Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PAUL F. TEICH
INTRODUCTION
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
35
36
Vol. 50 | 35
/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
2015
I.
37
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/
38
Vol. 50 | 35
Year
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
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
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
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.
40
Vol. 50 | 35
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
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
42
Vol. 50 | 35
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
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%)
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%)
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
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.
44
Vol. 50 | 35
Year17
2007
2013
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
2015
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.
46
Vol. 50 | 35
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).
2015
47