Print

Prospective Students

Columbia Law School provides an exceptional education for future leaders of the legal profession. Through its global network and tradition of excellence, Columbia affords students outstanding opportunities and preparation for post-graduate careers, as well as internships and fellowships. The Office of Career Services and Professional Development (OCS) is a team of dedicated counselors and recruitment professionals who work in tandem with the staff of the Law School’s Social Justice Initiatives (SJI) office to advise and support students as they plan for careers in the private and public sectors.

Both offices offer a wealth of expertise and resources; OCS specializes in preparing students for post-graduate employment in the private sector, while SJI has primary responsibility for preparing students interested in public interest, government, and legal volunteer work. The Careers in Law Teaching Program helps students interested in post-graduate academia, and additional resources are available for students interested in judicial clerkships.

Both OCS and SJI function as a bridge between students, alumni, and employers. Staff members help students and alumni shape, prepare for, and pursue their career goals and work closely with legal employers to give them access to the most talented graduates in the country.

INTERVIEW PROGRAMS AND RESOURCES

OCS works closely with students and graduates in many ways, including Professional Development Programs:

Throughout the academic year, OCS hosts an extensive number of cutting-edge programs that are designed to address important professional development issues and introduce students to the exciting and diverse opportunities available to lawyers in the private sector.
 OCS 
counselors, many of whom hold law degrees, have decades of experience in counseling as well as law practice and offer a wealth of knowledge  to help students create their own career path.
 
Introduction to a Vast Network of Employers Through a variety of career service programs planned and coordinated by OCS, Columbia introduces students to a vast network of potential employers in the private and public sectors. Employers seeking law students for summer or postgraduate openings find Columbia's Interview programs efficient and cost effective, and we have a distinguished track record of placing students and graduates with major law firms, as well as with corporations, consulting firms, and governmental and public sector employers. These programs include:

• Fall Interview Program (Fall OCI) Fall OCI offers law firms of all sizes, corporations, public interest organizations, and government employers the opportunity to interview 2L and 3L students interested in summer associate and postgraduate positions.

• Spring Interview Program (Spring OCI) Spring OCI offers law firms of all sizes, corporations, public interest organizations, and government employers an opportunity to interview 1L, 2L, and 3L students interested in summer associate and postgraduate positions. 

• Early Interview Program (EIP) The Early Interview Program, one of the largest and most successful law school interview programs in the country, is held in August at a hotel in midtown Manhattan where employers interview 2Ls and 3Ls from Columbia for summer associate and postgraduate positions. The job fair attracts hundreds of law firms from major markets in the U.S. and around the world.

• Additional Job Fairs Columbia Law School students regularly participate in several other interview programs throughout the year, including The New York City Bar Association's Bar Fellows Intern Program, Lavender Law Fair, Northeast BLSA Job Fair, the Public Interest Symposium, the NAPIL Public Interest Job Fair, the Delaware Minority Job Fair, and the Chicago Intellectual Property Job Fair.

OCS Programs Throughout the school year, Career Services offers orientations, informational panels and workshops to help students make decisions and develop interviewing skills.

During the Fall semester, the most important program is the Career Services Orientation, an introduction to the job search process. In the Spring semester, in addition to panels on Interviewing Skills and How to Have a Successful Summer, Career Services holds a Practice Interview Program.  We also offer other programming related to alternative legal careers, including investment banking and careers in consulting.

Opportunities to Develop Strong Relationships with Alumni OCS counselors collaborate with the Development and Alumni Relations office to provide students with access to alumni who hold top legal positions across the country and around the world. Throughout the academic year, alumni return to the Law School to give lectures and conduct workshops, introducing students to the exciting and diverse opportunities available to lawyers and addressing professional development matters in a nurturing environment. Many alumni also mentor current students.



Online and Other Resources From podcasts to articles to webinars to useful links, OCS offers a wealth of information about the job market, professionalism, stress management, financial planning, and alternative careers. All full-time J.D. students are given access to Symplicity, a database that allows candidates to research job openings and employers, post resumes, and keep track of appointments.

EMPLOYMENT STATISTICS

Last Updated: April 19, 2012

Approximately 1,600 students attend the Law School each year—1,330 J.D. candidates, and the rest in the LL.M. and J.S.D. programs.

