Federal Judicial Clerkship Report of Recent Law School Graduates, 2020 Edition

I’ve updated my Federal judicial Report of Recent Law School Graduates, which is now available via SSRN. It tracks recent federal judicial clerkship hiring tends by school and by region, “elite” legal employment placement rates, and trends within the federal judiciary in hiring recent law school graduates. Most data is a three-year average for the Classes of 2017, 2018, and 2019 to smooth out any one-year outliers. Here’s one chart, judicial clerkship placement rate of recent graduates for these three classes: 31 schools had at least 5% placed into federal judicial clerkships.

For more charts, figures, and analysis, check out the entire report.

The "Contract with America" turns 25

In November 1994, Republicans swept elections across the country. It’s typical that the out-of-the-White-House party makes big gains in that cycle, but the size of those gains were atypically large and fueled by, among other things, the kinds of concerns that yielded a chaotic three-way race in the 1992 presidential election. Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress for the first time since 1954.

One shorthand reference of this moment, led by would-be Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, was the “Contract with America.” It may be the case that the slogan has been oversold in terms of its electoral success. And it’s true that not everything promised came into fruition in Congress.

Still more, I’m hardly an expert in legislative history. But I wonder if it’s fair to say that the 104th Congress’s lawmaking in 1995 and 1996 represented the last high water mark of legislation, in an era today bogged down with divided government, heightened partisanship in each party and separating them from one another, inaction from the out-of-power party, increased use of the filibuster, and so on.

To name a few statutes enacted in this era, with Wikipedia links: the Lobbying Disclosure Act, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, the Communications Decency Act, the Line Item Veto Act, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Defense of Marriage Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, “Welfare Reform,” the Prison Litigation Reform Act, and the Congressional Review Act.

Some (like the line item veto, a portion of DOMA, and the anti-decency provisions of the CDA) have been found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Some have had sporadic use like the CRA; others, like Section 230 of the CDA, are under renewed attack. And still others like AEDPA and PSLRA have, I think, fairly dramatically transformed areas of the law.

I’m a little surprised I’ve seen no academic fanfare or discussion, no law review symposia planned or academic conferences (much less panels) dedicated to it. (Academics love looking at milestone anniversaries of major cases, constitutional amendments, or statutes.)

There were a scattered few op-eds on it last fall. But I’ve seen essentially no attention given to the Contract with America this year—supporting or opposing, critical or reflective, looking back or looking forward.

I don’t know that I’ll be the one to lead the charge about examining these statutes or this particular moment in federal lawmaking, but the anniversary struck me as one worth remembering, even if in a brief blog post.

Why I don't sign open letters or group amicus briefs

Over the course of my ten-year academic career, I’ve regularly been invited to sign an open letter in support or opposition to a particular cause, or to join a group amicus brief in a particular case. Sometimes these are generic groups (e.g., lawyers, law professors, etc.), and sometimes they purport to represent a collective interest at an institution or of an academic discipline.

It’s been my policy not to sign open letters or group amicus briefs, for any reason and under any circumstances. I thought I’d share why.

The first is a matter of control and ownership of the idea. Too often, the collective work has to be watered down and sufficiently generalized to attain broader support. Specific legal arguments become general platitudes. Interesting avenues of scholarly inquiry become rather bland, repetitive arguments found elsewhere. I’ve often found sole author amicus briefs particularly interesting, and I finally made a foray into this world this year. Controlling the work means offering particular insight. That’s not to say that co-authored amicus briefs or group letters might not be interesting, too. But it’s to say that a “please sign onto this” request generating sometimes thousands of signatories means that it’s not really about the specific contours of what’s being described or advanced.

The second is a matter of easing pressure. Open letters in particular seem (sadly) to signal to the world a false logical argument: those who signed this letter support X, therefore those who did not sign this letter do not support X. This is a particular concern for letters that purport to come from an institution or affinity group. My refusal to sign that letter inevitably can bring heat or criticism from those who observe my lack of signature. (My hope is individual discussion with them is more fruitful; more on that below.) If others truly oppose it on the merits, or simply prefer not to speak up (say, those in positions with less job security than I have), my refusal to sign can help ease pressure for them to know they are not alone.

