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The Near-Term Employment Prospects of

American Law School Graduates

PAUL F. TEICH

INTRODUCTION

uring the recession that began in 2007, and in its immediate


aftermath,1 the job market for American law school graduates
markedly worsened.2 Graduates job prospects are quickly
improving, but the media have not reacted to the speed of change. Because
of the continued negative tone of reporting,3 most prospective law students

Professor of Law, New England Law | Boston.


The National Bureau of Economic Research has reported the recent recession began in
December 2007 and ended in June 2009. See Chris Isidore, Recession Officially Ended in June
2009, CNN MONEY (Sept. 20, 2010, 4:00 PM), http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/20/news/
1

economy/recession_over/index.htm.
2 A deteriorating economy spawned lawyer layoffs, salary decreases, and hiring freezes. See
Eli Wald, Forward: The Great Recession and the Legal Profession, 78 FORDHAM L. REV. 2051, 2051
52 (2010).
3 See, e.g., Susan Adams, The Best Law Schools for Career Prospects 2015, FORBES.COM (October
9, 2014, 12:29 PM), http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/10/09/the-best-law-schoolsfor-career-prospects-2015/ (noting [t]he employment picture remains grim and will
probably not improve due to the growth of Internet-based legal research and services, the
breakdown of traditional law firms and the growth of discount legal services and document
review outfits.); Adam Cohen, Just How Bad Off Are Law School Graduates? TIME (Mar. 11,
2013), http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/11/just-how-bad-off-are-law-school-graduates/ (reporting
the job market is operating at a near-depression-level); Dimitra Kessenides, Jobs Are Still
Scarce For New Law School Grads, BLOOMBERG (June 20, 2014), http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/
articles/2014-06-20/the-employment-rate-falls-again-for-recent-law-school-graduates
(Job
prospects for law school graduates arent improving much. . . . [T]he field of law was hit
especially hard by the 2008 crash and subsequent recession.); Elizabeth Olson, Slightly Higher
Percentage of Law School Graduates Landed Legal Jobs, Report Says, N.Y. TIMES (Apr. 29, 2015),
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/business/dealbook

/slightly-higher-percentage-of-law-school-graduates-landed-legal-jobs-report-says.html
(arguing the improving job market for graduates could be a numerical blip); Jordan
Weissmann, The Jobs Crisis at Our Best Law Schools Is Much, Much Worse Than You Think, THE
ATLANTIC (Apr. 9, 2013), http://www.theatlantic.com/business

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almost certainly believe that graduates near-term prospects are bleak. In


fact, the reverse is true; within only two years there is likely to be a
shortage of newly-licensed lawyers. Full-time positions will be widely
available, and pay, as a consequence, will be good. Reporters routinely fail
to note the speed with which law schools are reducing the size of entering
classes, and they commonly disregard the phenomenon of student
attrition. As noted below, about 11% of each years national law school
entering class does not graduate.4 Attrition occurs for many reasons.
Students drop outoften within the first several weeks of their first
academic year. The study of law is demanding, and many students find
they have no affinity for its subject matter. Students often withdraw
intending to return and do not return. The business of daily life overtakes
them. And, finally, students are sometimes academically dismissed.
Graduating classes are never the size of associated entering classes.
Nonetheless, published projections of national graduating class size rarely
account for attrition of any magnitude.
This article is structured in the form of a set of fact-supported
statements. Together, they are intended to constitute the case that the
employment market for law graduates, at least in the near-term, will be an
exceptionally strong one.

/archive/2013/04/the-jobs-crisis-at-our-best-law-schools-is-much-much-worse-than-youthink/274795/ (describing the job market as barren and noting that [e]ven graduates at
some of the countrys top programs are struggling to find jobs).
4

See infra notes 7 and 8 and accompanying text.

