What Happened To the Class of 2010?

Deborah Jones Merritt has just posted a new piece on SSRN (as well as a related blog post) that’s well worth looking at for anyone interested in the state of the legal job marketplace – and the implications for law schools.

Taking advantage of the wealth of information now publicly available on the internet, Merritt conducted a down and dirty longitudinal study of those admitted to the Ohio bar in 2010, when the full impact of the recession had hit legal hiring.

She finds that job outcomes nearly five years out are poor.  She compares the 2010 Ohio figures with the 2000 national figures from the After The JD study, and finds that those who started out in Ohio in the midst of a recession in 2010 were in worse shape four and a half years out than the national cohort of those who started out in the 2000 recession.

From that, combined with a look at the changing structure of the legal marketplace, she draws a bigger – and undoubtedly more controversial – conclusion, which is that the contrast most likely is explained by the changing structure of the legal services marketplace, where US lawyer jobs are being replaced by everything from outsourcing to software. Put differently, she concludes that her Ohio figures provide data to support the claim that structural change is depressing job prospects for young lawyers.

Last but perhaps not least, she digs in to what this implies for law schools.

Merritt’s methodology is both clever and simple – in today’s world, job information can be found on the internet from a variety of sources. Those actively admitted to the Ohio bar are required to provide their employment information to the licensing authority; beyond that, sources such as LinkedIn and law firm web sites provide more detailed information on almost everyone engaged in practice.

As she notes, this method has its limitations. Her method provides no information on income or job satisfaction. Not everyone is traceable via the internet, and it is theoretically possible, however unlikely, that young lawyers of a generation that grew up online might have brick and mortar practices with no online footprint. More likely, her method may overstate job outcomes – young lawyers may present part time jobs in ways that make them seem full time, and may take a good long while to post job terminations. Law students who did not pass the bar – a small but not insignificant group, and perhaps poised to grow larger as admission standards slip – are not included at all.

There also is an obvious limitation in trying to draw conclusions about national trends from a study of one state. As states go, Ohio is as representative as any. It provides a home to large firms such as Jones Day, but it is not dominated by one big city market. Rural and small town lawyers fit into the mix. An argument could be made that its rust belt location skews results, an argument best answered by similar studies in other states.

What Merritt finds is that things started badly for the class of 2010, and, unlike in prior recessions, did not get much better. At a national level, nine months after graduation less than forty percent of graduates held jobs in law firms, barely two thirds held jobs that required a law license, and ten percent were altogether unemployed.

Four and a half years after graduation, Merritt finds, things have not rebounded, at least in the state of Ohio. One fifth of the 2010 cohort work in jobs that require no law license. Just shy of 50 percent were in private practice, but of those almost one fifth (9.1 percent of the total) were in solo practice, a category that, like consultants, includes some thriving professionals as well as some not so fully employed.  Just under 15 percent were in legal jobs in government, and eight percent in legal jobs in business. Just over eighteen percent were in jobs not requiring a law license – and while she didn’t uncover any law graduate barristas, the ‘business’ jobs held by some graduates suggest to her that the category is not just fanciful. More than six percent were unemployed.

Merritt compares these outcomes to the results of the 2000 graduates tracked by the After the JD study, and finds that the 2010 class did less well at rebounding from a poor start. For example, the percentage employed in law firms for the 2000 cohort was at 48.7 percent nationally at the same time, compared to only 39.5 percent for the 2010 cohort. Of those in private practice, they skew toward smaller firms and solo practice compared to the 2000 cohort. Another sign of employment stress is that job changes for this cohort are much more frequent than prior national averages.

Merritt concludes – with caveats - that the outcomes for 2010 signal a structural change in legal employment. The lack of recovery comparable to the 2000 graduates, the decline in law firm unemployment, the percentage altogether out of legal employment, all signal to Merritt that a structural change is probably underway. She doesn’t ignore the possibility that the most recent recession was just deeper or recovery slower, but concludes in light of a shifting legal services marketplace that her results probably reflect a structural change in the market.

Those who would argue with Merritt’s conclusions need to take into account her review of the changing legal services marketplace. The positioning of lawyers as competitors for legal services business has changed since 2000, and Merritt relies on this along with her Ohio data in concluding that her 2010 lawyers were not just facing a tough economy.

If she’s right that recent graduates are already suffering from a structural change in the market, arguments and studies that assume that the current value of a law degree matches historical norms require adjustment. While I'm in the structural change is happening camp, I’m not prepared to say that the evidence the market has changed is conclusive -- but Merritt’s data suggests it may have passed the point where structural change can be assumed away.

If legal employment has undergone structural change that depresses job prospects, the implications for law schools as we now know them are obvious. If there are fewer good long term legal jobs, there will be less demand for law graduates, which will inevitably continue to put pressure on law schools.

