It's a geek's holiday. (Picture Steve Martin in "The Jerk" exulting, "The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!") This afternoon, the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar publicly released a "Placement Summary Report" including all the employment outcomes data the ABA has gathered on the Class of 2010 from all 200 accredited law schools in the United States. (Hat tip and thanks to Karen Sloan of the National Law Journal, who alerted me.) This rich cache includes a fair amount of employer detail, distrinctions between short-term and long-term positions, and the number of bridge positions for recent graduates each school funded last year. This appears to be pretty much everything that the ABA is currently planning to require schools to disclose next March regarding the Class of 2011, with the apparent exception of categorizing the jobs graduates hold as "JD Required," "JD Preferred," "Other Professional" or "Non-Professional."
Though I am an avid student of this material, my focus is relatively recent. So I may merely be exhibiting my lack of depth when I say that I am unaware of the ABA's ever having released this much information on a school-by-school basis before, and was equally unaware that they had any intention of doing so before next year. Anyone wishing to betray (or simply contextualize) my ignorance should feel free to do so in the Comments.
Rest assured that I'll be eagerly banging away on these numbers, and will start sharing some observations in the next couple of days. The gentle citizens of Chapel Hill extend their thanks to the American Bar Association for keeping me off the streets.
--Bernie
Link?
I cannot find this report through searching the ABA's page, nor through google.
Posted by: Faust | April 17, 2012 at 01:15 PM
DID THEY TAKE IT DOWN ALREADY?????
Posted by: futstu? | April 17, 2012 at 04:33 PM
It was here, but now it's gone: http://placementsummary.abaquestionnaire.org/
Posted by: David Bernstein | April 17, 2012 at 04:55 PM
Bernie - you are correct, the ABA has never compiled the data before in one place. Moreover, they have never released data on school funded positions. Kudos to the ABA for stepping up to the plate. I can't help but think that Faculty Lounge's recent blogs may have added to the conversation at the ABA that resulted in this release. So kudos to you too.
Posted by: anon | April 18, 2012 at 10:19 PM
Its nice note about the ABA,that are framed to the exact aspect.
Posted by: swanson | April 27, 2012 at 02:20 AM