2015
I.

Prospects of Law School Graduates

37

Relevant U.S. employment and enrollment statistics indicate that


there will be a shortage of law graduates in two years.
A. Since before 2007, the year the recession began, the annual number of
law graduates employed nine months after graduation has remained
roughly constant at about 37,000. This fact is not well understood
even by law faculty and administrators.

Graduation Year

Total Number
Employed
Nine Months After
Graduation5

2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

36,465
37,123
36,497
36,046
36,043
35,653
37,538
37,730

AVERAGE

36,637

Deviation From
Eight-Year Average
of Total Number
Employed
(- 0.5%)
(+ 1.3%)
(- 0.4%)
(- 1.6%)
(- 1.6%)
(- 2.7%)
(+ 2.5%)
(+ 3.0%)

5 NATL ASSN FOR LAW PLACEMENT, CLASS OF 2013 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT (2014),
available at http://www.nalp.org/uploads/NatlSummaryChartClassof2013.pdf [hereinafter
CLASS OF 2013 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT]; NATL ASSN FOR LAW PLACEMENT, CLASS OF
2012 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT (2013), available at http://www.nalp.org/uploads/

NationalSummaryChart2012.pdf [hereinafter CLASS OF 2012 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT];


NATL ASSN FOR LAW PLACEMENT, CLASS OF 2011 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT (2012), available
at http://www.nalp.org/uploads/NatlSummChart_Classof2011.pdf [hereinafter CLASS OF 2011
NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT]; NATL ASSN FOR LAW PLACEMENT, CLASS OF 2010 NATIONAL
SUMMARY REPORT (2011), available at http://www.nalp.org/uploads/NationalSummaryChart
forSchools2010.pdf [hereinafter CLASS OF 2010 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT]; NATL ASSN FOR
LAW PLACEMENT, CLASS OF 2009 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT (2010), available at
http://www.nalp.org/uploads/NatlSummaryChartClassof09.pdf
[hereinafter CLASS OF 2009 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT]; NATL ASSN FOR LAW PLACEMENT,
CLASS OF 2008 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT 2 (2009), available at http://www.nalp.org/uploads
/natlsummary2008.pdf [hereinafter CLASS OF 2008 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT]; NATL ASSN
FOR LAW PLACEMENT, CLASS OF 2007 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT 2 (2008), available at
http://www.nalp.org/uploads/1229_natlsummary07revised.pdf [hereinafter CLASS OF 2007
NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT] (in each years chart, find the row labeled employed
associated with the topic, i.e. data category, total employed or degree). Numbers for 2014
are not yet available.

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B. By comparison, the annual number of students entering American


law schools has risen and then fallen. However, overall, it has fallen
by 11,013 students (i.e. by 23%) over the last nine years.

Year

2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014

Number of Students Entering


Law School6
48,937
49,082
49,414
51,646
52,448
48,697
44,481
40,802
37,924

AM. BAR ASSN, ABA SECTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION REPORTS 2014 LAW SCHOOL
ENROLLMENT DATA (2014), available at http://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-newsarchives/2014/12/aba_section_of_legal.html [hereinafter LEGAL EDUCATION REPORTS 2014];
AM. BAR ASSN, ENROLLMENT AND DEGREES AWARDED 19632012, available at
http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissio
ns_to_the_bar/statistics/enrollment_degrees_awarded.authcheckdam.pdf (last visited Oct. 20,
2015) [hereinafter ENROLLMENT AND DEGREES AWARDED].

2015

39

Prospects of Law School Graduates

C. Roughly 11% of each years national law school entering class does
not graduate. Students do not graduate because they voluntarily
withdraw for financial or personal reasons or they are academically
dismissed. ABA statistics can be used to approximate total attrition.
ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar
statistics show the following regarding first-year enrollment and JD
and LLB degrees awarded across all law schools:

Academic Year
Beginning

First Year Law


School
Enrollment on
October 17

Number of JD
& LLB
Degrees
Awarded
Three Years
Later8

Approximate
Attrition (All
Causes)