Merritt reprises a proposal she has made before, which is that costs can be lowered and the social purpose of law school better served by offering a first year of law school in undergraduate school. For those not going on to law school, the legal training will make them better citizens and at least partially prepared for many JD Advantage jobs. For those pursuing a full JD, the cost would be lowered by cutting the length of post graduate studies.

Merritt’s article won’t be the last word in this debate. I’m quite certain that the law school scam crowd will hail it as definitive proof that end times are near, and that those in full defensive mode will latch on to the limitations Merritt herself identifies in her approach to argue her findings away. It does add unfreighted analysis and fresh data to a discussion that too often sees only heat and ungrounded opinions. 

Comments

[anon]

Who is the "law school scam" crowd?

Anyone who is critical of the status quo? Anyone who doesn't despise Paul Campos?

Your "analysis" (such as it is) suffers because you throw around a slur in your conclusion, expecting that "everyone" will "know what I mean." You did a fairly good job, IMHO, of summarizing someone else's work, but then spoiled the whole read with your "analysis" at the end.

[jess]

Now that she has the data, I would hope that Professor Merritt would post the specific 5 year outcomes for her own school, Ohio State.

[A Prof]

This is why some law professors who sympathize with law school critics are staying silent in public. Deborah Jones Merritt is one the most outspoken figures pointing to bad employment outcomes for law school graduates and recommending significant changes to how law school works. She posted extensively at Paul Campos's blog. And she just sank months into a detailed, ground-level survey establishing convincingly that things are hard for recent graduates, much harder than they used to be.

What does she get for it? A comment saying she should look more closely at Ohio State. Why? Is Ohio State more problematic than the other schools she studied? (If anything, it probably has better employment outcomes.) No. It's purely because Deborah Jones Merritt teaches there. The question comes with an implied accusation of hypocrisy: law professor, fix your own school before you cast stones. This is a mild version, but something similar and usually worse happens to everyone who engages.

Law school critics, think carefully about this. If you want more law professor allies, you need to stop making the conversation about individuals. When we speak up, we make ourselves instantly unpopular with our colleagues. If it also makes us targets for public criticism from the critics we substantially agree with, there's every incentive to stay silent. That makes meaningful reform harder.

I'm not asking for garlands and champagne. But hold your fire a bit. You are scaring away people who would otherwise be helping.

[John Thompson]

@A Prof/10:47 a.m.:

Being criticized by anonymous Internet commenters at a blog that almost no one outside of the industry reads? That is what is "holding back" some law professors who sympathize with law school critics? Whatever will law school critics do without the contributions of some law professors?

Professor Merritt is an adult. I am sure that she knew to expect little or no reward for pointing out how poorly the class of 2010's passers of the Ohio bar has done in the five years since graduating, except perhaps to convince others of the necessity for change. If it helps the rest of you get on board, I offer my sincere congratulations and undying love to cancel out one anonymous Internet commenter if you duplicate her efforts for the class of 2010 in your state.

[JusticeFor All]

This is a really good study, and as a member of the class of 2009, I would venture to say that the class of 2009 probably fared about the same as the class of 2010. It would be really interesting to see what types of loan balances these students are carrying. My experience with colleagues from the class of 2009 is that many of the solo practitioner or small firm attorneys (firms of 2-20 attorneys) earn anywhere from 20k to 60k a year and many of us haven't been able to earn enough to pay the interest that accrues each month on our law school loans. So while many of us graduated with 150-200k in education debt we now owe more than that because each month the accrued interest increases.

[jess]

To A Prof:

If you read my comment as an attack on Professor Merritt, it was not meant as such. Everyone should post their own school's 5 year outcomes if they have them. She, apparently, has them. I have no idea if they are any different than the Ohio overall results or not.

[rose]

You realize that the law school scam crowd stems from virtually every law school lying about employment outcomes for years.

I hope no one on the faculty or administration of a law school continues to support this practice.

[anon]

Yes, we should applaud professors who take a sincere interest in analyzing students' employment outcomes, especially when so few seem to really care about that or even value the practice of law.

[rose]

Maybe more professors should consider researching their school's five year employment outcomes. More data can only help.

[[M][@][c][K]]

A Prof, I am puzzled by your comment statement,

"Law school critics, think carefully about this. If you want more law professor allies, you need to stop making the conversation about individuals. When we speak up, we make ourselves instantly unpopular with our colleagues. If it also makes us targets for public criticism from the critics we substantially agree with, there's every incentive to stay silent. That makes meaningful reform harder."

What law school critic attacked Professor Merit? Both she, Brian Tamahama and Paul Campos have displayed considerable professional courage in criticising the status quo, which has been greater by attacks on their personal integrity, in many instances organised by individuals not very distant from this forum, some who post regularly here and who have, allegedly (but pretty convincingly) been abetted by people who cannot be named because of the infamously protective "spam filter."

