经济学人下载:法律工作 成功的代价

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法律工作

The price of success
成功的代价

Some American law schools are paying many of their graduates' salaries
一些美国法律院校正在为许多他们的毕业生支付薪水

EACH YEAR when U.S. News, an American publisher, releases its league table of law schools,
每当U.S.News发布他们的年度法学院排行榜，

potential students seize on it and the universities decry it for oversimplifying a personal and unquantifiable decision.
有潜力的学生们会好好把握这份资料，而各大院校则会开始谴责该排名的公允性，认为这份榜单忽视了个人的选择倾向，以及量化了无法量化的因素。

But the schools can ill afford to ignore it,
但这些学校都难以回避它，

since not just applicants but donors and even credit-rating agencies pay close attention to the scores.
因为不仅仅是入学申请的学生们，连学校的捐赠人，甚至是专业评级机构都十分重视排行榜上的分数。

Among the ranking's most important components is the share of graduates who find jobs.
就整个评级系统来说，最重要的指标便是毕业生的就业比例。

The 2014 table, announced on March 11th, shows that the University of Virginia and George Washington University do especially well on this.
3月11日公布的2014榜单显示，弗吉尼亚大学和乔治华盛顿大学在这方面显得尤为突出。

Although UVA's law students are only in ninth place for their scores in standard admission tests,
虽然UVA的法律专业学生标准入学考试成绩仅排第九位，

97.5% of the class of 2012 had a job on graduating—the best mark in the country.
但其2012年毕业生97.5%的就业率，则名列全国第一。

At GW the discrepancy was even more striking: its 85% graduate-employment rate ranked ninth, whereas its admission-test scores were 21st.
而GW的数据差异则更惊人：名列第九位的85%毕业生就业率的同时，他们的SAT入学成绩仅排21位。

However, the two schools' performance is not as stellar as it seems.
然而，两所院校的表现并不像其外表那么璀璨。

A close look at the online employment database of the American Bar Association reveals that GW and UVA are among the leaders in a striking trend:
在美国律师协会网上就业数据库的研究揭示出，GW和UVA都呈现出一个惊人的趋势：

law schools paying the salaries of their alumni when they go to work in legal firms, non-profits or the government.
当毕业生们进入律师事务所、非盈利组织或政府工作时，法律院校将为他们支付薪水。

GW paid the starting salaries of a whopping 22% of its 2012 graduates;
2012年，GW惊人地为他们22%的毕业生支付了起始薪水；

at 15%, UVA was not far behind.
而UVA也不甘落后，其比例为15%。

Some law schools have long given aid to a few alumni who forsake high-paying corporate firms to pursue public-interest law.
部分法律院校一直以来都为一些放弃了高收入企业的职位，转而投身于公益法律援助的毕业生提供帮助。

But since the 2008-09 recession, entry-level jobs at big firms have been scarce.
但自2008-09年的经济衰退以来，大企业的入门级职位已十分稀少。

This has led to a big expansion of bridge to practice schemes,
这一趋势，令法律院校不得不扩大所谓的就业桥梁计划，

in which the schools pay graduates a stipend to do a work placement.
其中的具体方式便是由学校去补贴毕业生的实习工作。

In a recent survey by the National Association for Law Placement,
近期，一份由全国法律就业组织所调查的结果显示，

45 of the 94 schools that responded now run such programmes.
94所院校当中有45所正执行着该项计划。

Half of them began in 2009 or 2010, but UVA's has run since 2007.
他们当中的半数，是从2009年或2010年才开始的。但UVA自2007年起便一直在执行就业桥梁计划。

It now pays 31,500 for graduates to work in public service for a year.
目前，UVA为其服务于公共部门的毕业生支付每年31500美元的补贴。

Arizona State University plans to set up a non-profit law firm, modelled on teaching hospitals,
而亚利桑那州立大学则计划仿照医学院附属医院的模式，成立一家非盈利律师事务所。

that will hire 30 recent graduates to provide legal services to lower-income clients.
这家事务所将雇佣其大学30%的毕业生，并且将致力于为低收入的顾客提供法律服务。