2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010

48,239
48,132
48,937
49,082
49,414
51,646
52,448

43,920
43,518
43,588
44,004
44,258
44,495
46,478

9.0%
9.6%
10.9%
10.3%
10.4%
13.8%
11.4%

AVERAGES

49,700

44,323

10.8%

D. On the basis of the above data, one can project the size of the 2017
graduating class. From among the 37,924 people who entered law
school in 2014, roughly 11% will not graduate. The size of the 2017
graduating class will be about 34,000. Again, it is very likely that
about 37,000 job opportunities will await them. There will be a
shortage of law school graduates.
The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) considers
graduates who open solo practices to be employed. However, only 23% of
graduates each year open solo practices. During 20072013, the annual
percentage of graduates employed at nine months after graduation in solo
7 LEGAL EDUCATION REPORTS 2014, supra note 6; ENROLLMENT AND DEGREES AWARDED,
supra note 6.
8

LEGAL EDUCATION REPORTS 2014, supra note 6; ENROLLMENT AND DEGREES AWARDED,
supra note 6. Part-time students, who typically take four years to graduate, constitute only a
small fraction of a national graduating class.

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practice positions fluctuated between a low of 1.6% in 2007 and a high of


3.0% in 2011. Even if one disregards the solo practice option, about 36,000
job opportunities will be waiting for 34,000 law graduates in 2017. Job
opportunities will outnumber graduates. 9
II. Commentators who evaluate the future employment prospects of law
school graduates often state that the employment prospects of future
law graduates are poor. They commonly point to National
Association for Law Placement figures showing that the annual
percentage of law school graduates unemployed nine months
following graduation has risen since the 2007 recession. Because of
recent and drastic declines in the size of entering classes, those
figures are obsolete and almost entirely irrelevant to the employment
prospects of future graduates.
NALP figures show the following:

Graduation Year

2007
2008
2009
2010

Number (and %) of
Graduates Seeking
Employment Nine
Months After
Graduation and
Unemployed10
1,670 (4.1%)
2,172 (5.4%)
2,430 (6.0%)
2,569 (6.2%)

Size of Entering
Class Three Years
Earlier (Rounded
to the Nearest
100)11

48,200
48,100
48,900
49,100

9 Each year during the years 20072013, the following number of law graduates opened
solo practices within nine months of graduation: 2007 (576), 2008 (685), 2009 (1058), 2010
(1039), 2011 (1059), 2012 (964), and 2013 (933). CLASS OF 2013 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT,
supra note 5; CLASS OF 2012 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2011
NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2010 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra
note 5; CLASS OF 2009 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2008 NATIONAL
SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2007 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5
(within each chart, locate the row solo associated with the topic, i.e. the data category, size
of firm).
10 CLASS OF 2013 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2012 NATIONAL
SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2011 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5;
CLASS OF 2010 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2009 NATIONAL SUMMARY
REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2008 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2007
NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5.
11 LEGAL EDUCATION REPORTS 2014, supra note 6; ENROLLMENT AND DEGREES AWARDED,
supra note 6.

2015
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017

Prospects of Law School Graduates

3,990 (9.6%)
4,747 (10.7%)
4,996 (11.2%)
data unavailable
data unavailable
data unavailable
data unavailable

41

49,400
51,600
52,400
48,700
44,500
40,800
37,900

Between 2007 and 2013, the percentage of graduates unemployed nine


months after graduation increased from 4.1% to 11.2%. However, the
absolute number of unemployed went up by only about 3,300 graduates.
Notice that the unemployment figure of 11.2% for 2013 was for a
graduating class that contained a striking number of students. Most of the
students who graduated in 2013 entered in 2010. The 2010 entering class
was the largest national entering class of all time. Since 2010, the size of
entering classes has declined dramaticallyby 14,500 students. Law
schools have reacted very quickly to the decline in the applicant pool and
have slashed the size of entering classes. Please notice the unemployment
rate for graduating law students in 2007 when the associated entering class
size was 48,200. The 2007 graduating class (most of whose members
entered law school in 2004) had an unemployment rate of only 4.1%. The
unemployment rate of the 2017 graduating class (at nine months following
graduation) is certainly likely to be 4.1% or less. There will inevitably be
some unemployment among those seeking a job for the first time in 2017.
Every year some graduates (those with low law school grade point
averages and those with personalities that do not impress employers) have
difficulty quickly finding jobs. Some graduates of every type of graduate
and undergraduate program face the same problem, however. Even in
good hiring markets, some have trouble finding jobs.

