Unfavourable Times for US Law Schools and Their Graduates By Fellows and Associates’ independent correspondent, Oliver Cox.
The law profession in the United States has, for a considerable period,
been an area in which a graduate with the right qualification can be quite sure
of getting a job with a generous salary.
More recently the legal jobs market has been contracting, which has led
to problems for law graduates alongside recriminations for the higher education
centres which promised favourable
employment prospects for their alumni. This is, however, quite distinct
form the case in the UK market, where graduates, though not as illustrious as
they once were, are still a strongly desired commodity.
The present dearth is part of a long term trend which has been
affecting law graduates for several years after the 2008 crash. A study [1] by
Brian Tamanaha, a Professor at Washington University School of Law, found that
in 2009 only 50% of Law graduates from 30 certified law schools found jobs
which required a law degree. Though Tamanaha’s research for more recent
graduates is not yet available, he has issued warnings that the employment
opportunities will be shown to have worsened in the years leading to the
present.
The National Association for Law placement gathered disappointing
statistics for 2010, relating how the law alumni for this year saw the worst rate
of employment for this sector since 1996. Only 68% of law graduates managed to
secure jobs which required a law qualification. (Although this appears to be an
improvement on Tamanaha’s figures for the previous years, it must be taken into
account that the two studies used different sampling pools for their
statistics). The poor employment opportunities for law graduates have led to
the number of applicants for law qualifications to have fallen by 10% between
2010 and 2011.
The National Association for Law
Placement’s study also showed a rate of unemployment at 9.7% among law
graduates – above the national average of 9.1% [2].
The extent of the graduates’ disappointment has provoked some to take
legal action against the universities which taught them. In many cases, the
graduates feel that they were misled by the centres regarding their
employability after graduation. In addition, some law graduates have concerns
over their ability to pay back the substantial loans ($68,827 for state
institutions) because they have failed to secure a job with a high enough
salary.
Many students are choosing to sue their university on the grounds that
they mislead them during the admissions process by massaging the figures
relating to employment after graduation. Certain law suits concern the nature
of the jobs which a university’s employment statistics would include, such as
those which have no relation to the legal profession.
To the relief of UK law graduates, the descending pattern which has
been demonstrated by the US market has not been reflected to the same extent
here, although graduates in non-scientific subjects are rather less employable
[3].
What once was a profession which could guarantee lucrative employment
has succumbed to constriction as have so many others. The case in the US market
– I propose, hesitantly – may reflect a degree of surplus in the legal
profession. The US has the World’s highest proportion of lawyers to the general
population, reflecting a high volume of law suits of a less than imperative
nature. When spending power drops, people will limit their outgoings to more
vital services; as the US industry does a greater proportion of non-essential
work, there is further to go (and therefore fewer and fewer jobs to be had)
before they reach the minimum which a time of thrift demands, which may explain
why the US law trade has suffered more than that of the UK.
Footnotes
- [1] http://www.studlife.com/news/2011/10/20/law-graduates-still-struggling-to-land-legal-careers/
- [2] http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
- [3] http://www.pabnews.com/9365/half-of-graduates-unemployed-or-underpaid/