Full Rankings: Bar Admission Required, Full-Time, Long Term

Some of you have asked for the complete rankings of  the Class of 2012 rates for graduates employed in full-time. long-term positions requiring Bar admission for reporting law schools located in the continental United States.

Class of 2012 ABA Employment Report
Bar-Admission Required, Full-Time, Long-Term
Rank	School	Rate
1	CHICAGO, UNIVERSITY OF	94.9%
2	VIRGINIA, UNIVERSITY OF	94.5%
3	PENNSYLVANIA, UNIVERSITY OF	94.4%
4	COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY	93.4%
5	STANFORD UNIVERSITY	91.2%
6	NEW YORK UNIVERSITY	91.1%
7	HARVARD UNIVERSITY	87.3%
8	CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY, UNIVERSITY OF	85.9%
9	CORNELL UNIVERSITY	85.8%
10	DUKE UNIVERSITY	85.3%
11	CALIFORNIA-IRVINE, UNIVERSITY OF	83.9%
12	MICHIGAN, UNIVERSITY OF	82.5%
13	YALE UNIVERSITY	82.0%
14	GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY	81.0%
15	ALABAMA, UNIVERSITY OF	77.3%
16	WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY	76.8%
17	LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY	76.7%
18	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	76.3%
19	TEXAS AT AUSTIN, UNIVERSITY OF	75.9%
20	SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY	75.1%
21	KENTUCKY, UNIVERSITY OF	74.1%
22	WILLIAM AND MARY SCHOOL OF LAW	73.5%
23	GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY	73.3%
24	EMORY UNIVERSITY	73.3%
25	MERCER UNIVERSITY	73.2%
26	CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES, UNIVERSITY OF	72.1%
27	VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY	71.4%
28	SOUTH TEXAS COLLEGE OF LAW	71.4%
29	IOWA, UNIVERSITY OF	71.4%
30	ARKANSAS, FAYETTEVILLE, UNIVERSITY OF	70.5%
31	SOUTH CAROLINA, UNIVERSITY OF	70.4%
32	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, UNIVERSITY OF	69.7%
33	GEORGIA, UNIVERSITY OF	69.4%
34	NORTH CAROLINA, UNIVERSITY OF	69.1%
35	WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY	68.3%
36	BAYLOR UNIVERSITY	68.3%
37	MISSOURI-COLUMBIA, UNIVERSITY OF	68.0%
38	WASHINGTON, UNIVERSITY OF	68.0%
39	WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY	67.9%
40	NORTH DAKOTA, UNIVERSITY OF	67.8%
41	CAMPBELL UNIVERSITY	67.6%
42	ST. MARY'S UNIVERSITY	67.5%
43	MINNESOTA, UNIVERSITY OF	67.4%
44	NEW MEXICO, UNIVERSITY OF	67.2%
45	OKLAHOMA, UNIVERSITY OF	67.0%
46	LOUISVILLE, UNIVERSITY OF	66.9%
47	NOTRE DAME, UNIVERSITY OF	66.8%
48	ARIZONA, UNIVERSITY OF	66.4%
49	FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY	66.4%
50	MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY, UNIVERSITY OF	66.0%
51	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY	65.8%
52	SETON HALL UNIVERSITY	65.8%
53	TULSA, UNIVERSITY OF	65.7%
54	NEBRASKA, UNIVERSITY OF	65.6%
55	BOSTON COLLEGE	65.4%
56	TENNESSEE, UNIVERSITY OF	65.2%
57	UTAH, UNIVERSITY OF	64.2%
58	ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY	64.2%
59	BOSTON UNIVERSITY	64.1%
60	BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY	63.9%
61	FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL	63.6%
