Law school enrollment in Missouri lags as legal jobs dry up
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Missouri law schools expect fewer students in the fall after several years of significant enrollment growth both regionally and nationally.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported this week that the University of Missouri's flagship campus in Columbia has received 17 percent fewer applications this year. Applications at Washington University dropped 13.3 percent, while St. Louis University is seeing a nearly 20 percent decline.
A national group that tracks law school enrollment says that applications are down more than 10 percent overall compared to this time last year.
The economic downturn means that law school graduates can no longer count on landing lucrative jobs straight out of college. The declining interest comes one year after many schools reported record enrollment.
"The stories about the legal market have certainly dampened some people's enthusiasm," said Paul Pless, assistant dean for admissions and financial aid at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Law. Applications at Illinois are down nearly 8 percent so far this year.
Melissa Hamilton, 35, is a recent University of Missouri law school graduate still looking for a job. She's applied for a few government positions but is waiting until she passes the bar exam before making a stronger push. She's also looking into jobs where she could also use her master's degree in social work.
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Does a car or truck accident count as a work injury?
If an employee is injured in a car crash while on the job, they are eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits. “On the job” injuries are not limited to accidents and injuries that happen inside the workplace, they may also include injuries suffered away from an employee’s place of work while performing a job-related task, such as making a delivery or traveling to a client meeting.
Regular commutes to and from work don’t usually count. If you get into an accident on your way in on a regular workday, it’s probably not considered a work injury for the purposes of workers’ compensation.
If you drive around as part of your job, an injury on the road or loading/unloading accident is likely a work injury. If you don’t typically drive around for work but are required to drive for the benefit of your employer, that would be a work injury in many cases.
If you are out of town for work, pretty much any driving would count as work related. For traveling employees, any accidents or injuries that happen on a work trip, even while not technically working, can be considered a work injury. The reason is because you wouldn’t be in that town in the first place, had you not been on a work trip.
Workers’ compensation claims for truck drivers, traveling employees and work-related injuries that occur away from the job site can be challenging and complex. At Krol, Bongiorno & Given, we understand that many families depend on the income of an injured worker, and we are proud of our record protecting the injured and disabled. We have handled well over 30,000 claims for injured workers throughout the state of Illinois.