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

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in Texas in 2017

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

Total jobs in these unfunded bar passage-required and J.D.-advantage positions worsened slightly, from 1551 in 2016 to 1476 in 2017. Despite the addition of the University of North Texas Dallas, overall graduates dropped below 2000 statewide, and the placement rate improved from 74.1% to 75.8% (including a few funded positions). Note that the chart below visualizes Baylor at the top because it exclude school-funded positions; in the table below that UT-Austin is at the top. (Refer to the methodology post for more.)

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
4.1	University of Texas-Austin	86.9%	1.2	259	18	7	85.6%	289	18	3
2.4	Baylor University	86.2%	5.8	107	4	1	80.4%	122	4	1
2.7	Southern Methodist University	83.1%	1.4	179	17	0	81.6%	176	15	0
1.9	Texas Tech University	78.2%	1.8	137	17	0	76.4%	125	14	0
2.6	University of Houston	77.5%	-2.1	153	26	0	79.6%	162	29	0
2.3	Texas A&M University	74.3%	6.0	118	18	0	68.3%	121	19	0
1.7	St. Mary's University	70.9%	2.0	118	20	1	68.9%	144	18	2
1.5	Texas Southern University	65.6%	6.7	76	8	0	58.9%	79	10	0
1.7	South Texas College of Law Houston	61.7%	-0.5	157	27	0	62.2%	175	31	0
nr	University of North Texas Dallas	51.5%	-	17	0	0	-	-	-	-

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in Pennsylvania in 2017

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

Total graduates were essentially unchanged year-over-year, and the job picture improved slightly, from 82.2% placement in unfunded full-time, long-term bar passage-required and J.D.-advantage positions increased slightly once again, from 82.2% to 83.8%. Most schools are bunched together in the 78%-82% placement range.

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 Pennsylvania	98.8%	1.5	232	16	5	97.3%	230	17	4
2.7	Temple University	86.6%	3.5	172	15	1	83.2%	135	32	1
2.5	Villanova University	82.4%	0.4	120	11	0	82.0%	119	21	1
2.1	Drexel University	81.5%	-2.2	88	13	0	83.7%	111	12	0
1.8	Duquesne University	79.4%	5.2	80	20	0	74.2%	76	16	0
2.2	Pennsylvania State - Dickinson Law	78.7%	-9.5	41	7	0	88.2%	28	2	0
2.3	Penn State Law	78.1%	3.3	82	7	0	74.7%	63	8	0
2.7	University of Pittsburgh	77.5%	3.3	87	20	0	74.3%	108	22	0
1.7	Widener Commonwealth	67.2%	-0.7	36	5	0	67.9%	26	10	0

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in Florida in 2017

Following up on a series of posts last year (and previous years), this is the first in a series visualizing employment outcomes of law school graduates from the Class of 2017. The U.S. News & World Report ("USNWR") rankings recently released, which include data for the Class of 2016, 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 "all full-time jobs not school or university funded lasting at least a year for which bar passage was required or a J.D. degree was an advantage.)." It does not give "full weight" in its metrics to jobs that were funded by the law school. (That said, USNWR now has "slighted reduced the discount" for school-funded jobs.) 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 actually as valuable as bar passage required jobs. (Some have further critiqued solo practitioners being included in the bar passage required statistics.)

The top 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. 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 2016 and 2017, with relative overall changes year-over-year, and is sorted by total placement including school-funded jobs. 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").

The first state is Florida (last year's visualization here). Western Michigan University-Cooley's Tampa campus did not disclose campus-specific data again this year, so I did not include it. There were 2236 statewide grades, a 10% decline over last year's class. The total placement rate among the graduates was 69.8% with just one school-funded job. That's more than a 4-point improvement over last year, with an assist from the decline class size: total placements shrunk from 1621 to 1561. Importantly, however, J.D. advantage placement dropped from 275 to 196, while bar passage required placement rose from 1346 to 1364.

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	2017	YoY%	BPR	JDA	LSF	2016	BPR	JDA	LSF
3.2	University of Florida	86.4%	4.1	246	33	1	82.4%	230	36	0
2.8	University of Miami	82.7%	4.1	195	20	0	78.6%	209	45	0
1.9	Florida International University	80.6%	-1.1	112	13	0	81.7%	108	17	0
3.0	Florida State University	80.3%	-0.1	150	21	0	80.4%	136	16	0
2.1	Stetson University	77.2%	0.7	167	36	0	76.5%	166	59	0
1.6	Nova Southeastern University	62.4%	4.6	129	12	0	57.7%	117	21	0
1.2	Barry University	61.7%	11.9	75	25	0	49.8%	83	40	0
1.4	St. Thomas University	58.6%	6.6	99	7	0	52.0%	97	8	0
1.5	Florida A&M University	51.9%	1.5	62	7	0	50.3%	56	18	0
1.2	Ave Maria School of Law	49.4%	-10.9	32	8	0	60.3%	36	2	0
1.2	Florida Coastal School of Law	46.6%	6.2	97	14	0	40.5%	108	13	0