62	WASHBURN UNIVERSITY	63.5%
63	SOUTH DAKOTA, UNIVERSITY OF	63.2%
64	HOUSTON, UNIVERSITY OF	63.0%
65	RUTGERS UNIVERSITY-CAMDEN	63.0%
66	TULANE UNIVERSITY	62.8%
67	FORDHAM UNIVERSITY	62.8%
68	WISCONSIN, UNIVERSITY OF	62.7%
69	NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY	62.6%
70	KANSAS, UNIVERSITY OF	62.3%
71	TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY	61.9%
72	ILLINOIS, UNIVERSITY OF	61.5%
73	CALIFORNIA-DAVIS, UNIVERSITY OF	61.4%
74	MONTANA, UNIVERSITY OF	61.0%
75	NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIVERSITY OF	60.9%
76	ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY	60.9%
77	UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA - LAS VEGAS	60.9%
78	ARKANSAS, LITTLE ROCK, UNIVERSITY OF	60.4%
79	MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE	60.4%
80	MISSISSIPPI, UNIVERSITY OF	60.0%
81	STETSON UNIVERSITY	59.8%
82	SAMFORD UNIVERSITY	59.6%
83	ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY	59.6%
84	OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY	59.5%
85	OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY	59.4%
86	MIAMI, UNIVERSITY OF	59.2%
87	PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY	58.8%
88	CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY	57.6%
89	MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY	57.3%
90	WYOMING, UNIVERSITY OF	57.3%
91	NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY	57.1%
92	FLORIDA, UNIVERSITY OF	56.8%
93	RICHMOND, UNIVERSITY OF	56.8%
94	IDAHO, UNIVERSITY OF	56.7%
95	MEMPHIS, UNIVERSITY OF	56.7%
96	DRAKE UNIVERSITY	56.1%
97	LEWIS AND CLARK COLLEGE	56.0%
98	TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY	55.6%
99	WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY	54.8%
100	LOYOLA UNIVERSITY-CHICAGO	54.6%
101	CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK	54.6%
102	INDIANA UNIVERSITY MAURER SCHOOL OF LAW	54.4%
103	RUTGERS UNIVERSITY-NEWARK	54.3%
104	CONNECTICUT, UNIVERSITY OF	54.3%
105	OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY	54.1%
106	YESHIVA UNIVERSITY	54.0%
107	CHARLESTON SCHOOL OF LAW	53.7%
108	CINCINNATI, UNIVERSITY OF	53.6%
109	BALTIMORE, UNIVERSITY OF	53.3%
110	TEXAS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY	53.1%
111	TEMPLE UNIVERSITY	53.1%
112	MARYLAND, UNIVERSITY OF	53.0%
113	DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY	52.7%
114	SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY-CARBONDALE	52.3%
115	LIBERTY UNIVERSITY	52.2%
116	STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO	52.2%
117	WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY	52.0%
118	ALBANY LAW SCHOOL	51.9%
119	TOLEDO, UNIVERSITY OF	51.7%
120	WILLIAM MITCHELL COLLEGE OF LAW	51.5%
121	COLORADO, UNIVERSITY OF	51.4%
122	ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY	51.4%
123	PITTSBURGH, UNIVERSITY OF	51.4%
124	HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY	51.2%
125	INDIANA UNIVERSITY - INDIANAPOLIS	51.2%
126	REGENT UNIVERSITY	51.2%
127	VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY	51.2%
128	DAYTON, UNIVERSITY OF	51.1%
