Visualizing legal employment outcomes in Ohio in 2015

This is the fourth in the series of visualizations of legal employment outcomes in 2015. The previous visualizations were for California, New York, and DC-Maryland-Virginia.

Ohio is notable for having nine ABA-accredited law schools. Class of 2015 graduates declined significantly, from 1297 for the Class of 2014 to 1089 last year. But job outcomes actually worsened significantly--there were just 594 bar passage-required jobs among these graduates, down from 699 the previous year. The percentage of graduates employed in bar passage-required and J.D-advantage job was 68.2% among these schools, worse than last year's 69.2% rate. (Law school-funded positions add a marginal number of positions.)

As usual, the chart is sorted by the "full-weight" positions, designating both full-time, long-term, bar passage-required and J.D.-advantage positions. There are additional designations for school-funded positions in these areas, and for all other outcomes. The table below the chart is sorted by the combined bar passage-required, J.D.-advantage, and law school-funded positions (as printed in U.S. News & World Reports), with raw figures and a year-over-year comparison beside.

As usual, please notify me of any errors.

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Peer Score	School	2015	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2014	BPR	JDA	LSF
3.3	Ohio State University	86.9%	-4.5	132	19	2	91.4%	155	32	5
2.4	University of Cincinnati	80.7%	-1.7	67	21	0	82.4%	79	24	0
2.6	Case Western Reserve University	70.8%	4.8	86	16	0	66.1%	91	19	1
1.8	University of Toledo	66.7%	7.3	48	21	1	59.3%	54	18	1
1.8	Cleveland State University	66.1%	-2.2	57	15	0	68.2%	74	29	0
1.7	University of Dayton	63.4%	-9.4	48	11	0	72.9%	74	28	0
1.8	University of Akron	63.4%	-8.8	73	17	0	72.2%	66	25	0
1.5	Capital University	54.1%	7.8	57	23	0	46.3%	62	12	0
1.5	Ohio Northern University	50.8%	-7.7	26	6	0	58.5%	44	11	0

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in California in 2015

Following up on my posts about employment outcomes in New York and in DC-Maryland-Virginia, and as I did last year with California, here are the legal employment outcomes in California for the Class of 2015.

Graduating classes continue to shrink, from 5185 in the Class of 2013, to 4731 in the Class of 2014, to 4403 in the Class of 2015.

But total job placement remains flat. There were 2807 unfunded, "full-weight" positions (full-time, long-term, bar passage-required and J.D.-advantage) for the Class of 2015, essentially unchanged from the 2849 from last year. We've seen a few years in a row where total positions among California law schools hover between 2800 and 2900. The shrinking graduating class, however, helped to improve outcomes yet again--the placement rate in these full-weight rose from 60.2% to 63.8%.

There was a significant drop-off in school funded positions, from 145 to 107. The University of Southern California dropped from 33 to 7 such positions; UC-Davis from 19 to 9; and Loyola-Los Angeles from 10 to 3. Bucking the trend, UC-Irvine increased from 13 to 20 such positions, and Whittier from 0 to 9.

As usual, the chart is sorted by the "full-weight" positions, designating both full-time, long-term, bar passage-required and J.D.-advantage positions. There are additional designations for school-funded positions in these areas, and other outcomes. The table below is sorted by the combined bar passage-required, J.D.-advantage, and law school-funded positions (as printed in U.S. News & World Reports), with raw figures and a year-over-year comparison beside.

As usual, please notify me of any errors.

