Law School Transparency, a Tennessee-based nonprofit, is a consumer-oriented legal education policy organization. Our mission is to encourage and facilitate the transparent flow of consumer information concerning the value of legal education and to usher in consumer-oriented reforms to the current law school model. LST operates independently of any legal institutions, legal employers, or academic reports related to the legal market.
No, and we actually began this project when the legal market appeared significantly stronger. One of our concerns is consumer protection against information asymmetries. It's difficult for applicants to discover which school best matches their individual career and educational objectives. Decisions should not be predicated on a school's annual ranking, but this result is to be expected when the available information is inadequate. Helping people make informed decisions, then, requires improving consumer information.
This website aims to provide a clearer, more meaningful window into the employment opportunities at ABA-approved law schools by explaining (and repackaging) the currently available data and information. This website also contains updates about LST's policy initiatives, including our efforts to reform the ABA Section of Legal Education's consumer information standard, our efforts with U.S. News, and our efforts to prompt schools to voluntarily share better information outside of the accreditation framework.
"ABA Watch" refers to our efforts to monitor and engage the ABA Section of Legal Education as it pertains to the transparent flow of consumer information from law schools to the public. The Section, via the Department of Education, has the authority to accredit, and therefore regulate, law schools. Our activities involve the three core committees of the Section: the Accreditation Committee, Standards Review Committee, and Questionnaire Committee. Our goal is to work with the Section to better regulate law schools.
Standard 509 is among the standards promulgated by the Section of Legal Education that law schools must meet to obtain and retain ABA approval. This standard recognizes a law school's obligation to provide "basic consumer information," including employment information and information about the cost of attendance. Any time a law school publishes any basic consumer information, it must be both "fair and accurate."
Law schools deserve the brunt of the blame for the current lack of quality employment information, even though through its accreditation authority the Section has a responsibility to provide leadership through regulation. It is worth noting, however, that the Section only has to act because schools do not voluntarily release the information prospective students need to make an informed investment. The responsibilities of law schools to prospectives and the profession are not absolved or delayed because the Section regulates law schools and is considering doing so more carefully.
We began by trying to convince law schools to voluntarily disclose employment information according to a reporting standard that balanced the interests of prospective students, law schools, and the legal profession as a whole. Law schools failed to comply with our reasonable request for employment data that they already collect. Using the attention generated by this reluctance to be more transparent, we progressed to working with the Section of Legal Education on a number of efforts to address consumer information shortcomings.