University of Texas School of Law - Peregrinus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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 A. I have three and a half, and a temporary. We actually have a temporary almost all the time because we've just gotten so much busier with Job lairs and we do a great deal of counseling. Right now our counselor is setting up a presentation lor some of our current students who’ve been out there a while who haven’t found a job. on how you can set up your own practice. I think that's an option that wasn't even considered by jpeo-ple three years ago. Which is real unusual because there are a lot of law schools out here with a majority of their graduates going out and setting up their own practise. Jj If you had to give a percentage oFhow many IT Law students will get a job. what would it be? .4 I think it's gonna be right around .r 0, which is certainly down. In the past it's been 80. maybe even 85%. Qj There have been complaints that the Placement Office, because employers base their hiring decisions primarily on grades, is really just a place where people in the top third of their (lass can go. How do you read to that complaint? A' I sent statistics out to all the students with the (percentages of the dassesand how many ol those (people received clerkships through the Placement Office, and we have always done well throughout the (lass — even in the Ipotlom half, one-third of those get their (positions through t lis office. There is that perception — and it's the (perception ol all the schools out there. Some are worse than we are. because although a firm can ( os( its hiring criteria we don't keep anyone from signing up for them. We never restrict. There's nothing in our computers which says red light, red light, this person doesn't meet the criteria. We've al- ways had the philosophy, we don't care about a person's grades. All we say is that grades play an important role in how one should market himself. hat are some of the most memorable comments you've received and what are the general comments you get in feedback from employers about U T students, and vice versa? I.’ The general comment from employers is that they are always astounded at how well prepared our students are, and that really pleases me. That's certainly not the case at a lot of schools. I've had comments like. I thought last year's was the best dass ever, but every year we're more and more impressed.” That tells a lot about the kind of students in this Law School. Usually it's the employers I get complaints about. Sometimes I've had problems with lawyers that have too much lunch — they drink it. 'They've done some pretty amazing things. The worst one was when the student asked them their name's, so they wrote their first names on their post-it pads and stuck them on their forehead for the entire interview — they went through the whole interview with lorn and bob written on their foreheads. My favorite story involved a guy from New York. All through the morning of Ins interviews he kept going out the back depor to the men's room. We'd alpout decided he had come into Austin and partied too much, but then he asked us to call him a taxi because he Iclt like he had to go to the hospital. It ends up he had had ap|pcudicit is and had to have an emergency operation, lie calls over the next morning saying he felt really bad about the kids, he was sup-(posed to see and asked if we could call all ol those and arrange lor them to come over to the hospital to interview. I hat was dedication. (Jim Srmi rs (PN'mc I I

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Placement Office Becomes Career Services Office to Reflect Mission, Purpose, Function Arietta Tompkins has been the Director of the Placement Office for six years. But the Placement Office name is now changed, and Tompkins explained that the process of securing a lau job has changed too. She described how the Law School has responded. CAREER SERVICES OFFICE (Jj Whai's the name “Placement OTlicc being changed to? At Career Services Ollice. Why the change? y4.’ I'he Dean fell it said more about what we did — we don't just place ix'ople. A lot of what we do is counsel jH-ople. we deal with the Alumni extensively. Placement Ollice just sounds like you walk in one door, get placed, and you walk out the other door. We do a lot more than that. Qj Whai's the percentage of I I Law students getting jobs out there? A.' My feeling is the numlxrs are going down, just from the feedback we're getting. It's gone down lor the May graduates of 90. but not very much. What I'm worried about is that that doesn’t really reflect what s hapjK'ned to a number of them, because some of our statistics said, they were employed, but I know they've been laid oil. ()’ You mention people Ixing laid ofT. is that a real problem now? A Yes. Yeah. The biggest thing we're doing with | eople at this |M int is those that have Ixen out either as May graduates last year, or that have been out two or three years, that have been laid oil. (A Why is that happening? A. There are a number ol firms dissolving, and others that are letting a number ol |»eople go. and a bunch of those people are ours. II you’re talking about firms in Texas letting [xrople go. some of them have got to be ours. How many firms come on campus to interview? A.' Well, it's gone down. From the height two years ago we had 554. Last year we had a little under 500. let's see — 400. But we still gel the same firms from Texas. We were gelling firms from New Hampshire and Minnesota, but it wasn't economical for them. We doubled the number of firms coming from Florida, but we weren't having anyone going to Florida. not even for clerkships. We lost some firms from New York, but that makes sense because they're really hitting the skids up there. (Jj There are approximately 1500 students in the Law School. How many ol them will eventually use the services this ollice oilers? A! We don't really have a way to show except by those that sign up lor on campus interviews. There are I more now than in the really good I limes Ix'canse so many ol those students would get jobs during Christmas or before the on-campus season I began. Two years ago you'd have about 80% ol the second years sign up lor on campus interviews, and about | 80% ol the third years. This year we hadalxmt 80%. of the third years sign up. (A I low large is the office’s stall? 10 Career Sr» i,r Ollier

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 New Assessment Keeps Library Current Beginning in the Fall Semester of 1990, law students were assessed an additional $7 per credit hour to help keep the Tar I ton Law Library’s book buying ability at an adequate level. With 1,500 law students taking 15 hours a semester, that’s S315,000 a year. Hoy Mersky, Hy der Centennial Professor and Director of Research for the library commented on the use of those funds and the state of the Tarlton Law Library. Qj How has the tuition hike helped to alleviate the library’s problems? A.‘ It’s come close to solving the problem. We were able to reinstate many of the publications. Our acquisition budget is still significantly below our peer schools, but we've come a long way. We’re not suf fering Tarlton Law Library to the extent we were a year ago. We've reinstated most of the subscriptions we had to cancel. So it’s been extremely helpful. But its an ongoing problem. The prices continue to go up at a rate of almost I 5% a year. We're averaging SI50 per monogram for European materials. Not only do we face this high cost, but the devaluation of the dollar has hurl us in the international market. It's hard to catch up. Q' What do you see as the answer to that later down the line? A. We certainly want a larger appropriation from the state — a larger one. I don't think we can continue to go back to the students, it has to be the state. Unfortunately the economy of Texas, unless there's some sort of income tax or lottery, doesn’t look optimistic for the future. The problem isn't going to be solved by soliciting gifts or student fees, its only going to be resolved by state funded appropriations. The other way is we’re going to have to look to alternative methods of providing information. One of those is the computer and non-book, non-traditional forms of research. 12 — Tarlton La Library