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ABA Employment Stats: Class of 2015
May 2nd, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
Updated at 8:30 p.m. to reflect several changes*
The ABA has just released employment statistics for the Class of 2015. As Jerry Organ speculated over the weekend, the report is decidedly mixed. The percentage of graduates holding full-time, long-term jobs requiring bar passage edged up slightly, from 59.9% in 2014 to 60.3% in 2015.
This small increase, however, resulted from the drop in the number of graduates–rather than from any increase in available jobs. Graduates fell 9.2% between the two years, from 43,832 in 2014 to 39,817 in 2015. The actual number of FTLT bar-required jobs also fell, from 26,248 in 2014 to 23,993 in 2015. That’s a hefty decline of 2,255 jobs or 8.6%.
These figures encompass all ABA-accredited law schools, including the three Puerto Rico schools. For this initial comparison, I also counted school-funded jobs. In later analyses, I will break those out.
I will have updates on these figures as I work more with the ABA spreadsheet. The results, however, are not the good news that law schools were hoping to hear. Nor are prospective students likely to greet these figures as heralding a surge in the legal employment market. This summer would be a good time to reflect further on challenges and opportunities for law schools; I hope to contribute to that discussion.
* This year’s ABA spreadsheet includes several hidden columns, which affected some of my earlier calculations. The gist hasn’t changed, but the numbers have shifted slightly.
Legal Education and the Justice Gap
April 29th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
I read recently about an organization that provides efficient, effective legal services to low- and middle-income clients. The organization, Chicago’s Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services (“CARPLS“), has been serving clients for almost a quarter century. They currently help about 28,000 clients a year at an average cost of just $33 per consultation. How do they do it? And what can legal educators learn from CARPLS’s success? Read on.
» Read the full text for Legal Education and the Justice Gap
Hippocrates
April 17th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
In a forthcoming article, I discuss the ethical duty that professionals have to educate new members of their profession. The ancient Hippocratic oath recognized this duty, commanding all physicians “to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning . . . to pupils who have signed the covenant.” Contemporary versions of the oath enforce a similar obligation, while moral and economic principles support the existence of this duty.
Surprisingly, the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct do not recognize this duty among lawyers. This is a worrisome flaw. Without an established duty to educate new lawyers, our profession cannot effectively serve clients. Nor can we justify our status as professionals. Professions are communities rather than mere occupations–and an essential feature of those communities is their commitment to ongoing education.
A Look Into Our Archives
April 12th, 2016 / By I Am The Law
This episode is brought to you by BarBri Law Preview. They’re giving away a $10,000 scholarship for a 1L this fall. If you want to apply, go to LawGiveAway.com.
In this episode, Kyle McEntee (LST’s executive director) and Derek Tokaz (one of IATL‘s hosts) discuss three episodes from the archives. They reflect on what they found more interesting and important, emphasizing the value in researching legal careers early and often.
The three episodes are:
Appellate Lawyer: Telling A Court They Got It Wrong [Small Firm]
April 3rd, 2016 / By I Am The Law
There’s an old saying: When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on you side, pound the table. But if you’re an appellate lawyer? All you have is the law because the record (facts) is set at the trial level.
Virginia Whitner Hoptman is a 1981 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. Immediately following law school, she had back-to-back appellate clerkships. The first was with the Third Circuit and the second was with the U.S. Supreme Court. She changed course several times throughout her career, but has settled back where she started with a highly-specialized appellate practice.
In this episode, Virginia explains the appeals process for winners and losers at the trial level. She also talks to us about elitism in the world of appeals, how difficult it is to become a full-time appellate lawyer, and what makes appellate lawyers fundamentally different than trial lawyers.
This episode is hosted by Kyle McEntee, LST’s executive director. It is sponsored by ShouldIBeALawyer.com and Top-Law-Schools.com.
Episode Links
Job Growth
March 26th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
How many lawyering jobs does our economy support? Is that number still growing? Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shed light on these questions. Every other year, BLS counts the number of existing “lawyer” jobs as part of its Employment Projections program. This count is particularly useful because, unlike some other BLS reports, it includes both salaried and self employed workers. These biennial counts thus include solo practitioners, law firm partners, and practicing lawyers who earn a salary from any source.
