Harvard Law Grads Give Boston Cold Shoulder, Take Jobs Elsewhere

If lifestyle was all that mattered, one Harvard Law graduate would have never left his hometown of Boston.

To him, the family friendly charm and his personal connections to the city are more alluring than the transient, politically oriented feel of Washington, D.C., where he moved after graduating last year.

But he also confronted a professional reality: Washington has more clerkships and opportunities in litigation or regulatory work.

“I would love to move back to Boston, I just don’t want to give up on my career to do it,” he said bluntly.

The alum, who asked not to be named because of potential career repercussions, is among hundreds of newly minted Harvard lawyers who flee Boston each year for a legal market they view as a better bet, most often New York, Washington, and California.

Harvard indisputably occupies rarefied space at or near the top among elite law schools, drawing students from around the world. Some of those schools, like Yale and Duke, also see many graduates flee their towns. But they aren’t located in a flourishing legal market like Boston, where major firms cater to booming industries including the life-sciences sector.

While brain drain has long been an issue for some cities, the Harvard-Boston gap is pronounced: More than 90% of the 2,374 Harvard Law School graduates between 2019 and 2022 took first-year jobs outside of Massachusetts, mirroring the pre-pandemic trend, according to data compiled by the American Bar Association.

By contrast, only about 30% of Columbia Law grads left New York during the same stretch, the data show. About 62% of Stanford Law grads left California, 61% of Georgetown’s newest lawyers left Washington, and 70% of University of Chicago Law grads took jobs outside of Illinois.

Harvard Law School declined to comment on the trend.

Boston attorneys, law firm recruiters, professors, and former judges say that by snubbing their city, Harvard alums may be cheating themselves of improved work-life balance, spending power, and in-house opportunities. And they say convincing them to stay would be a win-win for the city and new grads.

“It grows the legal community, but it also helps the broader economy,” said Joshua Fox, a Harvard Law alum and Boston-area native who joined Mintz Levin’s office there. “If only people knew more about the opportunities both on the career side as well as on the personal side.”

‘Prestige Factor’

In the competition for Harvard Law grads, some believe the odds were stacked against Boston from the start.

Harvard prides itself on drawing a geographically diverse student body, and many of those graduates might like to return to their home market after graduation, said Robert DeLena, founder of Boston’s Legal Staffing Solutions.

“I don’t think that has anything to do with Boston at all,” he said.

From Harvard’s perspective, it also might look better when graduates scatter widely across the country.

“You like to be able to say that your graduates are everywhere,” said Renée Landers, a Suffolk University Law School professor who’s originally from Illinois but stayed in Boston after graduating from Boston College Law School. “That allows you to claim a bigger and more effective alumni network in terms of helping future graduates and having an impact on the development of the law.”

Harvard’s Office of Career Services tends to advise students to pursue New York, even if just as a backup, because its goal is to ensure every student who wants a law firm job gets one— “and those are most available in New York,” said one recent Harvard Law graduate practicing at a Big Law firm in California.

Recruiters and attorneys from New York also trek to Cambridge throughout the year for on-campus networking events. By contrast, Harvard students say the occasions to learn about Boston’s legal market are surprisingly more limited.

Even some national firms with Boston offices will instead send their New York or D.C. hiring teams to Harvard’s campus, said Adela Baker, a second-year Harvard Law student from Michigan.

“I don’t think people talk negatively about (Boston),” said Baker, who lived in Boston before law school and hopes to start her career there. “But throughout my whole first year— both in my conversations with the career office and then, classmates and professors— there just wasn’t a lot of buzz about it.”

Students are also surrounded by messaging that “you should be shooting for the best clerkships and the best possible law firm jobs and the best possible summer jobs,” said Mintz associate Aaron Fenton, a 2019 Harvard Law graduate from New Jersey who opted to work in Boston.

Influential guest speakers like Supreme Court justices inspire them to pursue the most distinguished path, he said. There’s an unspoken understanding that Boston is not typically on that path, according to interviews with students.

