THE LAW SCHOOL INVESTMENT

EQUATIONProfessor Jerry Organ

University of St. Thomas School of Law (MN)

New Information -- Employment

NALP – Aggregated employment and salary data.

ABA – School-specific and more granular employment data

ABA – Proposed reporting format for schools – apples to apples comparisons

ABA School Specific Data

ABA published in March the school-specific employment data for 2010 graduates.

ABA will be publishing shortly the school-specific employment data for 2011 graduates.

This is presented in an excel spreadsheet that can be downloaded easily and can be sorted by any number of categories – unknown, unemployed seeking, unemployed not seeking, employed bar passage required, employed law school funded, etc.

Understanding 2010 Data – Unknown

Unknown – the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates whose employment status is unknown range from 1.7% to 2.5% and the bottom 20 schools are all at 0.

Unknown – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates whose employment status is unknown range from 8.8% to 26.2%.

What does this tell us? At a subset of schools, generally in the fourth tier, a

significant number of graduates are disinterested in supporting the school’s efforts to develop as robust a data set as possible.

Presumptively unemployed?

Understanding 2010 Data – Unemployed Seeking

Unemployed seeking – the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates who are unemployed and seeking employment range from 4.9% to 6.6% and the bottom 20 schools range from 0 to 1%.

Unemployed seeking– the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who are unemployed and seeking employment range from 14% to 30%, all but three of which are in the fourth tier.

What does this tell us? At a subset of schools, generally in the fourth tier, a

significant number of graduates are struggling to find gainful employment.

Understanding 2010 DataUnemployed Not Seeking

Unemployed not seeking – the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates who are unemployed and not seeking work is 2.1% to 2.6% and the bottom 20 schools are all at 0.

Unemployed not seeking – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who are unemployed and not seeking range from 6.1% to 18%, with four schools over 10%.

What does this tell us? A relatively small subset of schools appears to have an

unusually large number of graduates not seeking employment. This will be interesting to track over time.

The top 20 schools for unemployed not seeking include a few top 50 schools and several top 100 schools.

Understanding 2010 DataLaw School Funded

Law School Funded – the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates whose employment was law school funded ranged from 1.2% to 1.8% and the bottom 20 schools are all at 0.

Law School Funded – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates whose employment was law school funded ranged from 10.6% to 19%

What does this tell us? Most of the top 20 schools were actually in the top 100

with nine in the top 50. While these schools are supporting their graduates,

one has to look at their employment numbers with a little more skepticism given that they are subsidizing the market.

Understanding 2010 Data Solo Practice

Solo Practice – the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates in solo practice range from 1.9% to 2.8% and the bottom 20 schools are all at 0 (15 of which are top 50 schools).

Solo Practice – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who are engaged in solo practice range from 6.9% to 18.3%.

What does this tell us? At a subset of schools a significant number of graduates are

jumping into solo practice straight out of law school. While these are mostly fourth tier schools, the list includes

schools across the spectrum. These schools may want to be focusing on providing specific

support for this set of graduates.

Understanding 2010 DataSmall Firm Employment

Firm Size 2-10– the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were in small firms – 2-10 – range from 17.9% to 20.2% and the bottom 20 schools are from 5.7% to 0.3% (all top 50 schools).

Firm Size 2-10 – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were employed with firms of 2-10 range from 31.3% to 40.8% (none are top 50 schools).

What does this tell us? A significant number of schools are placing one out of six

graduates up to two out of five graduates in small firms. This is the “mode” at many schools and perhaps should

be the educational focus at such schools.

Understanding 2010 DataMedium Sized Firms – 51-100

Firm Size 51-100– the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were in small firms – 51-100 – range from 1.6% to 1.9% and the bottom 20 schools are all at 0 (predominantly fourth tier schools).

Firm Size 51-100 – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were employed with firms of 51-100 range from 3.7% to 9.4% (15 of which are top 100 schools).

Similar numbers for 101-250 and 251-500, except that top 20 schools increasingly are top 50 schools.

What does this tell us? The vast majority of schools are placing very few people

even in medium sized firms of 51-100 - let alone 101-250 or 251-500 – 180 schools have fewer than 3.7% of grads in medium-sized firms.

Understanding 2010 DataVery Large Firms

Firm Size 501+– the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were in very large firms – 501+ – range from 1.6% to 2.4% and the bottom 20 schools are all at 0 (predominantly fourth tier schools).

Firm Size 501+– the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were employed with very large firms range from 19.6% to 60.4% (all top 50 schools).

