Continued hope for modest law school applicant increase in 2018

After a sharp spike in LSAT test-takers in July 2017, I noted that it was good news, with some caution, because first-time test-takers were slowly becoming smaller and smaller in the LSAT test-taker pool. In December 2017, I noted the same cautious optimism for improved applicant quality and quality this admissions cycle.

You can sort through up-to-date figures at LSAC here to see the pace of applicants, including higher quality and quantity. But, again, cautious optimism is in order.

While LSAT test-takers are up 19% year-over-year, applicants look to rise just 8%--better than a decline or a nominal increase, to be sure, but far short of the surge one might project from LSAT test-takers. Then again, given unlimited repeats, this is hardly a surprise. But another surprise is that despite a number of schools accepting the GRE, we don't see a higher applicant pool given the surge in LSAT test-takers. One might expect that LSAT test-takers now understate applicants. That's apparently not the case (at the moment, on a very superficial level).

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Schools should hope that applicants exceed 60,000, which would be the first time since the 2009-2010 cycle. (I should emphasize here that LSAC has changed some of its counting in the last few cycles, so it's a rough approximation to go across years like this.) Additionally, if schools modestly increase their matriculants as the quality and quantity increases, we may see more than 40,000 enrolled for the first time since Fall 2012.

But visualized this way, the sharp increase of LSATs administered is in some contrast to the modest increase in applicants. Time will tell what this cycle holds--and by next fall, we'll know how schools handled this applicant pool in terms of overall matriculants.

Small law firm jobs shrink dramatically and big law hiring picks up for the Class of 2017

After sharing some big-picture good news about the legal job market for the Class of 2017, I thought I'd share a few details on the market, similar to my report last year. Indeed, the report is very similar to last year's because the trends have accelerated. And outcomes appear to be qualitatively and quantitatively better.

I drew comparisons to the Class of 2013 (which, it should be noted, were nine-month figures). Declines in overall jobs, overall graduates, and bar passage rates assuredly affect some of the industry-specific figures. Last year, I noted that jobs in smaller firms and business and industry were disappearing for entry-level hires. That continues to be the case.

FTLT	Class of 2013	Class of 2017	Net	Delta
Solo	926	392	-534	-57.7%
2-10	6,947	5,145	-1,802	-25.9%
11-25	1,842	1,628	-214	-11.6%
26-50	1,045	953	-92	-8.8%
51-100	846	779	-67	-7.9%
101-205	1,027	956	-71	-6.9%
251-500	1,041	983	-58	-5.6%
501+	3,978	4,569	591	14.9%
Business/Industry	5,494	3,241	-2,253	-41.0%
Government	4,360	3,812	-548	-12.6%
Public Interest	1,665	1,419	-246	-14.8%
Federal Clerk	1,259	1,151	-108	-8.6%
State Clerk	2,043	1,984	-59	-2.9%
Academia/Education	490	303	-187	-38.2%

I think the decline is likely attributable to two factors. First, as bar passage rates decrease, the most marginal graduates--who were already the ones most likely to enter solo practice--are the ones most likely to be squeezed out. The same holds true at very small firms, 2-10 attorneys. If the graduates who'd typically fill those spots are now failing the bar exam, we'd expect the positions to decline. A nearly 60% decline in entry-level sole practitioners, and more than a 25% decline in 2-10-attorney firm hiring, is pretty sharp in just four years.

Additionally, business & industry jobs are the ones most likely to be categorized as J.D. advantage positions, and we've seen a decline in those positions generally.

On top of that, big law hiring--at firms with more than 500 attorneys--has increased 15% in four years. Given the dramatic decline in the number of graduates--12,000 fewer graduates between 2013 and 2017--things look even better. For the Class of 2013, 8.6% of graduates ended up in the biggest of law firm jobs; that figure climbed to 13.3% for the Class of 2017. Of course, big law jobs aren't everything, and there were slight declines in 101-500-attorney firms along with federal clerkships. But, the trend is a good one.

All in all, these are good signs for the market. The employment figures are not just quantitatively better; they are also qualitatively better, as more graduates are in the most coveted jobs (again, conceding that big law jobs aren't everything), and fewer are in the more marginal or least desired positions.

Good news for legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2017

UPDATE: This entire chart may need to be redone because the ABA's data confusingly differs from the individual forms and its overall spreadsheet--funded positions were originally included in top-line figures. These figures have been changed. My apologies.

