When the ABA data sheets say that people go into business and industry, what exactly are those? Corporations' legal departments?
I'm interested in learning more about what exactly that entails.

It can mean anything from in-house to Starbucks.

It can mean anything from waiting tables to starting your own business to being the CEO of a major corporation.

This. For your own safety, when looking at school stats it's safest to assume all of the 'business & industry' group couldn't land legal jobs (not true, but safe).

I am surprised by this. I assumed that business/industry meant a corporate legal job, or something like a big firm kind of job. The reason being is that when I went to an open house, the sheet I was given said that for students that go into business/ industry, the average 1st year salary is 93k. THe only thing higher was private practice but I assume that is starting your own law practice. What would big firm job, corporate legal job fall under? Its not judicial clerkship I hope...

big firm is usually listed under private practice, 500+ attorneys. in-house/corporation work is usually inaccessible to fresh grads. they are often biglaw veterans (3-4 years at least).

A couple of people can really throw that number out of whack. I think I remember reading that UGA has some insane average salary in this category for the last class because one person landed a job that paid $250k

This isn't totally true. Smaller companies can hire a fresh grad to work under their GC.

The most common "business/industry" post-LS job I've heard anecdotally seems to be consulting (McKinsey, etc). That's a possibility too.

If you're looking at stats for T10 or T14 schools, consulting and in-house is partially credited. At lower ranked schools, those jobs are unheard of.

what do you think of the high "business /industry" percentage for schools like smu and houston? i've always been under the assumption that since those schools have access to all the fortune 500 companies in those areas that a sizeable portion of "business/insdustry" employment would belong to jobs of that caliber. or should i probably still be thinking starbucks?

It's really a crap shoot, and anyone that can actually answer that question won't. There are certainly people who choose to look for a corporate job after going to law school, and some of those jobs are good. But I would worry about any school that has a high percentage of graduates going to business/industry, only because that means a lot of the class is either unable or chooses not to find legal jobs, and that seems fishy either way.

I believe I've met a couple of Houston grads that went to work in house somewhere immediately after graduation, but they were at smaller companies. This obviously doesn't have much statistical relevance either.

I was under the impression, that generally speaking, the lower you go down the rankings, the larger the percentage employed in "business and industry." I'm sure a couple of those people are making a killing, but a lot of times, its a way for schools to "hide" the people who could not procure gainful employment in law. "Business and industry" sounds way better than "Starbucks barista."

smu is quite weird...they have high firm % (70) and high bus/ind. % (17).
according to usnews:
56% over 72.5k in private industry (firms and bus./ind.)
31% under 72.5k in private industry (firms and bus./ind.)
12% pub. serv. at 54k- 10% mediocre
10% govt
2% clerkships with 2% federal
0% pi
1% academia
0% unknown

Ooo, "private industry" is an even more unwieldy beast because it is so vague. By reading that, one has no idea what the actual percentage of graduates are employed in firms because they lump all firm jobs with anything that isn't public service. They do that for a reason, btw.

Makes sense. T14 alums are the only ones that I'm acquainted with who even considered non-law jobs. All the lower-ranked law school grads I know are lawyers (Edit: just remembered one who is actually not a practicing lawyer but is in a gov't job).

no, they only lump firms and bus/ind. togethr when quoting salary statistics....it's actually reported as 70% firm and 17% "business".