Regarding Employment

Dear Students,

I write regarding employment. I know that all law school students, as well as recent graduates, are concerned with the headlines about the profound changes in the legal marketplace. I'd like to present the facts, with no excuses.

The numbers we're looking at for the class of 2012 are not good. The statistics that are receiving publicity present only part of the picture. The figures are no surprise for anyone following law firm hiring, especially in California.

Allow me to offer context.

• At nine months following the 2012 graduation, with our largest class in well over a decade, we had placed 256 students. That is much more than the entire graduating class (and even rivals the total enrollment) at other institutions.
• We placed more actual students into government and public interest jobs than the school that appears at the top of the list on a percentage basis.
• Schools in California, and New York, have been penalized because of the differences in the unemployment rates in different parts of the nation and the relatively late release of bar results in our jurisdiction.

As the economy continues its recovery, I can promise you that our Office of Career Services and Professional Development – along with all of us in the administration – will do everything that we can to support you in pursuing your professional aspirations. I cannot change the world around us, but I can change UC Hastings. With your participation, I am doing so.

Our dedicated counselors, themselves lawyers with real experience, are busy offering advice and leads. Among the best suggestions is this: Consider all the options, including those beyond the city of San Francisco. With 20,000 alumni, we are not only the leading school producing Super Lawyers in Northern California, but also a "Go To School" on the recent National Law Journal list and among the top 25 law schools in the earnings of graduates according to Forbes. Our alumni also are well-represented along the West Coast in Los Angeles and San Diego; on the East Coast in cities such as New York and Washington, D.C.; and overseas everywhere from Shanghai to Paris.

In my visits with leaders of law firms, I always promote "hire Hastings" as among the most important means of supporting one's alma mater. Our innovative programs, ranging from the UC Hastings-UCSF Consortium to the Innovation Clinics to the pilot phase of Lawyers for America, are attracting high praise because they are a much-needed reinvention of the pipeline to practice.

This week, I had the honor of congratulating the newly elected members of the Associate Students of UC Hastings (ASUCH). They shared with me their anxieties, feelings, and recommendations. We need to do more to communicate with you all about the efforts being made by UC Hastings’ faculty and staff on your behalf. We also have a responsibility to show you how your own efforts produce results for yourself and the school. For you and me alike, optimism serves better than cynicism.

I am dedicated to your success.

Please feel free to share your thoughts with me at dean@uchastings.edu. 

Frank H. Wu
Chancellor & Dean
UC Hastings 

http://www.uchastings.edu
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