In his article “Hungry for Jobs” (Inside Higher Ed ), Scott Jaschik notes a rash of blogs with comments by recent graduates about the dismal job market for recent J.D.s–and their discontent with law schools. This on the heels of the release of the NALP Class of 2009 report, which shows an overall employment rate of 88.3% and the usual bi-modal distribution of starting salaries:
According to data drawn from the Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools 2011, the distribution of the percent of graduates reported by law schools as employed varies from 66% to 100%:
The comments reported by Jaschik are particularly critical of employment rates at lower-tier law schools. As the following chart shows, the percent employed generally declines as a school’s LSAT median declines. That said, there is still wide variation, in both the top- and the bottom half of law schools by median LSAT ( the median of median LSATs is 157).
posted by Gary Rosin