Profiling the chief law school placement officer: Implications for student development specialists in professional school settings

Journal of College Student Development, Jan/Feb 1998 by Murray, Joseph L

The instrument also included three openended questions pertaining to the respondent's attitudes toward his or her work: (a) "What do you like most about your job?" (b) "What do you like least about your job?" and (c) "What advice would you give to new professionals considering careers in law school placement services?" Each of these items was followed by a blank space, of approximately five lines in length, where a succinct response was to have been written.

Analysis

Descriptive analysis. To gain an overall profile of the "typical" respondent, descriptive statistics were calculated relative to a number of personal variables. These figures included mean lengths of reported tenure in both past and current positions. They also included frequencies of responses to items pertaining to licensure, professional affiliations, nature of previous employment, highest academic degree and, if applicable, most recent field of graduate study. With the exception of professional affiliations and most recent field of graduate study, both of which were presented in writing, each of the enumerated characteristics was reported by the respondent using a checklist. Written responses concerning fields of graduate study were categorized, for purposes of analysis, according to the Higher Education General Information Survey Taxonomy of Instructional Programs (Homan, 1976). Responses concerning professional affiliations were sorted into 10 exhaustive and mutually exclusive categories, based on the types of organizations in which membership was reported. This sorting was accomplished through a process recommended by Holsti (1969) wherein the researcher establishes tentative categories, and then repeatedly tests their utility against the data, making modifications where necessary. Membership in state bar associations was omitted from this analysis, because of its treatment elsewhere in the study as a form of licensure. Membership in the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) was likewise excluded, as were ABA and NALP membership, because all or nearly all of the respondents' employers held institutional membership in each of these organizations, making reporting of individual affiliation redundant.

Descriptive statistics were again used to develop an aggregate image of the position of chief law school placement officer. Frequencies were calculated for responses to items pertaining to title, supervisor's title, salary, and areas of responsibility. For purposes of analysis, written responses pertaining to the title of the chief law school placement officer were divided into categories of associate dean, assistant dean, director, coordinator, and other. Supervisors' titles, which were also presented by the participants in written form, were divided into four categories: dean's level or higher, associate dean, assistant dean, and other. As a measure of the "typical" chief law school placement officer's breadth of responsibility, a mean was calculated for the total number of functional areas outside of career planning and placement for which responsibility was held.