129	GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY	50.9%
130	ELON UNIVERSITY	50.9%
131	TOURO COLLEGE	50.8%
132	GONZAGA UNIVERSITY	50.6%
133	FAULKNER UNIVERSITY	50.0%
134	WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY	49.2%
135	DENVER, UNIVERSITY OF	49.2%
136	ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY	49.1%
137	CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY	48.9%
138	BROOKLYN LAW SCHOOL	48.7%
139	LOYOLA UNIVERSITY-NEW ORLEANS	48.6%
140	BARRY UNIVERSITY	48.5%
141	DREXEL UNIVERSITY	48.4%
142	PACE UNIVERSITY	48.3%
143	CAPITAL UNIVERSITY	48.2%
144	HOWARD UNIVERSITY	47.7%
145	SAN DIEGO, UNIVERSITY OF	47.1%
146	CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY	47.1%
147	SEATTLE UNIVERSITY	47.1%
148	AKRON, UNIVERSITY OF	46.8%
149	WIDENER UNIVERSITY-HARRISBURG	46.7%
150	PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY	46.5%
151	CALIFORNIA-HASTINGS, UNIVERSITY OF	46.3%
152	SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY	45.9%
153	VERMONT LAW SCHOOL	45.1%
154	SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL	44.1%
155	UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS	44.1%
156	NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY	43.8%
157	CALIFORNIA WESTERN SCHOOL OF LAW	43.8%
158	PHOENIX SCHOOL OF LAW	43.6%
159	ATLANTA'S JOHN MARSHALL LAW SHOOL	43.5%
160	NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY	43.3%
161	SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY	43.2%
162	SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY	43.0%
163	HAMLINE UNIVERSITY	42.6%
164	MAINE, UNIVERSITY OF	42.5%
165	VALPARAISO UNIVERSITY	42.4%
166	JOHN MARSHALL LAW SCHOOL	42.3%
167	OREGON, UNIVERSITY OF	41.6%
168	MCGEORGE SCHOOL OF LAW	41.5%
169	LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY-LOS ANGELES	41.4%
170	MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY	41.2%
171	QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY	41.1%
172	DEPAUL UNIVERSITY	40.5%
173	ST. THOMAS UNIVERSITY	40.3%
174	SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY	39.8%
175	NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL	39.6%
176	AMERICAN UNIVERSITY	38.9%
177	WIDENER UNIVERSITY	38.7%
178	APPALACHIAN SCHOOL OF LAW	38.5%
179	CHARLOTTE SCHOOL OF LAW	38.5%
180	FLORIDA A&M	38.1%
181	CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA	36.6%
182	CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY	36.5%
183	NEW ENGLAND LAW | BOSTON	36.3%
184	FLORIDA COASTAL	35.9%
185	UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNE	35.6%
186	AVE MARIA	35.5%
187	WHITTIER COLLEGE	34.1%
188	WESTERN NEW ENGLAND UNIVERSITY	33.8%
189	WESTERN STATE	32.5%
190	DETROIT MERCY, UNIVERSITY OF	29.7%
191	UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS DARTMOUTH	29.5%
192	THOMAS JEFFERSON SCHOOL OF LAW	28.8%
193	THOMAS M. COOLEY LAW SCHOOL	28.8%
194	NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY	26.1%
195	DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA	25.8%
196	SAN FRANCISCO, UNIVERSITY OF	22.6%
197	GOLDEN GATE UNIVERSITY	21.5%

