The numbers are in, and they are well, not good. The National Association for Legal Career Professionals released its annual employment report for the law school class of 2009 today. (Click here for press release.)
The survey was taken as of Feb. 15 for employment data at 192 American Bar Association accredited law schools. Of the graduates whom employment status was known, 88.3 percent had jobs—the lowest rate since the mid 1990s. Only 70.8 percent of graduates reported that they held a job that required a JD. Surprisingly the folks at NALP thought the numbers would be worse. The findings are somewhat misleading, which the report points out. Nearly 25 percent of the jobs were “temporary” and 3.5 percent were “academic”. A whopping 42 percent of law schools provided on campus jobs for graduates.
So there you go. The employment numbers for recent grads are at decade long lows, but aren’t as bad as people thought they would be. Not exactly a ‘good news, bad news’ scenario considering a new class of law school grads is already pounding the pavement looking for work.
Discuss among yourselves.
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[...] 2009. You can read the full report here. As you would expect, the report outlines some of the challenges in the legal employment market. One thing that did stand out is the increase in the number of law schools who are hiring back [...]
I’d say that things are still dismally bad…out of the 80-odd percent “employed in any capacity, anywhere,” at least a quarter are temporary, and schools are providing tons of jobs to graduates in order to tide them over and game their employment statistics until they can secure the tuition deposits of the next batch of suckers.
As complicit as NALP has been in law school statistical book-cooking, I’m taking everything they say with a few shakers of salt. I can say that 80% of our graduating class sure isn’t employed.
2009 honors grad from Hamline. Not a single law firm interview. Not one.
If you take out the percentage of people working temporary jobs who were listed as employed, only 2/3 of graduates are employed.
That is a horrific number when you consider law graduates are individuals who overwhelmingly graduated in the top half of their undergraduate class, and who have a professional degree.
UMN Law Grad 2009: I think the actual number of could be rightly considered “employed” is less than that. I’d start with the 70.3% of grads holding a job requiring a JD, and then subtract the 25% who are temping. That leaves us only 45.8% of 2009 grads who hold permanent JD-required jobs. 45.8%!!!! Absolutely horrific.
Law school debt needs to be discharged in bankruptcy. Laws should be changed to allow this.
Or, even better, law schools should have to pay off the debt if the student will agree to have their JD and any bar admissions revoked.
Sounds like sour grapes to me. i am thinking of attending Law school. I am 49 and know there are no guarantees with any education. Planning is what gets one employed. the problem with young people today is, they want a position not a job. the position comes from doing the dirty grunde work. you have to start on the bottom and work towards the position.
Carlos, I’d recommend reading this release from the ABA on the value of attending law school & job prospects before you decide to head to law school: http://www.abanet.org/lsd/legaled/value.pdf
It details the harsh reality: the average student will graduate with over $100,000 of law school debt, and 42% of 2008 grads started jobs with a salary under $65K. “This year, the employment picture is even more bleak.”