With demand for newly minted lawyers down by around 30%,
市场对新律师的需求同比以下降百分之三十。

the schemes spare the alumni from having an awkward gap on their CV,
而在这一情况下，上述计划能够让毕业生们免于在职业生涯中留下尴尬的空白，

and give them valuable work experience and contacts.
同时还能给予他们宝贵的工作经验和人脉资源。

Their cash-strapped temporary employers, meanwhile, get talented staff they can put to socially useful ends.
与此同时，资金短缺的临时雇主们，也能得到具有才能的员工，并让他们一展所长。

Dennis Corkery, a GW graduate,
GW毕业生丹尼斯?卡尔凯利，

got 525 a week from his alma mater to work on job-discrimination cases at the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, a non-profit.
正在为致力于公民权利和城市事务的非营利组织华盛顿律师委员会工作，主要工作是解决职业歧视方面的纠纷。而他得到了来自母校每周525美元的补贴。

The organisation started topping up his wages from the university after four months, and gave him a full salary after 11.
在四个月的工作过后，该组织补足了来自学校的补贴，并在11个月后给予了他一份全额薪水。

Mr Corkery sees the scheme as a good way to give young lawyers an apprenticeship.
卡尔凯利先生认为，该计划确实是一个能够给予年轻律师学徒资格的好方法。

But so long as graduates put on these schemes are lumped in with those who found genuine paid work at law firms,
但只要参与这些计划的毕业生们，仍然与真正得到事务所聘用的人混为一谈，

the schools will in effect be buying themselves precious U.S.
那么实际上就相当于各大法律院校每年支付数百万美元的费用，

News ranking spots for a few million dollars a year.
用以维持他们在美国新闻排行榜上珍贵的地位。

And applicants to law school who are considering taking on a six-figure debt will get a misleading picture of the job market.
与此同时，早已准备好承担六位数学费贷款的法学专业申请者，也会被这些数据所误导，从而对律师行业的市场需求有着错误的认识。

The programmes rarely last more than a year, and often pay a pittance.
这项补贴计划很少能持续超过一年，而且补贴量往往很低。

GW, which spends 4% of its budget on these wages,
2012年，将总预算的4%投入到了该计划的GW，

tried to cut pay rates in 2012 from 15 an hour to 10 before reversing itself after an uproar.
试图将补贴水平从时薪15美元降低到10美元，而经历了一次抗议后便否决了之前的降薪计划。

Moreover, their success in getting graduates into genuine jobs is spotty:
此外，毕业生真实的就业成功率并不尽如人意：

the NALP survey found that only 24% of participants from the class of 2012 had been hired by their employers or in related fields by the following February.
NALP的调查结果显示，只有24%的2012届就业计划参与者最终被他们的雇主聘请或是在接下来的二月里就职于相关领域。

GW and UVA say their success rate is far higher than this.
GW和UVA则表示，他们毕业生的就业成功率远高于上述比例。

Robert Morse of U.S. News says it would consider excluding or reducing the weight of school-funded jobs.
美国新闻出版社的罗伯特莫尔斯表示，院校排名榜单将考虑排除或减少由学校补贴就职情况的影响，

if it could somehow distinguish which ones are genuinely sought-after placements with the prospect of a proper job.
但这一切的前提是，我们能够去辨别出一份经过层层筛选并且具备良好就业前景的实习机会。

The risk is that, like pre-bail-out carmakers dumping surplus vehicles on their dealers,
目前，整个法律教育界所存在的风险是，法律院校早已习惯于为企业买单，

the law schools get used to paying legal firms to soak up their excess graduates.
其目的是吸收多余的毕业生。这就像是提前采取的救助措施的汽车制造商一样，把自己多余的汽车都往经销商处输送。

The real test of the schools' motivations will be whether they continue to run such programmes if and when it no longer bumps them up the rankings.
只有在这样的计划不再能够提高他们的排名之时，我们才能通过观察这些计划的执行与否，来判断各大院校的真实意图。