The law school Class of 2010 faced a bleak employment market. Nine months after graduation, only 87.6% of the class reported a job of any type. More than a tenth of the employed graduates were working part-time, and more than a fifth held jobs that did not require a law license. As the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) declared when releasing these figures, the job market for 2010 graduates was riven by “many underlying structural weaknesses” and represented “the interruption of employment patterns for new law school graduates that [had] been undisturbed for decades.”
Poor employment outcomes have plagued law school graduates for several years. Legal scholars have debated whether these outcomes stem from macroeconomic cycles or from fundamental changes in the market for legal services. This Article examines that question empirically, using a database of employment outcomes for more than 1,200 lawyers who received their JDs in 2010. The analysis offers strong evidence of structural shifts in the legal market. Job outcomes have improved only marginally for the Class of 2010, those outcomes contrast sharply with results for earlier classes, and law firm jobs have dropped markedly. In addition to discussing these results, the Article examines correlations between job outcomes and gender, law school prestige, and geography. In a concluding section, it offers four predictions about the future of the legal market and the economics of legal education.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at What Happened to the Class of 2010? Empirical Evidence of Structural Change in the Legal Profession by Deborah Jones Merritt :: SSRN.
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