A Day in the Life

Where Are They Now?: The Class of 2007

In the last of our series of post on our most recent classes employment situations, we bring you the class of 2007. They've just graduated, so these are their first post-law-school jobs. Lois Casaleggi will tell you more:

"As our recent graduates are still basking in the glow of graduation, but also hitting the books again in preparation for the bar exam, let me tell you a bit about the exciting things they will be doing as they embark on their legal careers.

"We have a number of students who will be clerking with judges starting in the fall, despite the national trend of applicants waiting until they have some work experience before entering the clerkship market (more on this trend in an upcoming blog post).  Graduates will be clerking at six different U.S. Courts of Appeals (the Second, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits) and five U.S. District Courts.  We also have students clerking at the highest courts in three states and at the Supreme Court of Israel.

"Most of our graduates begin their careers in the private sector.  This fall we will have graduates working in law firms and businesses in Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Texas, Wisconsin, and London.

"Some of our graduates will be pursuing additional degrees, and several are pursuing work in the public sector.  We are very excited that three of our graduates this year received fellowships to pursue public interest work.  One of our graduates received the Polikoff-Gautreaux Fellowship with Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, another graduate will be serving as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at The Legal Aid Society in Washington, D.C., and a third graduate will be a fellow with the International Justice Mission in Kenya.  Two graduates will be serving in the federal government: one in the Attorney General’s Honors Program at the Department of Justice in the Antitrust Division and one at the Department of the Treasury in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.  Finally, we are continuing our recent trend of graduates who are pursuing careers as public defenders with our recent grad who will be working for the Defender Association in Seattle."

Where Are They Now?: The Class of 2008

In the second of three posts on what our current/recently-graduated classes are up to career-wise, Lois Casaleggi fills you in on the Class of 2008:

"For the summer after their second year of law school the vast majority of our students work in the private sector.  This summer our second years in the private sector will be working in 18 states, the District of Columbia, and Japan.

"Every year we have a group of students dedicated to public service, who do fascinating work during their summer.  This year we have students doing criminal work in U.S. Attorney’s Offices, Public Defender Offices, and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and a student providing direct legal services through the Legal Assistance Foundation.  Several students will be working for the federal government, including at the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and at the Centers for Disease Control."

We'll finish up next time with the class of 2007 - our most recent grads!

Where are they Now?: The Class of 2009

As much as we believe that law school is an intellectual haven for thinking seriously about Big Issues, we also know that it is a training ground for a future career. As we've told you before, our dedicated staff members in the Office of Career Services devote their entire working life (and many supposed non-working hours as well!) to assisting students in securing summer and permanent employment. We are quite proud of what our students end up doing, and we know they are as well, so we thought we'd provide you a series of posts telling you what the classes of 2007, 2008, and 2009 are up to career-wise. Lois Casaleggi, Director of Career Services, starts with this update on the class of 2009.

"Our first year students are taking advantage of the wide array of available opportunities for their first law school summer experience and are working in a variety of settings and locations.  Every year we have significant percentages of our class working in the public sector, the private sector, and here at the law school, and this year is no exception.  Our students working in the public sector are doing such a wide variety of work that we could spend an entire blog post on that topic, but I’ll give you a few illustrative examples.  On the government side of the public sector world, we have students at all levels of government.  Within the federal government, we have many students working at U.S. Attorney’s Offices and within other divisions of the Department of Justice.  At the state and local government level, we have students working in prosecutor’s offices, the office of the Texas Solicitor General, and the City of Chicago Department of Law.  Public interest positions range from the Public Citizen Litigation Group to Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts to the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

"Another popular option with our students is to work for a Judge during their first summer.  The Office of Career Services organizes a Summer Judicial Internship Program to help facilitate these opportunities.  This summer students will be working for federal judges at the appellate and trial court level, as well as the state supreme court level.

"About one-third of the first-year class will be working in the private sector this summer for law firms or businesses.

"Finally, we are always glad to have many of our first year students with us at the law school during the summer, working in one of our many clinics or serving as a research assistant to a professor.

"Our first year class will be working domestically and abroad in 19 states, the District of Columbia, and several foreign countries, including Chile, Israel, Japan, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and Tanzania."

Next time, the class of 2008.

Transfer Season

Now that the 3Ls have graduated, the 2Ls are at summer camp their summer jobs, and the 1Ls have successfully completed their finals and are beginning their first legal jobs, it is time to review transfer applications!

I have great respect for students who seek to transfer, because they typically have great grades at their 1L school, and likely would have good job prospects, journal and moot court opportunities, and possibly scholarships and other perks available to them. The willingness to leave that behind shows a great deal of initiative and enthusiasm to study law at Chicago. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, Chicago is very transfer-friendly because of our late-starting calendar, the quarter system, and our small size. This year, we are allowing transfer applicants to participate in the Journal writing competition, which will allow them to compete for membership in one of our student-run legal journals as a 2L.   

Evaluating transfer applications is always an interesting and challenging process. As with our regular applicant pool, it is full of talented students who are eager to study at Chicago. One thing that makes it especially challenging is the various grading systems and curves at different law schools. Trying to compare law school A to law school B takes time and effort, to be sure. Luckily there are only 190 law schools, so we've dealt with almost all of them. 

In case you were wondering, we evaluate our transfer applicants primarily on the law school they attended, law school grades, recommendation letters, and personal statement. LSAT is not very important (it tries to predict law school performance, but transfers have 1L grades that demonstrate performance), and while we certainly review the undergraduate transcripts, undergraduate grades are much less important than their law school performance.