By examining these counts, which are available online since 1978, we can chart growth trends for lawyering jobs. (For a full description of the jobs included in these figures, see the note at the end of this post.)
Jury Verdict for Thomas Jefferson
March 24th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
Anna Alaburda’s lawsuit against the Thomas Jefferson School of Law is over: a split jury returned a verdict for the law school earlier today. Nine jurors sided with the school, three would have found for Alaburda. One of the jurors stressed that their deliberations focused only on data reported in two editions of US News, rather than on later figures that might have been more misleading. He implied that even the nine jurors siding with the school were not completely comfortable with the school’s conduct.
What should legal educators make of this verdict? Some may sigh in relief; although graduates filed fraud claims against numerous schools, only one has produced a recovery for the plaintiffs. That one suit involved Golden Gate, which paid $8,000 to each of five plaintiffs in a settlement.
Others may celebrate, interpreting the Alaburda verdict as vindication of all employment reporting practices at law schools. If a jury of ordinary citizens found no fraud, then there must have been no wrongdoing.
I would interpret Alaburda and its kin as a more cautionary tale. The widespread reporting practices provoking these lawsuits damaged the reputation of legal education. Most educators now agree that our prior practices were–at the very least–not as informative for prospective students as they should have been. Some of the practices, such as failing to report the number of students supplying salary data, bordered on deceitful.
After the jury verdict, Thomas Jefferson’s attorney told a reporter: “This is not, you know, Trump University. It is so not that.” In my opinion, law schools should have worked harder to avoid even the possibility of that comparison.
Criminal Defense (OK): The Business Side of Being a Lawyer [Solo]
March 20th, 2016 / By I Am The Law
This episode is presented by The United States Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corp.
When you are a solo practitioner, you are a small business owner who happens to provide legal services. Many new lawyers fail to fully appreciate this right away, aggravating the already tall challenge of learning to practice law on your own.
Matt Swain is a 2009 graduate of the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Right after law school, he started his own criminal defense practice in a college town 20 miles outside of Oklahoma City. In this episode, Matt talks to us about the importance of understanding your business inside and out. He describes some of the techniques he uses that ultimately make him more efficient and more likely to notice opportunities to help his clients move forward with their lives.
This episode is hosted by Kimber Russell. It is sponsored by Barbri, ShouldIBeALawyer.com, and Top-Law-Schools.com.
Episode Links
- Matt Swain Law Firm
- American Bar Association: Compare Law Practice Management Software
The U.S. News Rankings Are Horrible. Stop Paying Attention.
March 11th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
Note: A version of this piece was published last year on Law.com, but the U.S. News rankings remain as toxic of an influence as ever. This years version was published on Above the Law.
Next week, the law school world will overreact to slightly-shuffled U.S. News rankings. Proud alumni and worried students will voice concerns. Provosts will threaten jobs. Prospective students will confuse the annual shuffle with genuine reputational change.
Law school administrators will react predictably. They’ll articulate methodological flaws and lament negative externalities, but will nevertheless commit to the rankings game through their statements and actions. Assuring stakeholders bearing pitchforks has become part of the job description. (more…)
» Read the full text for The U.S. News Rankings Are Horrible. Stop Paying Attention.
Education Law (IN): Helping Schools Work With Families, Regulations, And More
February 29th, 2016 / By I Am The Law
This episode is presented by The United States Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corp.
Many types of educational institutions exist in the United States. Schools can be public or private, and serve different age ranges and missions. Regardless, schools are highly regulated at the state and federal level and need lawyers to function.
Seamus Boyce is a 2006 graduate of the University of New Hampshire School of Law and an education attorney at a 38-person firm with offices throughout Indiana. In this episode, he tells us about routine work advising clients with one-off questions, as well as more complex work involving student services, discrimination, and legislation. He also talks to us about his ascent to partner and the choices his firms make in pursuit of client satisfaction.
This episode is hosted by Aaron Taylor, a law professor at St. Louis University. It is sponsored by Barbri, ShouldIBeALawyer.com, and Top-Law-Schools.com.
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