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III. Commentators who evaluate the future employment prospects of law


school graduates sometimes point to a decline over the past decade
in the number of full time bar-passage-required jobs as evidence
that enrolling in law school is unwise. Those figures also are almost
completely irrelevant to the issue of the future employability of law
graduates.
National Association for Law Placement figures show the following:

Full (FT) Time and


Part Time (PT) Jobs: 12

Number of
Graduates (As a
Percentage of Those
Employed at Nine
Months) in 2007

Number of
Graduates (As a
Percentage of Those
Employed at Nine
Months) in 2013

Bar Passage Reqd- FT


JD Advantage- FT
Other Professional- FT
Non-professional- FT
FT Job Type Unknown
TOTAL Full Time Jobs

29,978 (82.3%)
2,635 (7.2%)
1,734 (4.8%)
293 (0.8%)
117 (0.3%)
34,757 (95.4%)

27,385 (72.7%)
5,128 (13.6%)
1,728 (4.6%)
266 (0.7%)
22 (0.1%)
34,529 (91.7%)

Bar Passage Reqd- PT


JD Advantage- PT
Other Professional- PT
Non-professional- PT
PT Job Type Unknown
TOTAL Part Time Jobs

793 (2.2%)
410 (1.1%)
234 (0.6%)
200 (0.5%)
23 (0.1%)
1660 (4.5%)

1,342 (3.6%)
1,018 (2.7%)
348 (0.9%)
447 (1.2%)
9 (0.0%)
3164 (8.4%)

Graduates secured only 2,600 fewer full-time, bar-passage-required


jobs in 2013 than in 2007. The entering class properly associated with the
graduating class of 2007 is the entering class of 2004. That entering class
contained 48,200 students. As already mentioned several times, the
entering class of 2014 contained 37,900 students. Thus, the entering class of
2014 contained 10,300 fewer students than the entering class of 2004. Since
at least 2001, the National Association for Law Placement has generated
statistics showing the percentage of each graduating class employed in barpassage-required jobs. Even prior to the recession and with a robust job market,

12

CLASS OF 2013 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; CLASS OF 2007 NATIONAL
SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5 (within each chart, locate the rows associated with the topic
heading FT/PT jobs).

2015

Prospects of Law School Graduates

43

that percentage figure averaged less than 75%. 13 Many reasons existed for a
figure at the time lower than 100%: i.) employers of full-time lawyers often
will not employ a recent graduate until after the graduate has passed the
bar examination. In other words, such employers will not hire an
unlicensed graduate knowing that the graduate will immediately ask for
time off in order to study for the bar; ii.) further, the pass-rate for first time
takers of the bar exam in the U.S. annually is close to 75%;14 (it was 74% for
first-time takers in 2014, for example);15 iii.) some law graduates inevitably
want to go into the business, not the legal, world upon graduation; and iv.)
finally, some law graduates, and in particular, those with child care
responsibilities, want to take part-time jobs upon graduation. As just stated
above, prior to the recession, fewer than 75% of all law graduates on
average secured full-time bar-passage-required jobs within nine months of
graduating.16 If 75% of the members of the graduating class of 2017 want
to, and are able to, secure full-time bar-pass-required jobs, then only 25,500
(i.e. 34,000 X .75) will secure such jobs. Note though that many more such
jobs are likely to be available: 27,400 such jobs were available to members
of the graduating class of 2013. Again, the available information indicates
there will be a shortage of law graduates.