Almost a third of schools (32.5%, or 64 schools) reported rates below 50.0% for Bar-admission required, full-time, long-term employment, while 24 schools, or 12.2%, reported rates below 40.0%, and 8 schools, or 4.1%, reported rates below 30.0%.

Comments

[Michael Risch]

Any reason not to add a second column that adds in JD advantage - full time as well? It's not as great as JD required, but a) it's a job and b) some students actually want positions like that.

[Michael Risch]

Seems like you would also want a third column that subtracts out any hires by the school.

[John Doe]

The law school scam has been revealed, and the edifice of legal education is imploding. In that process, many of you faculty will lose your jobs. What will you do after that? Only God knows. Certainly your skills are useless outside of academia. My advice: Better start practicing making those mochas and lattes.

[John Thompson]

It's a good thing that U.S. News continues to focus heavily on peer academics' opinions, and doesn't allow its ranking to be controlled by such petty considerations as whether you can reasonably expect to find work as an attorney after graduating.

Otherwise, people might ask embarrassing questions about why some schools cost so much and are ranked so highly (e.g., Georgetown) when they are outperformed on this minor issue by several cheaper ones (e.g., West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama).

[PJ Carlesimo]

A guy named John Thompson dissing G-Town?

In any event, these cheaper schools probably place well in states like West Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama, which pay very little and where people that go to G-Town (or most other schools) are not interested in working.

[AnonProf]

I wonder how these statistics compare to the job prospects of those people who graduated with degrees from disciplines other than law, both with undergraduate and graduate degrees. My guess is that for many folks the law degree continues to be a great investment. (And here I apologize for only concentrating on the monetary value of the degree since I think law school education is meant to do much more than make a person marketable.) Tough to believe that people with a philosophy, linguistics, biology, classics, physics, literature, political science, modern languages, or similar degrees do better than those graduating with a J.D. In some cases, I'd guess, persons with degree from those disciplines fare significantly worse. But I'd like to see the actual numbers to see whether my conjecture is correct. For those obsessed with quantifying the value of the law degree on the basis of actual job market performance, I'd recommend criminology or engineering, which might actually get you in the job market with much less debt load, if that's your chief concern.

Another take away point for me is that the law graduates of some schools in the lower tier schools, against which we've been hearing much clamoring, do quite as well as their higher rated competitors.

[confused]

AnonProf,

A couple things you might want to consider when comparing the employment outcomes of JDs with graduates of other disciplines:

1) The average debt load of graduates of private law schools is $125,000 with many schools topping $150,000. http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/average_debt_load_of_private_law_grads_is_125k_these_five_schools_lead_to_m/

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/grad-debt-rankings

Those numbers do not include any undergraduate debt already incurred, the 6-8% interest charged while enrolled or funding for bar prep courses and associated bar exam costs which can add an additional 5 figures of debt.

Can you point to any sources that would suggest that graduates of other disciplines incur anything close to those costs?

2) For years, law schools have prominently advertised the "average" starting salaries of their graduates in order to lure students interested in establishing some financial security. When a law school states that the average graduate of its institution is able to secure a job paying $80,000 or more, within 9 months of graduation, that will impact a rational person's willingness to incur debt to finance such an opportunity. In reality, schools were manipulating data to only include successful graduates in their "averages," fraudulently painting a distorted picture to applicants.

To my knowledge, the disciplines you reference above never billed themselves as tickets to high paying jobs which is likely the reason you have offered no evidence to support your "conjecture."

3) If you continued your inquiry past "conjecture" and the typical assumptions law professors make to justify their loan funded paychecks, you would learn that a good portion of those long term, full-time, bar required jobs pay nowhere close to justifying the expenditures of the average law school grad. You would also learn that JD holders suffer at a disadvantage when competing with graduates of other disciplines because non-legal employers do not like lawyers and place negative value on the JD part of an applicant's resume.

As these realities are further revealed through transparency, you will continue to see applicant numbers fall and law schools start to close.

[John Thompson]

@PJ:

Perhaps that's true. 38% of Georgetown's graduates in the class of 2011 reported a private-sector mean salary (or worked for a firm for whom the processing office at Georgetown for employment surveys had a "market salary," and an employee of this office filled in that number) of $160,000. About 50% of West Virginia's graduates in the same year reported a private-sector mean salary of $67,000 and a public-sector mean salary of $50,000. However, according to NALP's figures, about half of the jobs in the law available to new graduates were with small firms, paying between $50,000 and $70,000 nationally, and 41% of new graduates reported salaries of $55,000 or less. It could be that many more graduates of Georgetown are making salaries comparable to graduates of West Virginia than we are led to believe, particularly when loan repayment and cost of living are included for comparison of net outcomes.

I'm not picking a fight with Georgetown, either as a basketball program (tough loss to FGCU, guys) or as a law school. I'm just using it as a proxy for law schools deemed elite by U.S. News and peer academic opinion generally, and likewise I am using West Virginia as a proxy for non-elite public law schools. I feel that Georgetown, like many law schools regardless of U.S. News position, no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt for these massive lacunae in their salary and employment data. It may be that many graduates will find no particular professional advantage in attending a Georgetown over a West Virginia, if they can't find an employer in the law at graduation.