Fewer than one-third of schools had more than 5% of their graduates going to very large firms.

What does this tell us? There is a bifurcated market – lower ranked schools feed

smaller firms while higher ranked schools feed very large firms.

Understanding 2010 DataFederal Clerkships

Federal clerkships– the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates who had federal clerkships range from 1.2% to 1.7% and the bottom 20 schools are all at 0 (and are primarily fourth tier schools).

Federal clerkships – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who had federal clerkships range from 6.7% to 30% (almost all are top 50 schools).

Only 10% of schools had 5% of their graduates in federal clerkships.

What does this tell us? As with big firms this suggests a bifurcated market.

Understanding 2010 DataState Clerkships

State clerkships– the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates who had state clerkships range from 3.3% to 4% and the bottom 20 schools are between 0 and 0.6 %(and are primarily fourth tier schools).

State clerkships – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who had state clerkships range from 12.3% to 30.3% (with the three NJ schools running 25% or more).

What does this tell us? 15 of the schools in the top 20 are state schools, suggesting

that state schools may be more likely feeder schools for state clerkships.

Almost no top 50 schools are in the top 20 for state clerkships.

Understanding 2010 DataBusiness

Business -- the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were working in business range from 12.6% to 13.9% and the bottom 20 schools are all between 5.9% and 1.6% (and are primarily top 50 schools).

Business – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were working in business 20.5% to 30.3% (none are top 50 schools).

What does this tell us? As with big firms this suggests a bifurcated market. This is still murky data as the 2010 data did not include a

breakdown of part-time or full-time positions. There is long-term/short-term data, but I have not gotten that

sophisticated in my analysis yet.

Understanding 2010 DataGovernment

Government – the middle 20 schools for graduates who were working in government range from 9.7% to 10.5% and the bottom 20 schools are all between 5.2% and 1.2% (and are primarily top 20 schools and fourth tier schools).

Government – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were working in government range from 17.4% to 29.4% (a broad mix of schools).

What does this tell us? A large number of schools have a significant

percentage of graduates employed in government. But some schools do have far more than the norm or

far fewer than the norm.

Understanding 2010 DataPublic Interest

Public Interest – the middle 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were working in public interest range from 4.5% to 5.1% and the bottom 20 schools are all between 1.8% and 0% (and are primarily top 50 schools)(and are mostly fourth tier schools).

Public Interest – the top 20 schools for percentage of graduates who were working in public interest generally range from 9.9% to 18.8% with one school at 33.3% (this was a broad mix of schools).

What does this tell us? There are some schools that clearly place a greater

emphasis on public interest positions. For students interested in public interest, that is

something worth considering

Understanding 2010 DataGeography

Most law schools are “local” – their graduates are employed in-state or in a neighboring state.

On average, two-thirds of employed graduates are employed in the state in which the law school is located. 120 schools had at least two-thirds of employed graduates employed in the state in which the law school is located.

For 140 schools, at least two of the top three states in which their graduates are employed are the state of the law school and a neighboring state.

Moreover, for the vast majority of states, the top feeder schools are schools in the state or in a neighboring state.

Understanding 2010 DataAverage Salaries

The ABA did not gather salary information.

NALP continues to gather salary information.

NALP’s national average salary for all attorneys tends to overstate the average because of disproportionate reporting by those in higher salary categories.

But for any given category of employment, NALP has several hundred responses, suggesting that the average within a category is fairly accurate for that category.

Understanding 2010 DataAverage Salaries

So what if you took NALP’s average salary per category on a national basis and applied those averages to the number of graduates employed in each category from a given law school?

This would allow you to create an imputed average salary for employed graduates with a few caveats. First – with 2010 data, there is no indication of full-time

or part-time positions – so salary might be slightly overstated.

Second – what should you do with those without salaries? To have an average for all graduates, you either allocate them 0 or make an assumption about an appropriate assumed salary.

Understanding 2010 DataAverage Salaries

If the imputed salary for graduate students, unknowns, unemployed seeking and unemployed not seeking is $5000, and all of the other salaries use NALP’s average salary data per each category, 80 schools have an average salary for graduates under $50000 and 150 schools have an average salary under $60000.

Only 19 schools have an average salary of $80000 or more.

New Reporting Formats Apples to Apples Comparisons

The Council for the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has approved the Standard Review Committees recommendation to amend Standard 509 – Consumer Information.

The major changes involve consistent reporting formats for employment and for scholarship retention.

Assuming the House of Delegates approves these recommendations, then starting next year this data will be available.