Federal government hiring freeze could dramatically affect some law schools' employment outcomes

The reports are coming in from law schools around the country about law students, either about to graduate or set for summer employment, losing positions in the federal government as the result of a recently-initiated hiring freeze. Some of those positions may be made available again in the near future, as departments are staffed with political appointments and begin to make decisions about hiring. And it is not all federal positions: “This order does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.”

Law school employment metrics often look to “full weight” jobs—full-time, long-term, bar passage-required to JD-advantage jobs. And for some schools, the number of recent graduates placed into government jobs can vary dramatically from school to school. Some of the top schools for the Class of 2023:

Albany 27.9%

Dayton 25.4%

South Dakota 24.1%

Regent 22.6%

Northern Kentucky 22.4%

Florida A&M 22.3%

Syracuse 21.3%

Southern Illinois 20.5%

George Mason 20.2%

Catholic 20.2%

Pace 20.2%

Widener-Commonwealth 20.0%

Liberty 19.8%

McGeorge 19.8%

Florida State 19.7%

The ABA data do not separate state or local government jobs from federal government jobs. But it is probably fair to assume that for students at schools in the state capital (Albany, Florida State) or near the state capital (Dayton, Syracuse), many of these are state jobs. For schools in and around Washington, DC (e.g, Regent, Georgia Mason, Catholic), it is likely there are more federal jobs. These schools could be most affected by a hiring freeze, both in this metric and in any rankings that rely on this metric.

But a lot of school—including the vast majority of elite schools—send very few into government jobs (the vast majority end up in large law firms or judicial clerkships). Again for the Class of 2023:

Chicago 0.5%

Cornell 1.7%

Penn 2.0%

USC 2.2%

UCLA 2.2%

Duke 2.5%

NYU 3.2%

Virginia 3.2%

Northwestern 3.2%

Loyola Los Angeles 3.5%

Columbia 3.5%

Harvard 3.7%

Western State 3.7%

Stanford 3.8%

Michigan 3.9%

I’m interested to see if the aggregate jobs in government change when the Class of 2024 data is reported this spring. And I’m also interested to see if it disproportionately affects a subset of schools—or if those schools manage to find other outlets for their graduates. That said, most people who graduated months ago may be secure in their positions and it will affect relatively few. Perhaps more from the Class of 2025 will be affected—but they also have a longer window to secure positions.