

It was the Mechanicsburg firm’s specialization in First Amendment litigation that drew him in, he explained.

Law jobs

In the United States, the doors are open and getting wider for lawyers. The 150,000 students enrolled in law schools last year were an all-time high.

The economics of the “more is better” argument for legal education translating into more job opportunities doesn’t necessarily hold up.

“Many graduates fail the bar or go into low-paying fields, such as public defense or non-profit,” Autry said.

It’s the numbers at the top that get all the attention: At the largest law firms, median starting salaries were $145,000 last fall, according to NALP, an organization that tracks law placement.

But many students don’t realize at first that the high-paying law firms recruit almost exclusively at institutions ranked in the top 15 or so.

Overall, the median salary for new lawyers is $62,000. For public interest law jobs, new lawyers can expect about $40,000.

The average amount students borrow to attend a private law school surged 25 percent between 2002 and 2007 to $87,906, American Bar Association figures show. For public law schools, borrowing averages $57,170.

“I think we have this fundamental disconnect between images of lawyers in the popular media, in the courtroom dispensing justice, where everyone seems prosperous and well paid,” said William Henderson, an Indiana University-Bloomington law professor who studies the job market. “The reality is for a lot of people, law school is a route to trying to start your own private practice, and that’s a very crowded business right now.”

Starting up, adding on

One symptom of the surplus is the rise of so-called “contract attorneys” — essentially temps with JDs (the doctor of law degree). They work for roughly $20- to $40-an-hour on often monotonous tasks, like reviewing documents, that law firms outsource.

A blog called Temporary Attorney even chronicles the mind-numbing assignments, verbal abuse and poor working conditions that include cockroach-infested, un-air-conditioned rooms with blocked exits and no breaks allowed.

Regardless, universities continue to build and upgrade law schools.

With provisional accreditation, Charlotte School of Law and Elon University were Nos. 199 and 200 to open in the United States, designating it the world’s first nation of 200 accredited law schools.

Nine others operating share that status, and at least 10 new ones are in the works nationwide, The National Law Journal recently reported, in states including Connecticut, Pennsylvania and California.

For universities, a new law school is a lot more attractive financially than, say, spending money to make sure more undergraduates complete their degree within six years (national average: 57 percent).

Law schools have big classes, and don’t need to provide much financial aid, because students are expected to borrow the money they need.

Renovations and additions are also following suit at places like Penn State Univeristy, who is currently in the process of more than $110 million in law school upgrades in Carlisle and University Park.

The $50 million project to remodel and expand Trickett Hall at Dickinson School of Law is on target for completion by December 2009.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.