The third is a matter of persuasiveness. Too often, these collective activities are not about persuasion. They are about signaling to the public one’s support or opposition to a particular cause, or signaling to one’s peers that one is an ally of said cause. Persuasion, I’ve found, is not best found in such demonstrative public acts, but in the careful and often difficult conversations that we may have one on one with each other, or in deliberate dialogue, or in the kind of focused scholarship (too often absent, as my first concern raises) that can help illuminate an issue. Open letters or group amicus briefs are addressing different audiences, and, I think, different modes of persuasion may be preferably for each.

All these reasons are not to cast aspersions on those who do sign such letters or briefs. Some may legitimately conclude that the ideas in many such open letters or group amicus briefs are sufficiently valuable; some may legitimately conclude that the cost of silence is greater than the cost of pressuring non-signatories or stirring divisions; some may legitimately believe that these tools can persuade. For me, however, I’ve found the evidence to come down against them in each case. And it’s simply become easier to have a straightforward rule that I can apply consistently and universally.

I have signed one kind of group letter, however. On three occasions (as of this writing, I think), I signed letters to the Senate Judiciary Committee advocating for a judicial nominee’s confirmation. These aren’t “open letters,” but I’m sure they are a matter of public record if one seeks them out. These were nominees I knew personally and could vouch for, and I treated them like a letter of recommendation. I could agree with everything in the letter about the person’s work, ethic, and character. One I helped draft, two I joined after they were drafted.

I’ve turned down many, many other opportunities, including for recent Supreme Court nominations, to sign onto letters, not the least of which was that I simply had never met the person, much less could vouch for the nominee’s character.

Again, I’m sure others have other views on this matter, and others may reach different conclusions. I hardly think my idiosyncrasies (like, say, having a non-revenue-generating blog) will be the norm. But I thought it would be useful to share my particular views.

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in California in 2019

This is the eighth and last in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2019. Following posts on outcomes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, Florida, DC-Virginia-Maryland, and New York, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of California law schools for the Class of 2019. (More about the methodology is available at the Pennsylvania post.) Last year's California post is here.

Please note, of course, that “J.D.-advantage” jobs may differ significantly from school to school, which may alter how one views the “overall” rate. (USNWR treats them as equivalent, but there are good reasons to think they may not be equivalent; and here, there are significant disparities among some schools and their J.D.-advantage placement.) And recall that I sort the table below to include school-funded positions, while the chart only includes unfunded positions. (It’s a reason I try to display the information in different ways!)

In some ways, California’s gains have come as three law schools have closed or been removed from ABA-accredited status. The removal of two schools from last year alone would have bumped the overall employment rate up in 2018 from 74.9% to 77.3%. But overall, bar passage-required jobs increased by about 100 among California’s 18 law schools reported below. J.D.-advantage jobs increased slightly, unlike most other regions of the country, and law school-funded positions fell overall. Total employment stood at 79.4%, another improvement.

I think this will be my last year doing these visualizations. They are a fair amount of work. And this year in particular there has been essentially no interest in the employment outcomes of these regions. If that’s the case, I’ll move on to other areas for blogging.

