Law schools who sent the most graduate into Big Law jobs, survey finds law school lacks training for junior associates, ex-McKinsey partner sues firm?
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?? These law schools sent the most graduates into Big Law jobs in 2023
Columbia Law School snagged the top spot among U.S. law schools for having the highest percentage of 2023 graduates who landed large law firm jobs, according to new employment data from the American Bar Association.
Nearly 76% of the school's juris doctor graduates took jobs at firms of 251 or more lawyers within 10 months of leaving campus, the data shows.
Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law came in at No. 2 for Big Law hiring, with 70% of its 2023 JDs taking those jobs, while the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School sent 69% of it graduates to large firms. With Cornell at No. 4, the University of Virginia School of Law rounded out the top five with 68% of its class going into Big Law.
The ABA on April 22 released a wealth of data on the class of 2023’s employment outcomes, and the numbers revealed a strong job market for those graduates. Among the 30,160 newly minted JDs last year, 85.6% landed full-time, permanent jobs that either require bar passage or for which a JD provides an advantage within 10 months of leaving campus—the highest rate over the past decade.
Reuters analyzed the data to determine which law schools had the highest percentage of 2023 graduates who landed jobs at firms of 251 or more lawyers. Most of these large firms focus on representing companies in transactions and litigation, and competition for associate talent has been fierce among them. Starting associate pay at many of these firms has climbed to $225,000 a year.
?? Law school failed to prepare 45% of junior associates for practice, survey finds
Nearly half of law firm associates believe law school did not adequately prepare them for practice, a new survey has found.
Among the 546 junior associates surveyed in January and February by legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa and legal data intelligence provider Leopard Solutions, 45% said law school did not sufficiently prepare them for their current role. And 31% said their law firm experience didn’t meet their expectations coming out of law school according to the study.
When asked what they would change about their law school experience, the most common answer provided by the surveyed associates was more practical skills and a greater focus on transactional practices.
Many of the 31% of respondents who said their law firm experience did not meet their expectations in law school cited legal education’s focus on litigation and a lack of training in the type of legal work they now do.
?? Lawsuit claims hackers swiped law firm client's cash in email scam
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An engineering and manufacturing company accused U.S. law firm Clark Hill and one of its lawyers of 'recklessly' wiring $1.1 million to scammers who used hacked email accounts to intercept settlement funds.
Sinacom North America sued, Detroit-founded Clark Hill and member Steven Richman earlier this week in Pennsylvania state court for being 'duped by an obvious scam' and allegedly transferring money to a bank account that did not belong to Sinacom after an unknown third-party gave the firm fake wire transfer instructions.
Law firms and other legal services providers hold sensitive, confidential information from clients and their own businesses and have increasingly been targeted by cyberattacks. Attention has mainly focused on the risk of hackers pilfering data from law firms for ransom or to trade on deals or litigation details or other corporate secrets.
The Clark Hill case is among a small but growing handful of lawsuits over what appears to be a rarer tactic: bad actors inserting themselves directly into a money transfer by impersonating a law firm, its client or another party.
Clark Hill in a statement said it will fight the claims. Richman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
?? Ex- McKinsey partner sues firm, claims he was made opioids 'scapegoat'
A former McKinsey & Co partner sued the global consulting firm on April 26 and accused it of defaming him and making him a "scapegoat" to distract attention from its work advising OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and other manufacturers of opioid pain medications.
Arnab Ghatak, who was fired in 2021, filed the lawsuit, in New York state court just two days after Reuters and others reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was conducting a criminal investigation of McKinsey's role in the U.S. opioid epidemic.
Part of that investigation concerns whether McKinsey obstructed justice, an inquiry related to McKinsey's disclosure that it had fired two partners who communicated about deleting documents related to their opioids work, people familiar with the matter said.
Those partners included Ghatak, who had been a senior partner and McKinsey's global head of medical affairs. In his lawsuit, Ghatak alleged that McKinsey and its global managing partner, Bob Sternfels, lied to the U.S. Congress and the public about his role in deleting emails.
Ghatak accused Sternfels of misleading Congress when he testified before a House of Representatives committee in 2022 that the two partners were terminated for violating a document retention policy, one that Ghatak said in fact did not exist.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages from McKinsey and Sternfels, who was also named as a defendant.
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