Columbia stands among the handful of the most highly selective law schools in the nation, as measured by percent of applicants accepted and enrollment yield. Our J.D. Class of 2011 presents a median LSAT of 172 (99th percentile) and a median undergraduate GPA of 3.71, and is distinguished further by its remarkable range of diverse backgrounds and experiences.

The student body of the J.D. Class of 2011 represents 39 states, 22 foreign countries, and 99 undergraduate colleges. Columbia has one of the most diverse law student bodies in the country, with 32% students of color and 49% women.

Columbia Law School Employment 9 Months After Graduation

Columbia Law School reported the data below to the American Bar Association (ABA) for each J.D. graduate indicating their employment status at 9 months after graduation. (Prior to 2010, Columbia Law School did not participate in the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) survey, and the ABA did not request information related to various data categories that appear blank below.) To assist our prospective students as they consider admission to law school, we provided this data in a format similar to peer schools for easy comparison.

¹  This is a percentage of the number of employed students.

¹ All but two graduates are in full-time positions. (Part time: two at law firms)

² All but six graduates are in long-term positions of a year or more. (Short term: six positions with corporate in-house counsels)

 ¹  This chart reflects the job type for graduates known to be employed 9 months after graduation. On average 1–2% of graduates pursue advanced degrees immediately after graduation, and these graduates are not reflected in these statistics.

²   Prior to 2010, Columbia Law School did not participate in the NALP survey, and the ABA did not request the collection of data regarding law firm size and judicial clerkship type. 

³  The data for the Government and Public Interest categories includes students on fellowships that support them for up to a year or more after graduation. Learn more about our government and public interest fellowships.

⁴  The judicial clerkship percentage includes only those graduates who clerked for a judge as a first job after graduation. In addition, there has been an increasing trend in the number of graduates who clerk after working for one or two years. Prior to 2010, Columbia Law School did not participate in the NALP survey, and the ABA did not request the collection of data regarding judicial clerkship type.

 * Geographic destinations of employed graduates 9 months after graduation as reported to ABA.

¹  97% of employed students reported salary information.

²  99% of employed students reported salary information.

³  98% of employed private sector students reported salary information.

⁴  Includes judicial clerkships, positions in government, academia, and other not-for-profit organizations.

⁵  Prior to 2010, Columbia Law School did not participate in the NALP survey and collected data for public sector salaries in terms of High, Low, Median. In 2010 we started providing salary information to NALP according to their criteria of 75th Percentile, 25th percentile, Median, and Mean.

Government and Public Interest Fellowships

For more than 150 years, Columbia Law School graduates have served at the highest levels of government and public interest organizations. We are extremely proud of this legacy and are committed to enhancing it, even as the public interest and government job market has become more challenging. Our graduates continue to secure prestigious fellowships, government Honors Program positions, and full-time legal jobs, but the market for government and public interest jobs is tighter than it was five years ago. In response, we have raised money to fund fellowships for graduates who want to work in government and public interest jobs but have not yet found paying positions. These fellowships offer our graduates the opportunity to do socially important and interesting work, gain useful experience, and also demonstrate their great value to government and public interest organizations so that, when a paying position opens up, our graduates are especially strong candidates. In 2009, we offered nine such fellowships, adding them to a longstanding program that awards the David W. Leebron Human Rights Fellowship and the Kirkland & Ellis New York City Public Service Fellowship. In 2010, we offered 10 of these government and public interest fellowships. For the Class of 2011, as the job market tightened, we further increased the number of government and public interest fellowships to 38. As a result of these opportunities, graduates have engaged in challenging legal work at a broad range of public interest organizations and government departments. We are pleased that the skills, networking opportunities, and experience gained during this fellowship year help graduates obtain permanent employment, in many cases, even before the fellowship ends.

View additional post-graduate government and public interest fellowship opportunities.
 

Summer Employment for First Year and Second Year Students

Summer employment data is collected by surveying first-year and second-year J.D. students prior to the start of the fall recruiting season. Each year more than 94% of students report summer employment data. Columbia Law School offers every J.D. student a funded position in either government or public interest in both the 1L and 2L summers. Information on guaranteed summer funding can be found here.

NALP Employment Calculation for the Class of 2011

The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) has not yet calculated the employment rate for the Class of 2011. Below is the data that was submitted to NALP for the J.D. Classes of 2010 and 2011, 9 months after graduation. See a detailed description of how employment rate is calculated by various organizations.