In this specific comparison, I am arguing that the 80-slot gap at U.S. News and the $120,000+ gap in sticker price makes no sense, when so much of the market for recently graduated attorneys seems indifferent to pedigree. This argument can be expanded to cover a number of schools who basically produce the same number of working attorneys at widely divergent costs.

[Anon]

AnonProf,

This is just wrong: "Another take away point for me is that the law graduates of some schools in the lower tier schools, against which we've been hearing much clamoring, do quite as well as their higher rated competitors." The lower ranked schools often have starting salaries that are less than half of those at higher ranked schools. A full-time JD required contract attorney job (even if long term) is not what most students go to law school to obtain.

[Forgotten Attorney]

Anonprof, can you do me and the sane among us a favor? Please convince your law school to post the following slogan on the next wave of advertising:

"Where we teach you how to think like a lawyer. Not how to get a job."

I'd love to see your school's acceptance yield rate afterwards.

I am also aware that other fields have it bad in terms of unemployment. But it does not mean that going to law school will make it better. It is pathetic that only 30 law schools broke the 70% post-grad FTLT employment rate. Schools have lower than 50% should have their accreditation reviewed by the ABA.

[Matthew Bruckner]

@John Thompson -

Isn't the issue really about the way these numbers are obtained?

As I understand it, schools are incentivized to reach out to every student and ask if they are employed because every graduate for whom the school lacks employment data is counted as unemployed. Still, I would think that this is not a perfect effort and schools might be unable to contact some employed graduates. Unless you assume that every graduate that the school didn't contact is actually unemployed, this figure is likely to underrepresent the employment results for schools.

The opposite is true of salary data. As I understand it, graduates can chose whether or not to share their salary information. I would assume that graduates with high salaries are more likely to self-report those salaries than graduates with low salaries. Therefore, I would expect this figure to skew upwards.

I'm not sure of the solution, but it doesn't seem fair to blame law schools for the lacunae. My school, for example, seems to do quite a bit to identify where our graduates have landed and to accurately report their salaries and other information.

[John Thompson]

@Matthew:

The way that these numbers are obtained is an issue. However, that law schools do not tell prospective or current law students as much as they know is a bigger one.

For example, NALP's current methodology for calculating an employment rate is to take the number of students reporting employment by the number of students reporting. Depending on which school you represent, it might suit you to be incurious about students whose employment status is not known, although in 2011, NALP reported the partial or full participation of 93% of the graduating class in its survey.

And this brings us to our next problem: it is possible for a graduate to participate in this survey without actually receiving a questionnaire. In my case, neither I nor my wife (a graduate of the same class) received a questionnaire of any kind, let alone one formatted in the way NALP suggests. However, it may be that we were added to our school's employment outcome data as employed anyway, and at a salary level of the CDO/CSO's devising. NALP encourages CDO/CSOs to use Facebook and LinkedIn to determine whether a graduate is employed or even what his salary might be in the absence of a questionnaire, and then to use their "best professional judgment" and "the highest ethical standards" in filling in the blanks. Even at firms whose salaries follow a publicly disclosed lockstep for new associates, you can see how this might be problematic as a new associate at one firm is put down by a CDO/CSO employee for a New York market salary when the graduate's office is actually in Scranton or Dover, e.g., where the market salary is $40,000 or $50,000 less. And this is where a CDO/CSO isn't encouraged to do this in bad faith to minimize brand damage during a suboptimal year for the school's graduates.

Practicing attorneys are required to disclose and explain any fact that might have a material impact on a client's decision to retain them. On that basis, I don't think that it's asking too much of schools for their CDOs and CSOs to proceed in granular detail about how much information they have, that information's provenance, and the range of possible meanings that the information could have in a bimodal market for attorneys - all of this in a required briefing to students before their first tuition check is cashed.

[Attorney Jobs California]

Hi! Thanx for sharing such a useful list ..it helps readers as well as applicant..
share more like this..nice to read this blog.