One in particular, a rigorous denouncer of anonymous post game and sock puppets turns out to have a drawer filled with odd socks that specialised in the very attack you complain of, i.e., the Campos/Tamahama/Merritt is a hypocrite line. In short your objection may be very misdirected. Look closer to home....

[Jojo]

Thank you prof Merritt. Fiat Lux!

Is there any faculty member that honestly believes that certain schools did NOT engage in a scam? Or puffery if the term scam is a little too bold for polite company.

[anon]

I agree with almost all the comments above.

It simply isn't enough to say "the scammers will say this" and the "defenders" will say that. (Note the difference there.)

The data either proves something, proves nothing, or points to a conclusion that the author asserts. What is the point here? The first alternative means that the author should say forthrightly what the data shows, the second alternative means the data is meaningless, and the third alternative cries out for more than a few throw away lines about "this group of reviled person will say this" and "this group of credible law professors will say that" and "I just don't know what to make of all this work."

For example, did so many validly write incessantly on this site that there will be full employment for attorneys in about two years? Does the data support those claims, or, were those claims sort of, well, let's think for a while ... what would be the word? Just how appalling would it be if, after all the hoopla for literally years, persons in authority in legal academia engaged, so recently, in those sorts of almost per se irresponsible representations (while literally flying off the handle and sometimes using obscenities when responding to anyone who dared to point out the obvious).

Yes, let's applaud efforts to take publicly available information and summarize it. (Not sure how vigorously the applause needs to be here, but it is to a valid end, one supposed.)

But let's also hear some "knowledge generation" in the sense of advancing understanding by way of reasoned, expert analysis, not just statistics.

A mistake so many profs make on this site is posting incomprehensible (to most) fancy looking charts and graphs (as if staring at a series of little thumbnails with lost of dots will reveal a number or something, like the old tests for color recognition) - charts and graphs replete with a discussion involving the jargon of statistics, but to no real effect in advancing understanding of anyone about anything - which leaves the impression that an amateur is dabbling in a field of study not taught in any depth at Yale Law School, or any other law school for that matter, and beyond the ken of most JD law professors, especially those whose field of interest has NOTHING to do with such studies.

[Anon]

Not sure we need studies to demonstrate the obvious. What we instead need is lower tuition and law schools focusing their efforts on securing employment for their students post-graduation.

[tony smith]

Law professors need to take statistics. Her analysis is silly -- even if there has been a structural change.

[anon]

you say potato, I say potato. I look at her "results" (it really is an extended blog post certainly not an academic paper) and it shows that most kids found jobs. Since she has no income data we don't know if they are doing better or worse than the kids who came earlier. But I fail to see the "ills" she speaks of. The percentage working as lawyers (i.e. excluding business jobs) appears exactly in line with longstanding national averages that reach back decades (ref. S&M II).

[Concerned_Citizen]

"Law professors need to take statistics. Her analysis is silly"

Unfortunately I am not well versed in statistics, as I suppose (perhaps unfairly) are most readers here.

Could you please explain why her analysis is silly from a statistical standpoint?

Thanks!

[anon]

anon

You are stating conclusions. Congratulations!

Unfortunately, you have no basis to so conclude, based on the post above, the referenced study and, especially, "S&M II" ...

You "fail to see the 'ills" she speaks of."

Exactly.

QED.

[Ray Campbell]

"it really is an extended blog post certainly not an academic paper"

Seriously? From scattered sources she built a database tracking the job outcomes for more than 1,000 new members of the Ohio bar over 4.5 years. That would be a heck of a blog post. It seems like a serious project to me, and one that often would be supported by grant money.

Is it that studying the profession of law itself - which includes looking at professional outcomes - is beneath the dignity of legal scholars? Are we being dismissive because her interpretation of the data runs counter to the "best time ever to go to law school" narrative or because looking at what people with law degrees do is appropriate for casual blogging but not serious scholarship?

[Paul Campos]

It's revealing that some people are still willing to push the "most kids found jobs" line. That's so 2011, when everybody was still reporting 96% employment nine months after graduation etc.

The national unemployment rate for 25-34 year olds, including everybody from high school dropouts to SCOTUS clerks, is 5.8%.

A particularly interesting stat from the paper is that 41% of the cohort that had jobs as lawyers with large law firms were staff attorneys rather than associates. It would be interesting to know if Ohio is unusual in this regard, or if this reflects what's happening with entry-level hiring in BIGLAW at the national level.

[rose]

Professor Campos,
Dayton, Ohio is the back office with staff attorneys for Wilmer Hale. I don't know if other big law firms are there as well.

This must skew the stats for Ohio and any other state with back office locations, like West Virginia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/business/24lawyers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0