13 For confirmation of the less than 75% figure, see Trends in Graduate Employment1985
2006, NALP, http://www.nalp.org/2007julgraduateemployment (last visited August 5, 2015)
[hereinafter Trends in Graduate Employment]; and the figures in summary charts available at
2007 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5. The recession began in 2007. Each year
during the years 2001-2006, the following percentage of graduates secured employment in
full-time or part-time bar-passage-required jobs (within 9 months of graduation): 2001 (75.9%),
2002 (75.3%), 2003 (73.7%), 2004 (73.2%), 2005 (74.4%), 2006 (75.3%). The average across the 6year period was 74.6%. Necessarily then, the average percentage employed in full-time barpassage-required jobs alone was less than 75%. 2007 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note
6.
14

See NATL CONFERENCE OF BAR EXAMRS, 84 THE BAR EXAMINER: A PUBLICATION OF THE
NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BAR EXAMINERS 27 (2015), available at http://www.ncbex.org/
pdfviewer/?file=%2Fassets%2Fmedia_files%2FBar-Examiner%2Farticles%2F2015%2F2014statistics-withcorrections.pdf.
15
16

Id.
Trends in Graduate Employment, supra note 13.

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IV. Some commentators who evaluate the future employment prospects


of law graduates assume that law graduates are getting paid
significantly less and less as years go by. NALP figures show the
following concerning the salaries paid to law graduates hired for
full-time jobs in two recent years. One of those years is 2007 (the
recession started in December of that year), and one of those years is
2013after the recession.

Year17

2007
2013

Full Time 25th


Percentile
Salary
$50,000
$50,000

Full Time 50th


Percentile
Salary
$65,748
$62,467

Full Time 75th


Percentile
Salary
$130,000
$115,000

The starting salaries of lawyers continue to be substantial and


impressive.
V. A prospective law student might wonder whether there will really be
a shortage of law graduates in 2017. If some law-related jobs go
temporarily unfilled in that year, wont graduates from prior
graduating classes who are unemployed simply fill those jobs? If
there are plenty of lawyers and law graduates to fill empty jobs, why
will there be a shortage of law graduates or lawyers? There will be a
shortage because many more graduates than are actually hired would
have been hired had they been available to employers. Recent
graduates are preferred by employers over their unemployed
competitors for tens of thousands of jobs each year.
Each year, unemployed lawyers compete with recent law graduates for
jobs, and in recent years, despite that fact, about 36,000 graduates have been
hired each year to fill jobs.18 (The 36,000 number here covers only jobs for
which graduates are hired. It does not include solo practitioner jobs for
which graduates, in essence, hire themselves.) With regard to these jobs, it
is self-evident that employers have preferred recent graduates to
unemployed lawyers from remote graduating classes whenever graduates
and unemployed lawyers have competed for positions head-to-head. The
fact that graduates in 2017 will face competition from unemployed lawyers

17 2013 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra note 5; 2007 NATIONAL SUMMARY REPORT, supra
note 5. These charts do not contain pay figures for persons employed part time.
18

See supra notes 5, 9 and accompanying text.

