You haven't seen these images before - they're hot off the press!
It's time to visit Dan Markel's collection of beautiful Venn diagrams reporting law school entry level hiring for the 2010-11 school year. This updates Tim's prior statistical analysis of such things. At this point, it appears that only 84 schools have provided the results of their hiring season - 79 having hired at the entry level and 5 not. While the data is incomplete (and thus may create incorrect impressions about how different feeder schools performed this year), that's not really a new phenomenon. Looking back at Larry Solum's hiring report for 2009 - which was more complete than his 2010 version - it appears that only 100 schools provided info.
In any case, and I admit to feeling like I work for a local NPR station, we know you're out there and that you have data. If you feel that this data is a service that you use, please support it by providing your school's hiring information.
Only then can everyone's alma mater make credible claims about being among the best law teaching feeder schools in the nation. We all live in Lake Wobegone.
Update: It turns out that all kudos for this fine work goes to Sarah Lawsky, who mischievously is going by the name "Dan Markel" over at Prawfs. And rumor has it that Professor Markel goes by the name of "Dan Non-Althouse" over at some other blawg - but no confirmation yet on this.
Credit where credit due - these are Sarah Lawsky's diagrams :) And "data" are plural...
Posted by: anon | April 21, 2011 at 07:09 AM
The diagram I'm most interested in is the one for the "number of years out" -- am I reading it correctly that it's based on 121 total hires and that 38 of those 121 have been out ten or more years? So about one-third of new hires have ten or more years experience? And that only about 15% have four or fewer years' experience. My sense is that this is a shift from a decade or so ago when I was following these things more closely. Do others think this is a change as well? And if so, is this, perhaps, a positive reaction to the calls for schools to focus on practical legal education?
Posted by: Alfred Brophy | April 21, 2011 at 08:24 PM
Re: years out--I would think that this could represent more practice experience, but it could also represent the growing prevalence of VAPS. Clerkships, some practice experience, and a couple years of a VAP or fellowship (or both) could easily put someone at the 10-year mark.
Posted by: CBR | April 22, 2011 at 04:11 PM
Excellent point, CBR. Perhaps it's a combination of things, including longer practice experience and VAPs, maybe some in PhD programs, too. I'm guessing that nearly two decades ago when I first started teaching that fewer entry-level faculty were a decade out of law school than now. I'd be interested in some data on this.
Posted by: Alfred Brophy | April 22, 2011 at 04:42 PM