The American Bar Association released its comprehensive employment statistics for the Class of 2017, a few weeks ahead of last year's pace (a laudable improvement). Here are some top-line figures (excluding Puerto Rico's three law schools):

	Graduates	FTLT BPR	Placement	FTLT JDA
Class of 2012	45,751	25,503	55.7%	4,218
Class of 2013	46,112	25,787	55.9%	4,550
Class of 2014	43,195	25,348	58.7%	4,774
Class of 2015	40,205	23,895	59.4%	4,416
Class of 2016	36,654	22,874	62.4%	3,948
Class of 2017	34,428	23,078	67.0%	3,121

The statistics reveal some fairly remarkable figures. Law schools have shed 12,000 graduates in four years. The result? A placement rate in unfunded full-time, long-term, bar passage-required positions has risen from about 56% to 67%.

Year over year, raw placement in those jobs improved slightly, too, with about 200 new placements in those jobs. Some improvement in bar passage rates (whether better test-takers or lower cut scores) surely can't hurt.

Significantly, placement in J.D.-advantage jobs has dropped fairly sharply in the last couple of years. For years, the versatility and flexibility of J.D. has been a common point of defense among law schools, not without some controversy. But those positions--which not only highlight the versatility of the J.D., but aren't contingent on passing the bar--have been declining, too. That said, if schools are able to place more graduates in bar passage-required positions, all the better for them.

I've continued to wonder whether the ABA's decision to change the reporting deadlines from 9 to 10 months after graduation has improved the reporting situation for schools--but, we lack any data about the impact of such changes.

In short, we have some good news for law schools. Placement has topped 2/3 in bar passage required jobs, and those positions have seen a modest improvement. I'll dig into some more industry-specific figures in the near future.

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in California in 2017

This is the eighth and last in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2017. Following posts on outcomes in Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, New York, Illinois, Ohio, and DC-Maryland-Virginia, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of California law schools for the Class of 2017. (More about the methodology is available at the Florida post.) Last year's California post is here.

While most markets remained fairly stagnant, California saw a marked rise year-over-year. total graduates dropped to 3910, a slight decline from 4081 in 2016 but a big decline from the 4403 in 2015 and 4731 in 2014. But the overall unfunded placement rate soared from 64.3% to 69.9%. That came from an increase in in bar passage-required jobs, from 2206 to 2397, as J.D.-advantage placement dropped.

Law school-funded positions also tapered off, from 118 positions (2.9% of graduates) last year to 82 (2.1%) this year. (Please recall from the methodology that the bar chart is sorted by full-weight positions, which excludes school-funded positions, while the table below that is sorted by total employment as USNWR prints, which includes school-funded positions.)

As always, please notify me of any corrections or errata.

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Peer Score	School	2017	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2016	BPR	JDA	LSF
4.4	University of California-Berkeley	94.8%	0.2	269	6	14	94.5%	278	11	23
4.8	Stanford University	93.9%	-0.1	163	15	7	94.0%	164	4	4
3.9	University of California-Los Angeles	92.5%	1.6	283	17	31	90.8%	239	18	30
3.5	University of Southern California	90.0%	4.5	179	4	5	85.5%	140	9	22
3.3	University of California-Irvine	86.5%	0.9	72	4	7	85.6%	84	3	14
3.4	University of California-Davis	84.4%	3.3	119	10	12	81.2%	87	11	14
2.6	Loyola Law School-Los Angeles	79.6%	6.0	204	31	3	73.6%	221	36	5
2.6	Pepperdine University	75.8%	10.0	134	34	1	65.7%	98	19	2
1.9	Chapman University	68.2%	7.5	81	20	0	60.8%	78	18	0
2.6	University of San Diego	67.6%	9.8	121	17	0	57.8%	102	24	0
3.0	University of California-Hastings	67.5%	0.5	166	22	1	67.0%	154	46	1
1.6	California Western School of Law	64.5%	1.4	106	21	0	63.1%	82	29	0
2.4	Santa Clara University	64.0%	2.6	77	10	0	61.4%	102	30	0
2.0	University of San Francisco	60.8%	13.6	75	18	0	47.1%	46	20	0
1.9	McGeorge School of Law	59.1%	2.3	62	16	0	56.8%	56	23	0
1.8	Southwestern Law School	58.6%	4.1	124	43	0	54.5%	125	48	2
1.1	Western State College of Law	52.1%	7.0	32	6	0	45.1%	29	12	0
1.5	Golden Gate University	51.7%	10.7	33	11	1	41.1%	30	15	1
nr	Whittier Law School	39.6%	0.5	44	15	0	39.1%	38	12	0
1.2	University of La Verne	36.8%	5.5	12	2	0	31.4%	7	9	0
nr	Thomas Jefferson School of Law	32.2%	0.3	41	15	0	31.9%	46	21	0

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in DC-Maryland-Virginia in 2017

This is the seventh in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2017. Following posts on outcomes in Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Ohio, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of DC, Maryland, and Virginia law schools for the Class of 2017. (More about the methodology is available at the Florida post.) Last year's DC-Maryland-Virginia post is here.

