The Market for New Lawyers is Very Bad

We've been covering the legal job market and efforts to make law schools more transparent about their graduates' employment. Now, this story says

New statistics from [the National Association for Law Placement] paint a bleak picture of the job market for 2011 law grads. The overall employment rate nine months after graduation was 85.6 percent, the lowest it has been since 1994, according to a NALP press release. But the employment rate doesn’t tell the whole, dismal story. Among law grads whose employment status was known, only 65.4 percent were in jobs requiring bar passage, the lowest percentage ever measured by NALP. The number has fallen nine percentage points since 2008. Only 60 percent were working full-time as lawyers in jobs that required bar passage. (emphasis added)

For more information on transparency in the legal job market and consumer-oriented legal education policy, go to Law School Transparency. Go here for another story on the new NALP data.

Comments

[riisacoff]

The market for experienced, long time solo practitioners is no better. It would be interesting to see how many are leaving the practice of law for other better paying jobs like McD's or Wal-Mart. No staff, no overhead at all, no worry about potential malpractice claims, BENEFITS (health, disability etc), and a weekly paycheck!!

Richard Isacoff
rii@isacofflaw.com