New 2012 Law School Employment Statistics

Thanks to Gary Rosin for pointing out that the summary of the new ABA law school employment data release is here.  School by school statistics can be found, individually, here.

These are the overall numbers (click to enlarge):

 

Comments

[AnonProf]

Dan,

Thanks for posting this. I wouldn't have found the information without you. It's helpful for assessing the current state of law employment without the typical emotionalism that so often clouds the debate.

[TWBB]

A few thoughts:

1. Those numbers still look very fishy, based on anecdotal evidence; I just don't believe 10.6% of law graduates are unemployed and seeking, that number is just too low.

2. Even more unbelievable is the 4.2% combined full-time/part-time short-term employment. You cannot tell me that adding up all the intermittent document reviewers and direct-hire temporary attorneys from the class of 2012 results in 4.2%.

3. Relatedly, I wonder how many of those "public interest" and "government" workers are working for free; any unpaid volunteer work should be categorized as unemployed.

4. Similarly, I wonder how many of those "business" and "industry" workers are working in retail or other nonprofessional jobs. They really need to start separating white collar from non-white collar jobs.

5. Unfortunately, the ABA has no credibility in this arena; it is probably the most egregious example of regulatory capture around these days.

[Anon]

How does an SRO capture itself?

[Confused]

AnonProf,

I'm glad you would like to avoid the "typical emotionalism," of the individuals that support your livelihood, but apparently you are unaware that more than 90% of law school students enroll to obtain remunerative employment. You sit there in your ivory tower, attempting to suppress the voice of your victims, but you need to know that what you are doing is literally ruining lives. Do the math on someone that borrows $40,000/year in tuition, $10,000/year in living expenses, and a $10,000 dollar bar loan to pay for Barbri and living expenses while they study for the bar. With the 6-8% rate that the federal government is charging, those loans burden individuals for the rest of their lives. When you look upon your next torts or civ pro class, you should know that you are flat out ruining people’s lives for YOUR personal benefit. YOU are Bernie Madoff and word is getting out.

[Just too emotional, I guess]

I'm sure it's easy to be unemotional about these statistics when it's not your life or the lives of your friends that are being ruined. It does exemplify the attitude of far too many law professors, though.

And yes, whether or not it can technically be called "regulatory capture," the ABA is hardly a neutral party.