The Law School Class that May Just Get You a Job

AP

A law school graduate receives her degree in May.

Prospective law school students worried about landing a job after graduation (and they probably should be), may want to take a look at the University of Houston’s curriculum. The UH law school will be cashing in on one of the few brights spots for the legal profession these days: corporate compliance.

This coming spring, the university will offer a class called “International Corporate Compliance.” Its professors say its the first class on corporate compliance offered by an American law school.

To the uninitiated, some of the topics laid out in the syllabus look less than scintillating:

• Class 5: Hot Topics in Corporate Compliance: Trade Control Compliance and Environmental Risk
• Class 6: Internal Audits & Internal Investigations
• Class 7: Using Data Analytics in Compliance Programs

Students may yawn, but they also may land a job.

Most know the job market for lawyers is grim. Members of the law-school class of 2011 had little better than a 50-50 shot of landing a job as a lawyer within nine months of receiving a degree, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of new data.

But, according to another study, more than half  of in-house legal departments said they had recruited externally in the first quarter of 2012 and 48% predicted their legal departments would grow in size over the next two years. Meanwhile, Big Law has been cashing in on enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other laws, snatching up lawyers for their white collar practices.

“We realized that while companies have focused on global compliance areas such as data privacy, anticorruption, and trade controls, there was a need for legal training for students who want to focus on compliance as a practice area,” said Ryan McConnell, a partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP, who will be teaching the class. “We designed our class to address this need. It is the first U.S. law school class of its kind.”

Richard Alderman, an associate dean at the UH law school, said he was initially surprised that anyone would want to teach such a class. But after McConnell helped the law school put on a symposium on compliance in June, Alderman saw an opportunity.

“I was really impressed by the number of lawyers and business representatives that showed up,” Alderman said. “In light of the way law firm employment is going, anything to give our students a leg up is welcome.”

In addition to McConnell, the class will also be taught by Jay Martin, chief compliance officer at Baker Hughes Inc, and Charlotte Simon, a law clerk for the federal district court in Houston.

The first class should keep students happy — they’ll watch the PBS documentary, Frontline: “Black Money” (which, by the way,  is worth watching).