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

Peer Score School 2019 YoY% BPR JDA LSF Grads 2018 BPR JDA LSF Grads
4.5 University of California-Berkeley 97.0% 1.2 296 6 16 328 95.8% 276 4 16 309
4.1 University of California-Los Angeles 95.6% 3.1 279 11 13 317 92.5% 257 19 20 320
4.8 Stanford University 95.1% -1.8 156 9 8 182 96.9% 165 12 10 193
3.6 University of Southern California 90.6% 3.3 191 11 1 224 87.3% 162 11 6 205
3.4 University of California-Davis 88.3% 1.9 121 7 8 154 86.4% 135 8 10 177
3.5 University of California-Irvine 86.5% -0.3 110 5 7 141 86.8% 85 3 11 114
2.7 Pepperdine University 83.7% 5.1 135 14 0 178 78.6% 114 18 0 168
2.7 Loyola Law School-Los Angeles 81.6% -4.1 216 41 5 321 85.7% 213 24 3 280
3.1 University of California-Hastings 79.6% 0.9 209 25 12 309 78.7% 178 28 12 277
1.9 McGeorge School of Law 76.5% 12.6 94 23 0 153 63.9% 66 19 0 133
1.9 Chapman University 74.9% 1.0 92 36 0 171 73.9% 75 24 0 134
2.7 University of San Diego 74.3% 2.0 123 13 0 183 72.3% 172 19 0 264
2.5 Santa Clara University 67.8% -0.9 128 15 0 211 68.7% 127 22 0 217
1.9 Southwestern Law School 64.5% 1.3 92 37 0 200 63.2% 128 39 1 266
1.5 California Western School of Law 61.8% 0.7 95 36 0 212 61.1% 86 32 0 193
1.1 Western State College of Law 57.5% 0.5 41 20 0 106 57.0% 49 8 0 100
1.5 Golden Gate University 50.5% 2.3 37 15 2 107 48.2% 27 11 2 83
1.9 University of San Francisco 49.6% 4.6 47 12 0 119 45.0% 49 26 1 169

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in New York in 2019

This is the seventh in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2019. Following posts on outcomes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, Florida, and DC-Virginia-Maryland, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of New York law schools for the Class of 2019. (More about the methodology is available at the Pennsylvania post.) Last year's New York post is here.

Please note, of course, that “J.D.-advantage” jobs may differ significantly from school to school, which may alter how one views the “overall” rate. (USNWR treats them as equivalent, but there are good reasons to think they may not be equivalent; and here, there are significant disparities among some schools and their J.D.-advantage lacement.) And recall that I sort the table below to include school-funded positions, while the chart only includes unfunded positions. (It’s a reason I try to display the information in different ways!) The Class of 2019 saw continued upward trends. Bar passage-required jobs rose from 2882 to 3027; J.D.-advantage positions fell and school funded positions held steady. And while total graduates increased slightly to 3730, the improvement in bar passage-required positions helped increase placement from 86.1% to 87.6%.

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

Peer score School 2019 YoY% BPR JDA LSF Grads 2018 BPR JDA LSF Grads
4.7 Columbia University 98.6% 2.2 416 3 6 431 96.4% 420 8 5 449
4.6 New York University 96.1% -0.7 429 6 30 484 96.7% 411 3 29 458
2.3 St. John's University 91.0% -0.6 192 10 0 222 91.6% 186 21 0 226
4.2 Cornell University 89.2% -4.2 170 2 1 194 93.4% 178 4 1 196
3.3 Fordham University 88.0% -0.5 310 25 1 382 88.4% 302 24 2 371
1.9 New York Law School 87.5% 6.5 200 38 0 272 81.0% 167 52 2 273
2.9 Cardozo School of Law 85.4% 0.5 228 11 1 281 84.9% 207 23 1 272
2 Pace University 85.4% 5.9 147 11 0 185 79.5% 118 14 0 166
2.3 Hofstra University 83.4% 1.0 162 13 1 211 82.4% 186 11 0 239
2.6 Brooklyn Law School 82.9% 2.4 240 31 0 327 80.5% 245 48 0 364
2.0 Albany Law School 82.4% 3.4 99 12 1 136 79.0% 86 8 0 119
2.3 City University of New York 80.4% 6.4 126 9 0 168 74.0% 64 7 0 96
2.3 University of Buffalo-SUNY 80.1% 2.1 96 17 0 141 78.1% 101 13 0 146
1.5 Touro College 77.9% 7.7 85 3 0 113 70.2% 95 4 0 141
2.4 Syracuse University 74.9% -1.4 127 10 0 183 76.3% 116 16 0 173

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in DC-Virginia-Maryland in 2019

This is the sixth in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2019. Following posts on outcomes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, and Florida, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of DC, Virginia, and Maryland law schools for the Class of 2019. (More about the methodology is available at the Pennsylvania post.) Last year's DC-Virginia-Maryland post is here.

