Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Class: 12E18
work for large corporate firms but these firms have had fewer and fewer job openings
for them over the last three years. Perhaps an increasing number of customers turn to
small and medium law firms to enjoy lower-priced services so they recruit more
graduates. In short, without considering and ruling out alternative explanations for the
15% decline, one cannot say that graduate students no longer favor large firms
because they experience greater job satisfaction at smaller firms
Furthermore, the reliability of the survey the author cited is questionable because the
opinions of first-year law students do not necessarily reflect those of junior students. It
is likely that a law student's job orientation can change over a three-year period.
Similarly, since this is a survey conducted in one single leading law school in the city,
the opinions of these first-year students cannot represent those of all law-school
graduate students in whole Megalopolis city. In short, lacking assurances that firstyear students are statistically representative of all law-school graduates, the author
cannot draw any reliable conclusions based on the survey.
Finally, the author fails to establish a connection between job satisfaction and benefits,
incentives and the reduction of work hours to make such recommendation. It is a
common knowledge that such an abstract definition as job satisfaction can be
characterized distinctively by each individual. To some people, job satisfaction means
big monetary rewards; while other may consider a friendly working environment and
cooperative colleagues as the most important factors to feel satisfied. If so, reducing
working hours as the author recommends may prove ineffective.
In sum, the argument is logically flawed and therefore unconvincing as it stands. To
strengthen it, the author must either account for other possible reasons for the 15%
decline in the number of students who preferred to work for large, corporate firms, or
supply persuasive evidence that the first-years student were representative of the total
law school graduates. Finally, to better evaluate the claim that raising salary and
incentives may attract more graduates, I would need more information about how a
majority of law-school graduates in Megalopolis define job satisfaction.