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Peer Score	School	2015	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2014	BPR	JDA	LSF
4.8	Stanford University	92.3%	-1.3	166	8	6	93.6%	159	5	10
3.9	University of California-Los Angeles	91.3%	3.8	247	25	34	87.5%	240	22	32
4.5	University of California-Berkeley	91.0%	-4.5	237	5	11	95.5%	245	9	20
3.2	University of California-Irvine	84.5%	-0.4	71	2	20	84.9%	59	10	13
3.4	University of Southern California	80.3%	-5.4	155	9	7	85.7%	141	12	33
3.3	University of California-Davis	77.3%	-4.4	125	9	9	81.7%	113	7	19
2.6	Loyola Law School-Los Angeles	74.3%	3.3	227	42	3	71.0%	231	41	10
3.1	University of California-Hastings	66.9%	9.2	174	28	4	57.7%	205	26	2
1.8	Chapman University	64.4%	9.3	62	23	0	55.1%	66	10	0
2.6	Pepperdine University	64.0%	4.4	104	21	1	59.6%	97	20	1
2.6	University of San Diego	62.3%	4.2	138	16	0	58.1%	128	27	1
1.8	McGeorge School of Law	59.6%	0.2	105	31	0	59.4%	84	26	1
1.5	California Western School of Law	58.5%	1.4	90	41	0	57.1%	106	18	0
2.4	Santa Clara University	53.9%	6.0	86	32	0	47.9%	93	32	0
nr	University of La Verne	51.3%	1.3	16	4	0	50.0%	20	2	0
2.0	University of San Francisco	51.2%	4.5	60	22	3	46.7%	65	27	0
1.1	Western State College of Law	50.9%	5.6	46	10	0	45.3%	49	18	0
1.3	Whittier Law School	48.9%	5.1	30	30	9	43.8%	53	32	0
1.8	Southwestern Law School	48.2%	-7.7	115	35	0	55.9%	121	53	1
1.6	Golden Gate University	41.1%	9.4	58	7	0	31.7%	45	11	2
1.2	Thomas Jefferson School of Law	39.4%	-1.6	59	36	0	41.0%	87	33	0

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in New York in 2015

Following up on yesterday's post on outcomes in DC-Maryland-Virginia, and last year's post on outcomes in New York, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of New York law schools for the Class of 2015. (More about the methodology is available at the DC-Maryland-Virginia post.)

The number of graduates dropped significantly, from about 4500 for the Class of 2014 to just under 4100 for the Class of 2015. Law school-funded positions have never been very popular, but they declined slightly, from 93 to 73. And as has been the case, the improvements are largely because classes are smaller. There were 3407 full-time, long-term, bar passage required and J.D. advantage jobs, including school-funded positions, for the Class of 2014. That raw figure actually declined somewhat, to 3237 positions for the Class of 2015. But the percentage of the Class of 2015 securing such jobs improved, from to 75.2% to 79.3%.

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

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Peer score	School	2015	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2014	BPR	JDA	LSF
4.6	Columbia University	98.8%	3.0	360	10	28	95.7%	408	9	31
4.5	New York University	96.7%	0.0	424	14	31	96.7%	412	12	39
4.2	Cornell University	95.5%	-0.8	164	3	3	96.3%	172	1	11
2.1	St. John's University	81.9%	8.7	173	29	1	73.2%	158	32	0
1.9	Albany Law School	80.3%	7.8	119	25	3	72.5%	127	21	0
2.7	Cardozo School of Law	76.8%	9.7	246	32	0	67.1%	221	41	1
3.1	Fordham University	76.1%	2.0	274	37	1	74.1%	311	29	0
1.9	Pace University	75.5%	6.8	93	17	1	68.7%	122	22	5
2.2	Hofstra University	73.8%	2.8	201	17	4	71.0%	180	41	4
2.4	Brooklyn Law School	73.2%	9.3	215	31	0	63.9%	200	44	0
2.2	University of Buffalo-SUNY	70.7%	1.0	115	20	0	69.6%	114	19	0
1.9	New York Law School	67.6%	3.5	171	66	1	64.1%	179	85	2
2.3	Syracuse University	65.6%	-6.4	104	20	0	72.0%	121	31	0
2.1	City University of New York	64.0%	13.3	66	5	0	50.7%	73	3	0
1.5	Touro College	60.4%	-3.9	105	8	0	64.3%	111	15	0

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in DC-Maryland-Virginia in 2015

Following up on my post from last year, here are the employment outcomes for law schools in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia for the Class of 2015. The U.S. News & World Report rankings recently released, which include data for the Class of 2014, are already obsolete. The ABA will release the information soon, but individualized employment reports are available on schools' websites.

The USNWR prints the "employed" rate as "the percentage of all graduates who had a full-time job lasting at least a year for which bar passage was required or a J.D. degree was an advantage." But it does not give "full weight" in its internal ranking metric to jobs that were funded by the law school. USNWR gives other positions lower weight, but these positions are not included in the ranking tables. And while it includes J.D. advantage positions, there remain disputes about whether those positions are really as valuable. (Some have further critiqued solo practitioners being included in the bar passage required statistics.)

