Nashville metro one of top 10 places for law school grads

Graduates of the University of Tennessee College of Law have prime access to one of the top 10 metropolitan areas in the nation for new law school graduates, according to GoodCall, a company that specializes in data analysis for education and personal finance. The company’s recently released report on the best places for law school graduates features comprehensive data on key metrics, as well as advice from career development experts from around the nation, including UT Law’s Brad Morgan, interim director of the Bettye B. Lewis Career Center.

GoodCall ranked the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin metropolitan statistical area (MSA) as the 8th best area for law school graduates out of 800 surveyed MSAs. To determine which MSAs provide the best backdrop for law school graduates to launch their careers, GoodCall evaluated over 900 US metropolitan and micropolitan areas on the metrics of comparative salary, employment attractiveness, housing affordability, and lifestyle.

Nashville’s ranking was determined by factors including the average lawyer salary ($125,250), housing affordability index (10.13 percent), and available jobs per 1,000 lawyers (10.41). Many UT Law students practice in Nashville—which is only a little over two hours away from Knoxville—throughout their time in law school and after graduation. For the class of 2015, 22 percent of employed graduates (24 out of 110) accepted jobs in the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin MSA, according to the college’s career center.

Morgan was asked by GoodCall to give advice to recent grads looking to jumpstart their career.

“It’s important to keep in mind that the demand for legal services–just like all markets–is evolving. Agility and transferable skills are incredibly important, and the benefits of purposefully networking and gaining experience cannot be overstated,” said Morgan. “Seeking out occasions to get to know professionals–not so they will hire you, but so you can learn from them–and looking for opportunities that will give you transferable experience should be paramount in everyone’s career management strategy. We see more opportunities come from referrals than any other single source, and those referrals generally come from purposeful relationship development and skills acquisition.”

Learn more about the top 25 places for law school grads and get more career advice at GoodCall.