2015

Prospects of Law School Graduates

45

will not change the fact that they will find jobs. There will be a shortage of
graduates simply because many more graduates than are actually hired in
2017 would have been hired had they then been available to employers.
Although it is clear that recent graduates are frequently preferred, one
might wonder why. Some reasons are obvious. Often, recent graduates
have better academic and nonacademic credentials in head-to-head match
ups. Often, recent graduates also cost less to employ; they have never been
employed as lawyers, have never been employed in managerial or
administrative positions, and have modest salary expectations. They
typically do not have salary expectations based on current employment.
Unemployed lawyers with degrees that are one or more years old and who
are looking for legal work are often currently employed in business or in
government. Finally, less time has always passed since recent graduates
received their law school training.
VI. A prospective law student might wonder whether law schools will
continue to enroll small entering classes in the future. The
employment prospects of graduates will be enhanced if law schools
control entering class size, and their employment prospects will be
diminished if law schools recklessly increase class size. In at least
the near-term, law schools are likely to carefully control the size of
future entering classes.
Law schools are very likely to control the size of entering classes for
many reasons: i.) Law schools cannot enroll incompetent students.
Students take bar examinations when they graduate, and American Bar
Association accreditation rules require schools to prove that their
graduates have reasonable pass rates. As a consequence, schools cannot
admit large entering classes unless the pool of admission candidates is
large enough to allow this to happen. Young people are closely watching
the new lawyer hiring market (information flow on the Internet allows
such monitoring) and are not likely to irrationally flood back into any
given future years pool of law school applicants. ii.) Schools covet their
respective positions in national quality rankings. A school cannot suddenly
and significantly increase class size without some confidence that
competitor schools will do the same. Such a school will risk losing its rank.
A school that increases its class size has to increasingly accept candidates
with presenting credentials that are below average for the same school. iii.)
In response to the shrinking size of the national applicant pool, law schools
have already gone through a wave of faculty and administrator buyouts.
Schools will be very cautious for many years about recklessly increasing
class size and associated faculty size. The shortage of law school graduates
is likely to persist at least for a number of years following 2017.

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VII. A prospective law student might wonder, if there is likely to be a


shortage of law school graduates, why hasnt this become well
known already?
This fact is slowly becoming known. In February 2015, James Leipold,
the Executive Director of the National Association for Law Placement,
published a commentary in the National Law Journal explaining that with
smaller recent entering classes, the oversupply problem (associated with
graduating classes) has begun to solve itself.19 Other commentators have
noted that the job market for lawyers will substantially improve soon
because of a looming imbalance in the annual number of lawyer retirees
and law graduates. Observers of both the Washington state and Michigan
bars have noted that a contraction in size of the lawyer supply is already
underway.20

CONCLUSION
In sum, available data indicate that a shortage of law school graduates
will exist in only two years. The shortage will manifest itself in
employment statistics beginning with the graduating class of 2017.
Graduates earning power is likely to remain stable or increase as their
annual employment rate increases over the next several years.
The annual number of graduates who secure jobs within nine months
of graduation has fluctuated narrowly around the number 37,000 since at
least 2006, before the 2007-2009 recession began. The annual size of the
national law school entering class has already dropped to below 38,000 and
is continuing to decline. By the time the entering class of 2014 graduates,
attrition from all causes will have reduced its size to about 34,000well
below 37,000.

19 James Leipold, Ground for Measured Optimism on Job Prospects: Increased Hiring and
Reduced Law School Enrollment Could Spell Happy Futures for Graduates, NATL L. J., at 18 (Feb.
23, 2015), available at http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202718557852/Ground-forMeasured-Optimism-on-Job-Prospects?slreturn=20150226173935.
20

See Mark Hansen, Washington State Legal Community Braces for Huge Turnover in Lawyer
Population, A.B.A. J. (Aug. 24, 2012, 8:46 PM), http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/
washington_state_legal_community_braces_for_huge_turnover_in_lawyer_populat/ (stating
that in the state of Washington, bar admissions are not keeping pace with retirements); see
also Don LeDuc, Answering a Question About a Michigan Lawyer Shortage, W. MICH. UNIV.
COOLEY L. SCH. (Oct. 3, 2012), http://www.cooley.edu/commentary/answering_a_question_
about_a_michigan_lawyer_shortage.html (admitted class of 2011 should see increased
employment opportunities by the time they graduate since more lawyers will be leaving
practice than coming into it).

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Prospects of Law School Graduates

47

Currently, analysts cannot accurately predict near-term employment


rates by extrapolating from recent rates. Changes in law school admissions
practices are occurring too quickly for such an approach to be practicable.
Predictions should take into account the respective sizes of recent national
entering classes, law student attrition rates, and trends in the size of the job
pool.

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