There were around 3410 graduates of law schools in the region, down from 3600 last year and 3740 for the Class of 2015, a 10% decline in just two years. Overall unfunded placement rose from 76.8% to 78.3%. Most of that growth came because of the declining number of graduates, but, as a positive improvement, J.D.-advantage placement dropped significantly as bar passage-required placement held steady. Georgetown continues its robust school-funded placement (40 jobs), well ahead of George Washington (9) & Virignia (8).

As always, please notify me of any corrections or errata.

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Peer score	School	2017	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2016	BPR	JDA	LSF
4.3	University of Virginia	96.6%	0.6	271	7	8	96.1%	293	5	19
4.1	Georgetown University	89.0%	1.9	504	40	40	87.1%	486	38	44
3.2	Washington & Lee University	83.8%	-0.4	79	4	0	84.2%	73	7	0
3.3	George Washington University	82.6%	2.8	422	69	9	79.8%	373	61	9
2.6	University of Richmond	81.9%	4.9	101	21	0	77.0%	95	19	0
2.8	Antonin Scalia Law School	80.9%	-5.5	92	26	5	86.5%	86	25	4
3.2	William & Mary Law School	80.8%	-0.6	158	10	0	81.3%	162	21	0
2.9	University of Maryland	77.8%	-5.8	108	36	3	83.6%	126	51	1
1.3	Regent University	74.4%	3.9	46	10	2	70.5%	57	5	0
2.0	University of Baltimore	72.8%	-3.4	136	27	0	76.2%	142	69	0
2.4	Howard University	69.9%	6.7	65	6	1	63.2%	65	20	1
1.2	Liberty University	69.0%	5.2	37	3	0	63.8%	32	4	1
2.8	American University	68.0%	1.7	197	56	0	66.3%	219	56	0
1.5	District of Columbia	66.2%	0.2	19	27	1	66.0%	33	30	1
2.2	Catholic University of America	64.0%	-1.3	61	10	0	65.2%	53	37	0
1.2	Appalachian School of Law	59.5%	7.1	22	3	0	52.4%	15	7	0

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in Ohio in 2017

This is the sixth in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2017. Following posts on outcomes in Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, New York, and Illinois, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of Ohio law schools for the Class of 2017. (More about the methodology is available at the Florida post.) Last year's Ohio post is here.

There were around 950 graduates of Ohio's 9 law schools, down from around 1090 two years ago. That's helped placement in bar passage required and J.D. advantage jobs rise to 72.8% (including a few school-funded jobs), up three points. Overall jobs increased slightly. Remarkably, four of these law schools graduated classes of fewer than 100 students.

As always, please notify me of any corrections or errata.

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Peer Score	School	2017	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2016	BPR	JDA	LSF
3.3	Ohio State University	88.5%	-0.9	126	16	4	89.4%	137	20	3
2.3	University of Cincinnati	80.0%	-3.7	53	3	0	83.7%	74	13	0
1.6	Ohio Northern University	76.9%	14.4	37	3	0	62.5%	35	10	0
1.9	University of Akron	71.7%	8.8	71	15	0	62.9%	58	20	0
2.7	Case Western Reserve University	71.0%	6.4	83	15	0	64.6%	56	8	0
1.9	University of Toledo	69.7%	9.5	42	11	0	60.2%	32	21	0
1.5	Capital University	65.8%	16.2	63	14	0	49.6%	45	14	0
1.9	Cleveland-Marshall College of Law	65.0%	-2.6	61	15	0	67.5%	62	17	0
1.8	University of Dayton	62.5%	-10.3	48	12	0	72.8%	40	19	0

February 2018 MBE bar scores collapse to all-time record low in test history

If that headline seems like déjà vu, it's because I wrote the same headline after the February 2017 MBE bar scores were released. There were some interesting comments last year about the best way to visualize the decline, so here are a couple of attempts below. (You can see more about the methodology choices in last year's post, including reasons it's a non-zero Y-axis, which would be absurd.)

We now know the mean scaled national February MBE score was 132.8, down 1.8 points from last year's 134.0, which was already an all-time record low. We would expect bar exam passing rates to drop in most jurisdictions.

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For perspective, California's "cut score" is 144, Virginia's 140, Texas's 135, and New York's 133. The trend is more pronounced when looking at a more recent window of scores.

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On the heels of an uptick in MBE scores last July, the results are particularly troubling. Given how small the February pool is in relation to the July pool, it's hard to draw too many conclusions from the February test-taker pool.

