5 December 2011 – It was a lovely press release:       “The [ABA Section of Legal Education and Admission] is fully committed to clarity and accuracy of law   school placement data.  As a result of these changes, future law students will be better informed about their prospects than ever before.” They even approved a new annual questionnaire intended to gather [...]

30 November 2010 –  As we previously reported (but which we reluctantly have not continually followed) over the summer an ABA committee recommended that the ABA consider the accreditation of law schools outside U.S. borders.  Must be an issue because there are just not enough lawyers and too many legal jobs unfilled, right? The ABA had solicited comments (the [...]

  Vault Career Services has launched its ”2011 Vault Law School Ranking Survey”.  The purpose of this survey is simple:  to determine which law schools produce the most employable lawyers.  It is aimed at law firm recruiters and asks them to rank law schools under a multitude of criteria.  You can access the survey by clicking here.  [...]

  29 October 2010 — There is an excellent piece in Slate on the issue that demand for lawyers has fallen off a cliff, both due to the short-term crisis of the recession and long-term changes to the industry, and is only starting to rebound. The lawyers that do have jobs are making less than they [...]

19 October 2010 — According to a story in today’s National Law Journal, the American Bar Association is considering requiring law schools to disclose cost and employment statistics to all accepted law school applicants.  The effort, dubbed “Truth in Law School Education,” is still in the planning phase. Meanwhile several ABA Sections and subcommittees are working on salary [...]

  14 November 2009 This past Thursday the New York Times profiled a new research paper entitled Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be…Lawyers that said “Law school is a bad investment”. The paper tries to measure the return on investment in a law school education, using three prototypical students (the “Also Ran,” the “Solid Performer” [...]

  Last Thursday, Mark Levy, a Kilpatrick Stockton attorney who had been laid off, tragically committed suicide at the firm’s office. Sadly, we have more disturbing news to report today.  Above the Law has reported tonight that a Simpson Thacher associate died two weekends ago in an apparent suicide. We understand that the female associate [...]

The job market for lawyers, hit hard by the recession, seems to reach new lows every day. But that has not done much to discourage the thousands who are lining up to become the next generation of attorneys. In seeming defiance of logic, many law schools are surging in popularity. At Washington and Lee University [...]