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

The Standards Review Committee of the ABA Section on Legal Education invites comments on proposed revisions to Chapter 3 of the Standards for Approval of Law Schools dealing with student learning outcomes.  Comments are due July 1 to Charlotte (Becky) Stretch.

For the last several decades, there has been much controversy and discussion about how well the current system of student run law reviews and journals meet the needs of legal scholars, the legal profession, and its student members and how they can be improved. Despite the significance of this controversy, no one has determined the legal community’s opinions about them.

The purpose of the present survey is to assess:

     (1) What law professors, attorneys, judges, and law review editors think about the current system of student run law reviews and journals;

     (2) Whether reforms are needed; and

     (3) If reforms are needed, what they should be.

The present survey is completely anonymous and confidential and only takes about 15-20 minutes to complete. The results of the survey will be reported in a law review article. A link for the survey is enclosed below.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SVJXVNW

We are asking for your help with this important survey because the success of any survey depends in large part on the number of people who complete the survey. We would very much appreciate your answering the survey and then forwarding it to other law professors who may be interested in completing it!

How would that work for law schools?  Going to law school is expensive, and often financed with debt.  The 2009 Survey Results of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement tells us that 29% of the students surveyed expected to graduate with law-school related debt of at least $120,000.   The following chart from page 14 of the 2009 Annual Survey of law students shows the law-school debt levels expected by current law students.

According to the May 2008 Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (National Cross-Industry Estimates [.zip file]) the 25th percentile of annual income for lawyers was just under $75,000.  That would make the maximum annual payment just under $6,000.  Assuming a modest ten percent (10%) interest rate,* the maximum average school debt would be just over $45,000. 

But over two-thirds of students surveyed in 2009 by LSSSE expect to graduate with law school debt of $60,000 or higher.  According to Epstein, schools that don’t meet the eight percent (8%) of presumptive earnings could show

1. actual-median earnings to average-debt ratios of 8% or below,
2. a 75% loan repayment rate , or
3. program completion and in-field placement rates of at least 70%.

The following chart from the National Association of Law Placement shows the distribution of salaries of the Class of 2008:

Class of 2008, Distribution of Salaries (NALP)

The overall median of $72,000 is just under the May 2008 25th percentile of lawyer salaries ($75,000), so there is no wiggle room there.

Should law schools start reporting salary and debt-load information for its recent graduates?

posted by Gary Rosin

*Interest rates on guaranteed student loans in repayment are now about 2.5%.  I’ll have to check on the current average for non-guarnateed loans.  In event, current interest rates are abnormally low.

“I just think we are getting more focused. You understand you have an investment in these people and they get the right type of training,” [managing partner Steve] Good says, noting that training will include classroom sessions and more opportunity for the first-year lawyers to observe trials, depositions and negotiating sessions.

The problem?  Clients don’t want to pay for training:

[Stephen] Mims [Prescott Legal Search] says he has spoken to a number of general counsel who complain that many first-year associates are not prepared for the job when coming out of law school and would benefit from more training. Gardere’s plan addresses that client concern, he says.

Some have speculated that the economic downturn has accentuated the problems inherent in the traditional Big-Firm model of practice.  We’ll need to see many more swallows before we can tell if it’s Spring in Capistrano.

posted by Gary Rosin

Law school education is in transition and tools are available for changing the legal education system to better prepare students for the practice of law.

The Legal Education Renaissance Report is an online Journal of Legal Education in Transition.  It is a broad based, up-to-date resource of innovations in curriculum and teaching methods in law schools and K-12, college prep, undergraduate education, online learning, technology, and business training that can be applied to legal education. 

The Editors are also interested in “your comments and education innovations”.

It has a separate category for law-school education posts.

posted by Gary Rosin

This Article explores alternative law school assessment methods and suggests ways to engage in empirical study of alternative and existing assessments. In Part II, the Article provides some concrete suggestions for both incremental and larger changes to doctrinal class assessment practices with an eye toward developing assessments that begin to desegregate legal analysis, practical skills, and professional identity. What is not explored explicitly, but what is implicit throughout, is that, because professors should not assess what they do not teach, examining and changing assessment methods necessarily involves reflection about teaching methodology and coverage.

The Article then moves from a discussion of changing teaching and assessment practices to a discussion of studying the impact of those changes. Because empirical studies can be a persuasive tool in laying the groundwork necessary to develop institutional support for a change in assessment practices, Part III seeks to de-mystify the empirical study process. Written for those without a social science background, it briefly discusses basic issues in study design, methodology, implementation, and interpretation, providing an overview of how to develop and design an empirical research study. Part IV suggests some potential empirical research assessment studies that can be performed on both alternative and existing law school assessment methods. Finally, the Article concludes by arguing that if law professors give their teaching and assessment work the same scholarly scrutiny given to other research interests, they may discover ways to help students become more effective lawyers, lessen student disengagement and create the potential for a more diverse bench and bar.

Id. at 903.

To borrow from Curtis Mayfield, “[p]eople get ready, there’s a train a comin’”.  As Curcio suggests, we’re going to need more than faith.

posted by Gary Rosin

For a select group of companies, mostly top consulting, finance, and banking firms, employers routinely look to MBA graduates’ GMAT scores as a reliable standard measurement of academic prowess…. Particularly when jobs are tight, and every element of each résumé takes on added weight, test scores can be the difference between an interview and the dustbin.