Total job placement in bar passage-required positions rose nearly 100 as graduates fell slightly, improving the overall placement rate from 83.9% to 85%. (Of note, four schools had fewer than 70 graduates.)

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

Peer score School 2019 YoY% BPR JDA LSF Grads 2018 BPR JDA LSF Grads
4.4 University of Virginia 97.9% 0.2 269 4 7 286 97.7% 277 3 12 299
3.1 Washington & Lee University 92.7% 5.1 93 9 0 110 87.6% 98 1 0 113
3.3 William & Mary Law School 91.7% 3.5 189 22 0 230 88.2% 149 16 0 187
4.3 Georgetown University 90.9% -0.4 542 30 34 667 91.2% 532 28 33 650
2.7 George Mason University 89.3% 5.4 112 35 4 169 83.9% 90 22 3 137
3.0 University of Maryland 87.6% -1.3 139 30 0 193 88.9% 138 37 1 198
3.5 George Washington University 84.9% 0.9 370 54 3 503 84.0% 376 58 3 520
1.2 Liberty University 84.3% 4.3 41 2 0 51 80.0% 32 4 0 45
1.2 Regent University 82.6% 5.3 52 5 0 69 77.3% 45 5 1 66
2.8 University of Richmond 81.7% 0.5 83 15 0 120 81.2% 118 29 0 181
2.1 Catholic University of America 80.6% 12.5 63 20 0 103 68.0% 56 10 0 97
2.7 Howard University 78.2% 4.5 91 13 0 133 73.7% 80 17 1 133
2.9 American University 75.2% 1.6 249 52 2 403 73.6% 201 69 3 371
2.1 University of Baltimore 73.2% -3.7 123 22 0 198 77.0% 136 21 0 204
1.6 District of Columbia 58.5% -11.7 19 18 1 65 70.1% 26 20 1 67
1.2 Appalachian School of Law 51.6% -0.1 13 3 0 31 51.7% 13 2 0 29

Overall legal employment for the Class of 2019 strongest in years, with public interest showing spike in placement

Despite some relatively low bar passage rates in many jurisdictions over the last several years, and ahead of a (brief?) economic downturn, we’ve seen steady overall improvement in the market for law school graduates each year for several years now, and the Class of 2019 is the best yet. All trends are fairly positive, even if small, and even if some of those are driven by shrinking class sizes. Below are figures for the ABA-disclosed data (excluding Puerto Rico’s three law schools). These are ten-month figures from March 15, 2020 for the Class of 2019.

  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
Class of 2018 33,633 23,314 69.3% 3,123
Class of 2019 33,462 24,409 72.9% 2,799

Placement in bar passage-required jobs continued to improve, and graduates shrank only slightly. That put placement in full-time, long-term, bar passage-required jobs up to 72.9% (excluding school-funded positions). Raw placement rose to 24,409, the highest since the Class of 2014—and that class had nearly 10,000 more graduates. We also saw a continued overall trend of declining placement in J.D.-advantage positions, consistent with the idea that these often may not be ideal outcomes for graduates. Indeed, total J.D.-advantage job placement has been cut nearly in half since the Class of 2014.

We can also compare the Class of 2019 to the Class of 2013—a recent high-water mark in total graduates and bar passage-required jobs (even if the percentage placed in those jobs was relatively low). We can look at placement by firm size, and by industry (among long-term, full-time placement).