That said, the February cohort is historically much weaker than the July cohort, in part because it includes so many who failed in July and retook in February. Without knowing the percentage of repeaters, that would be the first place to look.

Another reason might relate to the increase in the July scores. Based on some informed speculation, some schools may have been advising some more at-risk students to delay taking the July exam and instead prepare more for the February exam in hopes of increasing first-time pass rates. If that happened, we may see a skewing in the quality of first-time test-takers in the February cohort, which would result in a decline in scores. That might explain some of the small improvement in July and decline in February.

At some point soon, however, we should see a more regular rebound in bar pass rates. The first major drop in bar exam scores was revealed to law schools in late fall 2014. That means the 2014-2015 applicant cycle, to the extent schools took heed of the warning, was a time for them to improve the quality of their incoming classes, leading to some improvement for the class graduating this May of 2018.

Of course, these are high-level projections and guesses. School-specific data would be useful. But it surely will not end the debates raging right now about the bar exam, and it will only serve to put more pressure on law schools looking at this July's bar exam.

UPDATE: NCBEX has revealed that first-time test-takers were 30% of the pool and saw a smaller decline than repeaters, but the number of repeaters was mostly unchanged. Karen Sloan has more.

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in Illinois in 2017

This is the fifth in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2017. Following posts on outcomes in Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, and New York, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of Illinois law schools for the Class of 2017. (More about the methodology is available at the Florida post.) Last year's Illinois post is here.

There were around 1750 graduates of Illinois's 9 law schools, down from around 1820 last year and 2040 in 2015. That's helped placement in bar passage required and J.D. advantage jobs rise to 79.3% (including a few school-funded jobs), up a point over last year. Overall jobs declined slightly.

As always, please notify me of any corrections or errata.

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Peer Score	School	2017	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2016	BPR	JDA	LSF
4.6	University of Chicago	97.7%	-2.3	197	4	8	100.0%	201	4	10
4.2	Northwestern University (Pritzker)	94.0%	1.6	204	24	5	92.4%	203	19	8
3.2	University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign	86.6%	-0.7	111	12	0	87.3%	131	13	1
2.5	Loyola University Chicago	77.5%	4.8	138	34	0	72.7%	119	32	1
1.7	Northern Illinois University	77.1%	1.0	42	11	1	76.1%	52	14	1
2.5	Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago-Kent)	74.0%	3.3	133	32	0	70.7%	136	35	0
1.7	The John Marshall Law School	71.6%	6.0	161	43	0	65.5%	153	41	0
2.3	DePaul University	69.6%	-0.5	126	34	0	70.1%	126	38	0
1.6	Southern Illinois University-Carbondale	58.6%	-10.6	64	4	0	69.2%	67	14	0

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in New York in 2017

This is the fourth in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2017. Following posts on outcomes in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of New York law schools for the Class of 2017. (More about the methodology is available at the Florida post.) Last year's New York post is here.

There were around 3650 graduates among New York's 15 law schools, down from around 3800 last year and around 4500 for the Class of 2014. That's helped placement in bar passage required and J.D. advantage jobs rise to 84.5%. Only NYU and Columbia still report any meaningful school-funded positions (and also accounts for disparity between the chart and the table below). Overall jobs rose slightly.

As always, please notify me of any corrections or errata.

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Peer score	School	2017	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2016	BPR	JDA	LSF
4.6	New York University	97.1%	-0.8	429	11	30	97.9%	430	15	30
4.6	Columbia University	96.3%	-0.4	401	2	13	96.7%	356	8	12
4.2	Cornell University	93.6%	1.2	186	2	1	92.4%	166	2	2
2.7	Cardozo School of Law	87.0%	4.7	234	20	0	82.2%	251	26	1
1.9	Pace University	84.7%	2.2	127	17	0	82.5%	123	18	0
2.2	St. John's University	81.8%	-2.2	154	21	0	84.0%	176	29	0
2.2	Hofstra University	81.0%	0.7	180	12	0	80.3%	145	13	1
2.5	Brooklyn Law School	80.2%	3.2	264	31	0	77.0%	244	40	0
1.9	Albany Law School	80.0%	-2.1	78	10	0	82.1%	106	17	1
2.3	Syracuse University	79.2%	5.1	103	15	0	74.1%	100	23	0
3.2	Fordham University	77.7%	-4.6	245	23	3	82.3%	286	29	1
1.5	Touro College	75.2%	5.4	104	11	0	69.8%	87	10	0
1.9	New York Law School	74.3%	-2.0	123	56	0	76.3%	162	69	1
2.1	City University of New York	71.3%	2.0	65	2	0	69.2%	69	3	0
2.2	University of Buffalo-SUNY	71.1%	3.5	93	15	0	67.6%	117	8	0