According to both VanderMey and Jaschik, some schools are advising students to retake the GMAT. 

VanderMey observes that while employers looking for people to do “heavy quantitative lifting” find the quantitative portion of the GMAT useful, the real problem is that GPAs are not always useful:

Many MBA programs have grading systems that vary widely or are solely pass-fail, making it difficult for recruiters to compare applicants from different schools, and others don’t provide grades at all. Even at schools where grades are released, grade inflation may render As and Bs poor markers for actual skill. The tests can be a boon by virtue of their standardization….

The problem with GPAs is that they are not objective measures of performance.  Rather, they just sort each cohort of admitted students.  The strength B-school cohorts vary from school to school, and even from year to year. 

Jaschik suggests that the problem is more acute at lower-ranked B-schools:

At the very top ranked business schools, … “companies assume that everyone there is strong, and don’t care about their scores as much. McKinsey or Goldman Sachs is going to hire 20-30 grads from there every year.” But … at other business schools, “where Goldman may only hand out a few job offers, they’ll look more carefully at everything in a student’s profile (including the GMAT) to determine who the lucky few will be. That’s not a knock on those lower-ranked schools; I think it’s just the reality of the situation.” (quoting Scott Shrum, director of admission consulting research at Veritas Prep, a “high end GMAT test-prep company”).

Jaschik’s main focus is on the use of GMAT scores for purposes other than as a guide to first-year MBA grades.  He argues that testing companies, such as the GMAC (presumably, the Graduate Management Admissions Council), should more actively resist the use of test scores for purposes other than admission.

U.S. News uses LSAT scores of entering classes as one of the factors in its rankings of law schools.  The LSAC and the ABA also report the LSAT profiles of entering classes in their annual Office Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools.  Of course, they also provide a wealth of additional data about each law school.

Has anyone heard of law firms and other employers of lawyers using LSAT scores in evaluating job applicants?

posted by Gary Rosin

The chart shows the distribution of the LSAT 25th percentiles for the Fall 2008 entering classes, as shown in the 2010 Official Guide.  The 25th percentile for all ABA-approved law schools (other than the three in Puerto Rico) was 151. Over 74% of the post-1988 law schools (19 out of 27) had entering classes with an LSAT 25th percentile of 151 or lower.

To be sure, UC-Irvine will be a much stronger law school.  Perhaps U. North Texas in Dallas will also do well.  Bothhave a lot of money being put into them, which is always good.  But UNT-Dallas is bound to hurt Texas Wesleyan in the other half of the Dallas- Ft. Worth metroplex.

Gary Rosin

The above chart uses information drawn from the current (as of October 2, 2009)  LSAC Volume Summary (under the “Data” section).  For the Fall 2000 entering classes, 74,600 persons applied, of which 50,300 (67%) were admitted.  For Fall 2008, 83,400 persons applied, of which 55,300 (67%) were admitted.  From Fall 2000 through Fall 2004, the number of applicants increased to 100,600, of which 55,900 (56%) were admitted.  From Fall 2004 through Fall 2008, the number of applicants fell by 17,200 persons (17%), but the number of persons admitted fell by 400 (less than one percent).  During that same period, the number of law schools increased by 9%, from 183 to 199.

But compare that with the number of applicants for Fall 1991 through Fall 1995 (estimated by combining data from the applications per applicant chart in the LSAC report, National Applicant Trends–2008, with Table 1 in Charles Longley, Law School Admissions, 1985 to 1995, Assessing the Effect of Application Volume (1998) (LSAC Research Report Series, No. RR-97-02)).  The estimated number of ABA applicants to fell from a high of 86,700 for Fall 1992 (176 schools) to 72,800 for Fall 1995 (179 schools).  Thus, since 1992, the number of applicants has fallen, risen, and fallen again, for a net loss of 3,300 persons (almost 4%), while the number of ABA law schools has increased by 22 schools (over 12%). 

Because Longley focused on ABA applications and admissions, rather than persons admitted, I do no not have the numbers of the number of persons admitted.  As shown in the ABA’s table, Enrollment, and Degrees Awarded, first-year enrollments have  seen some dips since Fall 1991 (44,050), but have increased to 49,414 in Fall 2008 (an increase of  12%).  That tracks the JDs awarded by ABA law schools (see the chart in Do We Need More Law Schools?). 

So we have more law schools chasing the same number of applicants, but enrolling more students.  I don’t think the increased competition  has hurt the elite law schools.  That means that the rest the law schools, particular those in U.S. News Tier 4, have more competition for students, and will have to dip deeper into the applicant pool.  For a law school, lower academic credentials tend to translate into lower Bar passage rates, especially in high cut-score states, such as California.

So, if you concluded from my earlier post that, as a professor at a Tier 4 school, I must be in favor of more law schools, you were wrong.  Apparently, the numbers do not speak for themselves, so let me be clear:

Flat Demand + More Law Schools = Trouble

That said, since Fall 2003, law schools have held the number of admitted applicants relatively flat, and even cut the numbers somewhat.  Yet enrollments have still gone up.  That’s because more of the admitted applicants are choosing to go to law school.  For Fall 2003, 48,900 out of 56,800 admitted persons (86%) actually enrolled, while, for Fall 2008, 49,414 out of 55,500 (89%) enrolled (LSAC Volume Summary).

Gary Rosin