So good luck if you are considering joining our 2L class next year, I am happy to report that last year's transfer class has done very well, as reported earlier. 

Farmer's Markets

Chicago is a city that prides itself on "green space." This means more than just our system of parks and public spaces - it also means a wonderful assortment of Farmer's Markets operating from May to November each year. There are five such markets in the downtown area alone and twenty different markets all over the city that operate on a weekly basis (days of the week vary). The Hyde Park Famer's Market operates in Harper Court every Thursday morning from June 7 to October 5. It opens at 7am each week and has wonderful seasonal produce. You could very easily stop by one of these markets any day in the summer and enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables for many months.

Graduation Day!

Graduation 2007 went off without a hitch. Most years, graduation seems to take place on the hottest day of the year. This year, we had a perfect 75 degree day with a nice breeze, keeping everyone cool and comfortable through both ceremonies.

The day begins with breakfast at the Law School, where families and graduates can meet up with each other and get some sustenance before all the big events. The graduates and faculty then head over to the official University Convocation, where the graduates of the Law School walk across the stage and receive their diplomas and a handshake from Dean Levmore. We are joined in this ceremony by the graduates of the Public Policy School and School of Social Service Administration. After that, it's off to the Hooding Ceremony.

Established in 1999, the Hooding Ceremony is an opportunity for us to do something a little more intimate than Convocation. It takes place in the beautiful Rockefeller Chapel, a non-denominational stone chapel built in the 1920s. Dean Levmore welcomed the students and guests, then introduced the speakers, Professor Richard Epstein (read his speech here) and Distinguished Citizen Award recipient David Rubenstein '73. Each graduate then received his or her academic hood from two of four faculty members (Douglas Baird, Emily Buss, Lior Strahilevitz, and David Strauss) who were chosen to be the hooders by the graduating class. Several of our JD graduates were hooded by their family members who have previously received degrees from the University of Chicago. As you might imagine, all of this lovely pomp and circumstance was followed by an extended period of family hugging and picture-taking on the lawn, and then everyone tromped back over to the Law School for a celebratory reception.

Some photos of the day are below.

Congratulations to the Class of 2007

This morning the Class of 2007 will graduate. They will wear fancy robes (and slightly silly hats), receive their diplomas, and march into the illustrious ranks of University of Chicago Law School alumni. We here on the staff and faculty are very proud of them, and we will miss seeing them every day in our halls. To the Class of 2007, we raise a glass and say that we hope you come back and visit us very soon!

Next week we'll post some graduation photos and tell you a little about the event.

A Summer Weekend in the City

Chicago is an amazing city in the summertime. There's some sort of festival every weekend (sometimes more than one!), street fairs galore, music everywhere, and, of course, tons of people taking advantage of the lakefront and parks. This weekend is particularly exciting. The Printer's Row Book Fair is always a highlight of June. It's been going on since 1985, and has nearly 200 booksellers with stalls showcasing new, used, and antique books, as well as 90 different literary events on seven stages. Dozens of authors will be there for events and signings. Admission is free, but if you're a reader, you'll end up spending a fair amount of cash on books!

If music is more your thing, Chicago's Blues Fest starts June 7 and goes through the 10th. It's the 24th Annual Festival, and the largest free outdoor blues festival in the world. It's in Grant Park, featuring local acts and nationally known names like Koko Taylor and Zac Harmon. Music starts around noon every day and goes until about 9:30pm.

If you prefer art, try the Old Town Art Fair or the Wells Street Art Fair, which are within a short walk of each other this Saturday and Sunday. Both feature live performances as well as juried art competitions. There's a wide range of materials used and price ranges as well.

For serious gastronomy (and the chance to experience some interesting neighborhoods), try Ribfest Chicago, Andersonville Midsommarfest, or Fiesta Back of the Yards. And if none of the rest of this excites you, there's always the Chicago branch of the World Naked Bike Ride (we kid you not) to protest reliance on oil. It's June 9, and the ride begins at 9pm (body painting starts at 6pm).

This is a fairly typical line up of events for a Chicago summer weekend. You can keep up with the schedule in a variety of places. If you're moving here soon (or want to give a gift to someone who is), a subscription to Time Out Chicago is a great idea - it's a weekly magazine showcasing all the great things there are to do in Chicago.

Library Construction

If you've been to visit us recently, you may have noticed that we're under construction. About three years ago, we completely renovated our classroom wing - all our classrooms are now fully wired for internet and electricity at every seat, acoustics and aesthetics were all upgraded, and the seats are much more comfortable. The renovation was a great success, so we moved on to the library.

Our building was built in 1959 and designed by the famed architect Eero Saarinen. The famous shell of our library (known to some as the "big glass box") remains untouched, but the inside is changing quite a bit. We're renovating all the faculty offices on floors four, five, and six; creating a student services office on the entire south half of the third floor, and updating the appearance and functionality of our book shelving. Perhaps most important to most readers of this blog, we're radically changing much of the student study space to reflect the myriad ways our students study today. We're creating more conference rooms and open group study space, integrating both soft seating and traditional study carrels, and upgrading the lighting and connectivity. We expect to complete these renovations in November 2007, and look forward to our students, faculty, and staff getting great use out of them.

Some photos of the recently re-opened sixth floor are below. We're working on the finishing details now, and the fifth floor is currently closed for massive renovation work.

A renovated (but unoccupied) faculty office.

The new bookstacks.

A new faculty corner office.

The new study carrels in the middle of each floor.