The figures are the percentage of students in each class with noncredit legal jobs during the academic year, and the percentage of students in each class who have lined up a summer job (for first- and second-year students) or permanent job by the time school ends in the spring.

Compare the percentage of graduates having jobs six months after graduation with the national average of about 93%. (Each school's figure is based on responses to a ques¬tionnaire that may not have been answered by many of the graduates.)

    The number of employers sending one or more recruiters to campus in a given year is an excellent indication of how easily job leads will come to you, but at some schools employers are allowed to prescreen and interview only the top students. The distribution of the recruiting employers according to geography and type of enterprise is given where available. Bear in mind that many schools provide some access to employers through means other than on-campus interviews, like regional recruitment conferences and letters from employers inviting direct applications.

    The geographical distribution of the graduating class's first jobs is a clue to where a certain school's degree is most marketable. The geographical categories generally used in this book are as follows: New England (Connecticut, Maine,Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont); Middle Atlantic (New Jersey, New York, and Penn¬sylvania); East North Central (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin); West North Central (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota); South Atlantic (Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia); East South Central (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee); West South Central (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas); Mountain (Ar¬izona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming); Pacific (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington); and Foreign.

    To figure out a school's career focus, compare the distribution of jobs taken by the most recent graduating class with the national averages, as computed by the National Association for Law Placement: 64.3% private practice (in¬cluding firms and solo practice); 12.7% judicial clerkships (one- or two-year apprenticeships with a judge) 10.7%; government (federal, state, and local, both legal and nonlegal positions); 6.9% business and industry (including both legal counsel and straight business jobs in corporations, accounting firms, and banks); 3.1% public service or public interest (including public defenders, federal legal services programs, and private nonprofit public interest groups); 1.3% military (usually positions with the Judge Advocate General's Corps, the legal branch of the military); and 1.0% academic em¬ployment (some schools also include further academic study under this category). For a given school, job distribution figures may not add up to 100 percent because of rounding, or because of students who didn't fit in arf category or didn't report the information.

    The salary ranges and average salaries are for the graduating class's first jobs. Nationwide, the average salary *°r graduating law students in 1988 was $39,159.

As another measure of professional preparation, success rates among new graduates taking the bar exam for the first me are provided where available.