FTLT Class of 2013 Class of 2019 Net Delta
Solo 926 236 -690 -74.5%
2-10 6,947 4,761 -2186 -31.5%
11-25 1,842 1,769 -73 -4.0%
26-50 1,045 1,075 30 2.9%
51-100 846 864 18 2.1%
101-205 1,027 1,059 32 3.1%
251-500 1,041 1,044 3 0.3%
501+ 3,978 4,976 998 25.1%
Business/Industry 5,494 2,801 -2693 -49.0%
Government 4,360 3,656 -704 -16.1%
Public Interest 1,665 2,146 481 28.9%
Federal Clerk 1,259 1,197 -62 -4.9%
State Clerk 2,043 2,135 92 4.5%
Academia/Education 490 296 -194 -39.6%

The sharp demise of sole practitioners and small law firm placement is significant. Two years ago, I noted that placement in these positions might be the most at-risk when bar passage rates decline. Also of note is the decline in “business” jobs, which were typically J.D.-advantage positions and less desirable for graduates. Note, too, the continued rise of big law jobs—up over 1000 placements since the Class of 2013. There had been some speculation during the recession that those jobs might be disappearing and that alternative positions would be needed for future classes, but this seems to be the healthiest market to date. Law firm mergers and accelerating growth at large law firms seem to defy some previous expectations that this market would be in decline.

There are also some interesting year-over-year trends:

FTLT Class of 2018 Class of 2019 Net Delta
Solo 313 236 -77 -24.6%
2-10 4,999 4,761 -238 -4.8%
11-25 1,689 1,769 80 4.7%
26-50 1,020 1,075 55 5.4%
51-100 821 864 43 5.2%
101-205 1,002 1,059 57 5.7%
251-500 949 1,044 95 10.0%
501+ 4,749 4,976 227 4.8%
Business/Industry 3,085 2,801 -284 -9.2%
Government 3,860 3,656 -204 -5.3%
Public Interest 1,504 2,146 642 42.7%
Federal Clerk 1,174 1,197 23 2.0%
State Clerk 2,075 2,135 60 2.9%
Academia/Education 302 296 -6 -2.0%

Year-over-year growth shows healthy and consistent growth across most law firm categories, except for a continued steep decline in sole practitioners and some decline in the smallest firms.

But check out public interest placement, up over 40% year-over-year. This is a cohort of students who matriculated in the Fall of 2016, but it’s clear that there’s both an uptick in interest and an uptick in available funds for placement as of this spring.

The 2020 Nevada bar exam looks to an old exam format with a new twist

Nevada has announced it will offer an online bar exam this year. Like other states grappling with bar exam changes, there remain questions I have—security, a new format for test-takers, and fixing the appropriate pass rates. (For what it’s worth, Nevada has consulted with Roger Bolus, who regularly helps state bars think about licensing and cut scores, so that offers promise.)

Karen Sloan reports it as the “first-ever” open book bar exam. Open-book helps some (but not all!) of the security concerns. And the state board of bar examiners praised the open-book format as consistent with what “lawyers do,” looking up applicable law and answering problems.

Really, it’s a new twist on the “Performance Test” component of the bar exam. Such a test gives students a “closed universe” set of facts and law. Examinees answer questions based on these facts. Instead of rote memorization, the test more closely imitates what lawyers do. The new twist? Treat it like an open-book exam.

Most states have a part of their bar exam that looks like the Performance Test—indeed, the Multistate Performance Test is one the National Conference of Bar Examiners offers. But many states have trimmed back its use, and it’s certainly never replaced the bar exam. Why?

A nice piece by Stephen Klein in the Bar Examiner in 1996 summarizes some of these discussion around the Performance Test. Applicants like the test more. Recent lawyers who take the test perform well on it, unlike other components of the bar exam (where rote memorization has faded).

But, the correlation between the Performance Test, other essays, and the multiple choice MBE is high. True, the Performance Test is not extremely highly correlated with those other components. It’s more highly correlated with essays than the MBE. But the correlation between the MBE and essays is also not perfect. In short, all three are related, but they do appear to test different kinds of skills. For all three types of exams, “cross-cutting abilities” like “legal reasoning” appear to drive overall performance.

