Employment by the Numbers
Chicago is committed to training lawyers and scholars who are dedicated to the public good as well as to professional excellence. The institutional support that the Law School offers for students and graduates seeking public interest work is multifaceted and includes individual counseling, programming, funding, and loan repayment assistance.
Our clerkship record reflects the diversity of both our faculty and our student body. Our newly-minted graduates and alumni clerk in every corner of the country, in every part of the federal judiciary and in many state courts as well. Over the past several years, approximately 16-30% of each graduating class obtained a judicial clerkship at some point.
More about clerkshipsThe University of Chicago Law School encourages graduates and students to consider careers in law teaching and provides a range of resources and services designed for the individual interested in the academic marketplace. In the Law School's experience candidates for academic jobs increase their chances of success in the market by working with the Law School's faculty and staff. Professor Brian Leiter has created an extensive handbook of information on the academic job market.
Career Search Resources
Counseling: The Law School’s Office of Career Services provides individual career counseling to students in-person and remotely. We strive to make sure that students know their options and are able to make informed decisions about their job search.
Programming: Throughout the year, the Law School hosts alumni and guests who share their own career stories, challenges, and successes, providing insight into particular career paths and practice settings. The Office of Career Services also hosts talks and training sessions to prepare students for the employment search process and for career development.
Recruitment Programs: The Office of Career Services hosts on-campus interview programs for both private and public sector employers, participates in select job fairs, and provides job posting services. These activities are designed to provide students with a broad range of summer, term-time, and permanent job opportunities.
Publications: The Office of Career Services publishes an extensive Job Search Guide on specific topics relevant to career development and the employment search process. Some specific publications include a list of employers where students work over the summer, lists of alumni public interest mentors, and more.
Jobs Opportunities Database and Other Job Search Resources: The Office of Career Services provides a password-protected database with job posting from employers specifically interested in UChicago Law candidates. We also provide many additional resources for researching legal employers and opportunities, many of which contain job postings for law students and attorneys.
Where will your UChicago degree take you? Anywhere you want it to. UChicago Law alumni live and work all over the country and all over the world.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic last spring, the Law School’s Office of Career Services corresponded with hundreds of employers in every segment of the legal job market, drummed up nearly 100 new job postings for students whose summer work plans had been cancelled or curtailed, communicated regularly with anxious job seekers, and created systems for tracking how law firms, government agencies, courts, and nonprofit employers were responding to the crisis.
When Law School students dive into their summer jobs, they are doing more than applying their classroom knowledge to legal issues in the real world—they are often also building relationships with mentors, immersing themselves in a new area of the law, learning what it means to be advocate, and much more.