<p>Only 33.75% of all 2011 ABA law school graduates were employed in full time jobs requiring their law degree 9 months after graduation, according to Professor Paul Campos, who has studied the legal profession in depth. </p>
<p>For more information, please see his blog at Inside</a> the Law School Scam: Two out of three 2011 law school graduates did not get real legal jobs. You may agree or disagree with what Professor Campos has to say, but this blog is certainly worthy of a read.</p>
<p>The general theme isn’t news to anyone who has been paying attention. (But I question some of the assumptions and methodologies. In California a quarter of the ABA school graduates don’t pass the bar exam on their first try, so they aren’t really “lawyers” yet 9 months after graduation.) I don’t have a problem, with the dismal job outlook so much as the grand theft tuition charges for attending the school which provides little economic benefit to the students. We need lawyers and we need law schools; we can either have a “hard to get in with virtually guaranteed employment” model like medical school, or we can have an “easy to get it but fight for a job” model such as exists in law school now, but the second model shouldn’t have the same price tag as the first - particularly when the actual cost of the educational process is so much lower.</p>
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<p>Exactly, kluge.</p>
<p>It should be much lower than it currently is. The prohibition from practice by the ABA to maintain it’s accreditation standards is ridiculous. The extortion of University of Colorado is a prime example.</p>
<p>According to this: <a href=“http://www.colorado.edu/law/admissions/files/TuitionComparison.pdf[/url]”>http://www.colorado.edu/law/admissions/files/TuitionComparison.pdf</a> Colorado’s 4 year cost is “only” $130K - that’s a bargain compared to every accredited law school in California - and still grand theft, IMHO.</p>
<p>% of students employed 3 months after graduation and average annual income post-law school should be more significant factors in ranking law schools.</p>
<p>Kkuo, using a 3-month employment number would likely give a misleadingly low assessment of employment numbers since many, if not most, law school graduates do not begin working until the autumn following graduation. In many cases, especially for those who have jobs lined up at Biglaw firms, the months following graduation are spent studying for the bar full time (the bar exam is at the end of July), taking the bar exam, and then traveling, finding a place to live, moving to a new city, etc. Many do not begin working until September, October, or November at the earliest.</p>
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You’re right and good point. I’m not an expert as I’m not in the industry so I concede the point. However, I hope most people understand the point I was trying to make. Rankings should be focused more on the outcome of law school rather than the stats coming into law school even though there may be a positive correlation between them.<br>
This may not have an effect on T14 law schools as much as it would for those in the top (50-100) law schools. It may, however, radically change the admissions strategy for those schools outside of the T14.</p>
<p>props to kluge for post #2.</p>
<p>IMO, its (almost) immoral and unethical for public Unis to be raking in so much cash from their law schools - they are cash cows, when the Deans know with certainty that the vast majority of their graduates have zero method of paying back those loans, or will be paying them back for decades.</p>
<p>It is also immoral for the law schools that give merit aid, knowing that most kids wont have GPAs to keep it. Especially the law schools that have a curve, put all scholarship kids in ONE section, so by definition, some will lose their merit aid. Of course, not talking about the very top schools.</p>
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Perhaps a metric to track % that actually graduate would be able to lower the rankings of law schools that use this technique.</p>
<p>KKUoo, not good enough. Some people may graduate, but lose scholarship for last two years. It stinks.</p>
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No metric, by itself, will ever be good enough.</p>