The following appeared in a newspaper article about law firms in the city of Megalopolis. "in Megalopolis, the number of law school graduates who went to work for large, corporate firms declined by 15% over the last three years, whereas an increasing num

In this article, the author recommends the large, corporate firms of Megalopolis to offer graduates more benefits and incentives and reduce the number of hours they must work. To support this recommendation, the author points out that, since the law school graduates experience greater job satisfaction, they prefer to work for the smaller firms even though large firms usually offer much higher salaries. He also cites a survey regarding first-year students at a leading law school that indicates, for them, job satisfaction was more important than earning a high salary. Close scrutiny of each of these supporting evidences, however, reveals that none of them lends credible support to the recommendation.

First and foremost, the argument rests on the unsubstantiated assumption that the students preference to work for small, general practice firms is responsible for the 15% decline in the number of students who went to work for the large, corporate firms over the last three years. However, the writer of the argument fails to offer any evidence that this is the case. It is entirely possible that other factors caused the decline. Perhaps, in the last three years less job positions were available for the students. Since the article fails to account for this and other possible scenarios, the article’s author cannot make any sound recommendation for the large, corporate firms of Megalopolis to offer more benefits and incentives for the graduates.

Secondly, the term “job satisfaction” is ambiguous, in my opinion. One must admit that everyone defines job satisfaction distinctively; for instance, some students are satisfied with their job if they receive a high salary. On the other hand, some others define job satisfaction as having less workload or friendly colleagues and milieu. If so, this further undermines the author’s recommendation in prescribing any course of action to recompense the 15% decline due to vocational preferences of graduates.

As for the survey that the article cites, it is unreasonable to draw any conclusion about the entire law school graduates in the city of Megalopolis based on the statistics about only the first-years students. Depending on the number of first-years students and their job preferences, it is undeniably possible that the first-years students were not representative of the law school graduates. If this is the case, the recommendation might amount to poor advice for the large, corporate firms of Megalopolis.

In sum, the argument is logically flawed and therefore unconvincing as it stands. To strengthen it, the author must either account for other possible reasons for the 15% decline in the number of students who preferred to work for large, corporate firms, or supply persuasive evidence that the first-years student were representative of the total law school graduates. To better assess the recommendation, I need to know whether all law school students define “job satisfaction” as less working hours.