That also bleeds over into public-interest jobs. Working as a public defender in Boston, for example, “doesn’t seem to have that same prestige factor as working for Bronx Defenders or Brooklyn Family Defense Project,” said Marisa Gold, a Harvard and Penn Law School alum who has worked in public interest in both cities.

Boston’s Offerings

The city’s supporters say the snub doesn’t reflect Beantown’s mix of rich history and 21st-century opportunities.

Boston has become a hub for major biotech companies including Amgen, Biogen, Merck, Sanofi, Pfizer and Moderna, as well as a magnet for startups that could offer young lawyers the chance to make a “tremendous” amount of money, DeLena said. (The median starting salary for a 2022 Harvard Law graduate was $205,000, according to the school.)

Biopharma industry employment in the state grew nearly 7% in 2022—a workforce that has been gaining steadily for at least the last two decades, according to a September report from MassBio.

“I’d say to the students, if you aren’t choosing Boston or thinking hard about Boston, shame on you,” said Evelyn Scoville, founder of talent management firm Scoville Solutions, who spent two decades managing talent at the WilmerHale law firm. The city, she said, offers “leading cases and deals, huge wealth-management practices,” and firms committed to mentorship.

And while there are decidedly fewer Big Law firms in the area, heavyweights headquartered or founded in Boston—such as Ropes & Gray, Goodwin, and Mintz—have international reach. Many other law firms such as Covington & Burling, Clyde & Co., Allen & Overy, and Fox Rothschild have added Boston offices in recent years to meet client demand in biotechnology, health care, life sciences, and intellectual property.

“The market has recognized that this is a place where large law firms should be,” said Louis Mercedes, a member of Mintz and New York City native who stayed in the area after graduating from Boston College Law School.

At the same time, “there are not enough associates coming to Boston to fill the needs that the growing firms and new firms require,” said Andrew Glynn, a managing director in recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa’s associate practice group and a Boston College Law alum. Harvard students alone can’t bridge the gap, Glynn said.

It could just be that Boston is too small a city for some people, said John Greaney, a retired Massachusetts Supreme Court justice. “You see the same old buildings, and the same people, and the same restaurants,” Greaney said, “whereas in New York, there’s something different on every corner.”

Some also say the city’s insular reputation—or its troubled history with race—could deter outsiders and attorneys of color. More than half of Harvard Law’s class of 2026 are students of color, according to data the school reported. By contrast, just 20% of Massachusetts’ active lawyers are non-White, according to a 2022 demographic census.

Onus on Firms

September is when many Big Law firms lock in their recruits for the following year, and third-year students are committing.

First-year lawyers out of Boston University, Boston College, Suffolk University, and Northeastern University already tend to stay in state. Law firms are approaching recruiting more holistically these days, so the lack of Harvard students may not feel as pronounced.

Firms look for students who have “the characteristics that are most important to their practice and their clients”—like work ethic, client service, grit, and resilience, Scoville said. “Is being smart up there? Sure. Is that only equated to going to Harvard? I don’t think so,” Scoville said.

Most of the firms approached by Bloomberg Law declined to comment on their recruiting practices, but conversations with Harvard Law students suggests a greater effort to woo them could pay off.

Some said simple things like taking them to a Celtics or Red Sox game would help show them what living in Boston would be like when they’re off the clock.

“As odd as it sounds, a lot of my friends in law school didn’t actually experience Boston in any meaningful way since we were all so busy with classes,” said California native Malorie Frayssinet, a 2020 Harvard Law School alum. She took a job as a corporate associate in Kirkland & Ellis’ Boston office because she wanted to experience the East Coast, she said.

Law firms could also emphasize Boston’s “more life and people-focused” Big Law culture, which could attract attorneys looking for a better work-life balance, Frayssinet said.

“When students are graduating law school, they don’t have a great means to evaluate what their experience is going to be like at these different employers,” and they often base their decisions on salary, said Nikia Gray, executive director of the National Association of Law Placement. “Explaining to the students why life will be different at their firm,” can help them attract their next generation, Gray said.

Lawyers, mayors, and even the governor should also play a role in advertising what Boston has to offer, said Fox.

“It’s a PR campaign at the end of the day,” he said. “We’re marketing a firm and we’re marketing a city.”