Law-School Funded Jobs

To fund or not to fund? Who would have thought that that was a question? The recent ABA Employment Report for the Class of 2012 shows that, for law schools located in the continental United States, a total of 1799 graduates (3.9%) were employed in law-school funded positions.

The first table shows that the bulk of the law-school funded positions were Bar-passage required, or JD advantage, positions:

Class of 2012 ABA Employment Report Law-School Funded Positions
Employment Type	N	% of Positions	% of Graduates
Bar Passage Required	1265	70.3%	2.8%
JD Advantage	498	27.7%	1.1%
Professional	34	1.9%	0.1%
Non-Professional	2	0.1%	0.0%
Total	1799		3.9%

The next table shows that only 37.5% of the law-school funded positions were full-time, and long-term, positions. In fact, a slight plurality of the positions was part-time, and short-term positions.

Class of 2012 ABA Employment Report Law-School Funded Positions
Employment Type	N	% of Positions	% of Graduates
Full-Time, Long-Term	675	37.5%	1.5%
Full-Time, Short-Term	332	18.5%	0.7%
Part-Time, Long-Term	105	5.8%	0.2%
Part-Time, Short-Term	687	38.2%	1.5%
Total	1799		3.9%

The data reveals wide variations among the law schools when it comes to law-school funded employment. Law-school funding rates varied from 0.0% (53 schools, or 26.9%) to 22.6%. The following chart shows that the distribution of the funding rates is very skewed. In fact, 71.6% of law schools had total funding rates below the 3.9% overall.

Comments

[CBR]

I'm curious whether there is reported salary data for the school-funded jobs. Presumably the schools would have that data, but does it get reported?

[TWBB]

Knowing the schools, they've probably came up with some elaborate rationale for not factoring it in.