The chart is sorted by non-school-funded jobs (or "full weight" positions). The visualization breaks out full-time, long-term, bar passage required positions (not funded by the school); full-time, long term, J.D.-advantage positions (not funded by the school); school funded positions (full-time, long-term, bar passage required or J.D.-advantage positions); and all other outcomes. This year, I included a breakdown in the visualization slightly distinguishing bar passage required positions from J.D.-advantage positions, even though both are included in "full weight" for USNWR purposes (and I still sort the chart by "full weight" positions).

The table below the chart breaks down the raw data values for the Classes of 2014 and 2015, with relative overall changes year-over-year, and is sorted by total placement (as USNWR prints). The columns beside each year break out the three categories in the total placement: FTLT unfunded bar passage required ("BPR"), FTLT unfunded J.D. advantage ("JDA"), and FTLT law school funded BPR & JDA positions ("LSF"). Total jobs in these bar passage-required and J.D.-advantage positions declined somewhat, from 3119 to 2825. Part of this was undoubtedly fueled by a significant decline in school-funded positions, from 271 to just 90--many schools have rather dramatically slashed such positions. There were about 250 fewer graduates, from 3992 to 3740. Nevertheless, overall prospects for graduates became worse: the overall employment rate was 75.5% (including all funded positions), down from 78.1% last year. More granular data is available at each school's website.

As always, if I made a mistake, please feel free to email me or comment; I confess there are always risks in data translation, and I am happy to make corrections.

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Peer score	School	2015	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2014	BPR	JDA	LSF
4.3	University of Virginia	95.4%	-1.2	311	9	30	96.6%	296	7	34
2.7	George Mason University	86.8%	6.9	94	34	4	79.9%	95	45	7
3.0	Washington and Lee University	82.2%	7.4	131	11	1	74.8%	81	13	1
4.1	Georgetown University	80.2%	-7.0	456	50	38	87.2%	436	38	72
3.3	George Washington University	78.3%	-10.9	301	55	8	89.2%	383	60	78
3.2	William and Mary Law School	75.8%	-6.5	118	17	0	82.3%	137	16	24
3.0	University of Maryland	75.3%	0.0	156	47	1	75.3%	169	52	2
2.0	University of Baltimore	74.2%	3.8	142	56	0	70.4%	161	60	0
2.4	University of Richmond	74.2%	-7.7	97	21	0	81.9%	88	34	0
2.1	Catholic University of America	70.4%	-0.5	63	37	0	70.9%	82	45	0
1.3	Regent University	65.3%	2.2	67	10	0	63.1%	58	19	0
1.2	Appalachian School of Law	63.3%	21.2	32	4	2	42.1%	34	5	1
2.7	American University	61.4%	-8.8	205	76	4	70.2%	207	68	48
2.3	Howard University	59.5%	-6.0	57	12	0	65.5%	61	12	1
1.2	Liberty University	54.1%	-2.5	31	1	1	56.6%	35	7	1
1.4	District of Columbia	51.5%	6.8	15	19	1	44.7%	27	17	2

Slopegraphs of recent Iowa caucus polling and results

Edward Tufte has a lovely page dedicated to the slopegraph, a simple and elegant visualization tool.

The Iowa caucuses are rapidly approaching, the first contest in a lengthy presidential preference primary season.

Ann Selzer is an extraordinarily talented pollster in Iowa. She regularly polls Iowa, and her final polls are extremely accurate.

For the last few presidential caucus cycles, she has polled every several weeks leading up to the caucus. I thought I would offer visualizations of recent contests of her polling in her penultimate poll, usually about 5 to 8 weeks out from the caucus, and the actual outcome. Polling data from 2004, 2008, and 2012 have been rounded, as have outcomes.

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(The polling outcomes do not necessarily correlate with the actual convention delegates awarded, but they simply reflect the percentage of votes each candidate received. The Democratic caucuses include special rules that permit several rounds of voting, and caucusgoers can change their support after each round. I exercised discretion in the order I listed candidates tied. I only included candidates who received some modest showing of support in either the penultimate polling or the caucus results.)

UPDATE: Someone helpfully altered me on Twitter that another poll was conduct in 2012 in late November. So the chart above reflects the antepenultimate poll rather than the penultimate poll.