Or so declares the headline of a recent email from the Office of Career Services that reads suspiciously like "we're from the government and we're here to help." Since UCLA is a state school, perhaps that's not far off the mark.

OCS holds itself out as the nexus between students and the job market. In practice, its reach is quite a bit more limited.

There is on-campus interviewing (OCI) in the fall and spring, where big law firms come onto campus and try to stanch the hemorrhage of 3rd and 4th year associates by refilling the seats with clueless 2Ls. Some students are hired, but it only soaks up a minority of those interviewing.

The public interest job fair is much-hyped but jobs are, by common consent, even rarer, since there are fewer slots to fill and even those are hotly contested. Arguably, it's harder to get a job at the ACLU than at Gibson Dunn.

The rest of the legal market – which is to say, the 92% not represented at these two job events & a smattering of others – exists outside the OCS range of vision. So if you want a job in a entertainment litigation boutique with 10 or fewer partners in Santa Monica or West LA – best of luck to you.

Why is this a problem? Look, I know OCS tries hard, and for a few people, they're probably very useful. But overall, OCS contributes to the myopia that many law grads have about their careers starting in their 2L year.

The bottom line is that most of the jobs you can get on-campus suck eggs. These giant law firms and public interest groups are here because they have enough turnover that they need fresh meat. They come on campus, and students think "hm, so this is what the legal job market looks like".

But many who get one of these jobs follow a similar trajectory: they work like dogs, they hate it, sooner or later they quit, and then they become one of those bitter 29-year-old ex-lawyers who blame the legal profession at large for their misery.

But there are plenty of good legal jobs where you can work with nice people, get good training and avoid a 2200 billable hour requirement. However, it takes effort to find them, because the firms are smaller and more specialized, and they aren't spending wildly to recruit.

Of course, OCS can't be held responsible for students who are too uninspired to look for work outside the traditional channels. But OCS has the advantage of experience and perspective. They would do students a favor to present a more balanced picture of the legal job market, and being less of a co-conspirator in the project of tossing fresh recruits into the maw of ginormous law firms.

01 Oct 06