The Performance Test costs more to administer (like essays), because it requires more labor-intensive grading. It’s tougher to scale without the MBE component as a reference point for more consistent results.

Women tend to perform better on the essay and Performance Test components, so we might expect an essay-only exam to result in a different kind of outcome between men and women than tests that include both a multiple-choice component and an essay component. (There’s no material difference for race or ethnicity.)

So, why haven’t state bars moved toward the Performance Test? Obviously, cost, inertia, and the NCBE’s UBE format are some reasons today, but those can’t entirely explain it.

Instead, I suspect it’s two major reasons. First, state bar licensing authorities remain stuck to the notion that new lawyers need to "know” a number of content areas of the law. The New York State Bar Association, for instance, has pushed this point significantly in what would be a major roll-back to recent bar licensing portability. There’s an expectation that all lawyers simply need to know certain stuff. Memorization is a way to ensure they know it, even if it’s fleeting. And specific content areas being tested force applicants to learn that stuff.

I don’t know that really works the way licensing authorities intend. There’s little evidence that specific substantive law school courses translate into particular bar exam success. Applicants forget much of the memorization shortly after the exam. Many will never practice in most of the areas tested.

Second, if the Performance Test is already highly correlated to the memorization-intensive components of the bar exam, then what value is it really adding? We know that there’s a relationship between low bar exam scores and elevated ultimate attorney discipline rates. Whether that score comes through multiple choice, essays, a two-day exam, a three-day exam, and so on seems marginal. A lower-cost exam that’s more reliable with easier scaling of scores has been attractive to bar licensing authorities. (And, of course, the inertia with the NCBE.)

All this is to say, I’m a fan of the Performance Test on the whole. If we could have two tests, one that costs slightly more but more closely hews to what lawyers do and requires dramatically less memorization, with the present system, the reform seems like the much better bet.

Nevada’s experiment, I hope, will give some reassurance to other states that they, too, could look to alternative bar exam and bar licensing models. We’ll see how it all shakes out in the months ahead.

Visualizing legal employment outcomes in Florida in 2019

This is the fifth in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2019. Following posts on outcomes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, and Illinois, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of Illinois law schools for the Class of 2019. (More about the methodology is available at the Pennsylvania post.) Last year's Florida post is here.

Florida’s report was quite strong last year but appears to have taken a step back this year. Total bar passage-require jobs dropped, from 1430 in 2018 to 1375 in 2019. J.D.-advantage jobs dropped, too. But there was also a 6% decline in total graduates (largely attributable to Florida Coastal), so the overall placement rate hovered around 74%.

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

Peer Score School 2019 YoY% BPR JDA LSF Grads 2018 BPR JDA LSF Grads
3.3 University of Florida 91.2% 2.8 282 20 0 331 88.4% 258 24 1 320
2.2 Florida International University 88.8% 5.9 119 8 0 143 82.9% 109 12 0 146
3.1 Florida State University 85.9% 0.1 135 11 0 170 85.8% 150 18 1 197
2.2 Stetson University 79.0% -4.3 175 24 0 252 83.3% 168 21 0 227
2.8 University of Miami 78.5% -5.8 225 31 0 326 84.3% 249 36 0 338
1.6 Nova Southeastern University 66.4% 8.8 139 11 0 226 57.5% 109 17 0 219
1.2 Florida Coastal School of Law 65.2% 4.4 37 6 0 66 60.8% 94 19 0 186
1.5 St. Thomas University 63.6% -0.6 102 10 0 176 64.3% 111 6 0 182
1.6 Florida A&M University 53.5% 3.1 52 17 0 129 50.4% 52 14 0 131
1.2 Barry University 52.2% -15.7 83 13 0 184 67.9% 91 38 0 190
1.1 Ave Maria School of Law 48.5% -17.2 26 6 0 66 65.7% 39 7 0 70