LST is pleased to announce the second request to law schools for more comprehensive employment data. The email text is below. This email was sent to every ABA-approved and provisionally-approved law school’s dean, admissions department, and career services department. It was accompanied by the 2010 LST Standard Guidelines and our report on the initial request.
Dear Administrators and Deans,
We hope this email finds you well as you continue collecting employment data for the Class of 2010. This email constitutes Law School Transparency’s second request to comply with the LST Standard for the Class of 2010.
The 2010 LST Standard Guidelines (attached) explain how to comply with the LST Standard for the Class of 2010. Thanks to the advice of career services staff, we have made a few substantive changes. We have expanded the types of qualified degrees from only advanced degree programs to all degree programs. We have also added an opt-out exemption that addresses privacy concerns for individual graduates who do not want to have their employment data included on the Lists you report to LST.
We ask that you or a member of your staff take the time to review the attached documents and determine whether your school chooses to commit to disclosing data for the Class of 2010. If your school chooses to commit, we ask that you provide us with a written response indicating that commitment. If your school chooses not to commit at this time, we ask for a response detailing any concerns you have about the LST Standard. One law school (Ave Maria School of Law) has committed to disclosing Class of 2010 employment data, and we hope you will consider joining them in setting a new ethical standard for legal education.
As we described in our initial request, we designed the LST Standard to bridge the information gap between ABA approved law schools and the tens of thousands of prospective law students. Due to problems with the existing reporting standards, prospectives are unable to obtain the information they need to make informed risk assessments about the decision to attend law school. Our Standard seeks to organize and disclose the data you already collect from your graduates, and does not require collecting data about more graduates than those who typically respond to your requests. By disclosing this data under the LST Standard, you will increase the quality of employment information for prospective law students.
Since making the first request in July, LST has worked hard to publicize the need for law schools to reform the methods by which they disclose employment information. Many legal and mainstream journalists have covered the issue with interest, helping us reach a wider audience and convince more members of the legal profession that reform is necessary. Separate from and concurrent with this official request, LST is publishing a report to assist your office in determining whether to commit. The report documents the initial request, surveys the ensuing media coverage, and analyzes schools’ reasons for declining. We have attached an electronic version of the report to this email. Hard copies of this report will also be mailed to the prelaw advisors at 100 U.S. undergraduate institutions, who together assist roughly 40,000 law school applicants in choosing where to go each year.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Regards,
Kyle P. McEntee
Executive DirectorPatrick J. Lynch
Policy DirectorLaw School Transparency is a Tennessee non-profit dedicated to encouraging and facilitating the transparent flow of law school employment information. LST and its administrators operate independently of any law schools, for-profit publications, or governmental bodies related to the legal market. This email was sent to the career services, admissions, and dean’s offices for every ABA approved and provisionally-approved law school. If you received this email in error, please let us know to whom we should direct our request.
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I have talked with a few graduating students at a tier 4 school in Texas, and they have stated that they were going to “go out on their own” because nobody is hiring, or nobody is hiring at a rate that will allow students to pay back their student loans. Prior to entering into law school, the U.S. News and World Report published data furnished by the law school which was misleading regarding % of students employed. Because students go out on their own, they can claim they are working. However, given the lack of skills that prepare students for practice, and a lack of clients, I do not think the figure is an accurate reflection in determining students who were “employed” after graduation.
A more appropriate question might better be phrased: “Percentage of graduating students still looking for law practice positions 3,6,9 months after graduation?” This school in particular forces every student to take bar-related courses specific for Texas, rather than accomodating students who just want to obtain a JD. The institution assumes every student wants to take the bar and practice law. The school’s primary marketing points are their trial advocacy wins, and “High Bar Passage Rates” for those students who take the bar.
For instance, the U.S. News and World Report boasts this Tier 4 law school’s trial advocacy program as being 3rd best in the nation, yet, there is not a figure that demonstrates how many graduates actually go on to participate in real-world trials after graduation. I think those statistics would show very few students (if any) actually are working with a law firm, and actively participating in trials 3,6,9 months after graduation. Given the high cost of a legal education, in light of the low salaries, and lack of jobs in reality, such data would be crucial. The U.S. News and World Report should not be the standard anymore. It reports unreliable and misleading figures, and bases their rankings of such data.
Thus, by addressing statistics that better relate to the law schools marketing propaganda (students still seeking employment in legal practice vs. merely students employed), the aforementioned index may better reflect if a particular law school is, or is not, actually accomplishing what it claims to be accomplishing. That being said, it seems to me that the majority of students who will be graduating will be actively looking for employment in the legal practice. However, what the law school actually reported would lead someone to think the opposite was true.
As an aside, these students are nonetheless unemployed with a large amount of student loan debt. However, interestingly enough, these unemloyed students are not included in the BLS unemployment statistics (no are students graduating from undergraduate programs). I believe by not reporting such unemployment figures, the government is giving Sallie Mae an opportunity to mistate their true risk in terms of default liabilities.
I think what your projet is setting out to accomplish is great and may help future students from being mislead into bad financial positions by the predatory lending practices associated with law schools and Sallie Mae. – The bursting of the student loan bubble may be just around the corner.
I think it would be interesting to see how many student have been forced to drop out of law school in fear of taking on more student loan debt in light of a poor job market. These students may never be surveyed by the law school because they were able to recognize the financial risk prior to the situation getting worse. However, this figure may be important to take into consideration as it may reflect confidence in the job market, and/or the law school’s placement abilities.