Pandemic, lockdowns, delayed bar exams—there were many challenges facing the Class of 2020, whose graduations were moved online and whose job opportunities became all the more perilous. The trends were slightly negative, which is maybe impressive given those challenges. Below are figures for the ABA-disclosed data (excluding Puerto Rico’s three law schools). These are ten-month figures from March 15, 2021 for the Class of 2020.

The placement is still quite good. There was a decline in just 400 bar passage-required jobs year-over year, and the graduating class size increased for the first time in several years. Those yielded a drop to 70.8%—still better than the Class of 2018. But there continues a notable decline in J.D. advantage jobs, which have dropped nearly in half in 6 years, to 2514.

We can see some of the year-over-year categories, too.

Last year’s sharp uptick in public interest placement was not an outlier. Public interest job placement is up over 50% in two years. Last year’s eye-popping number rose further. It is likely not an understatement to say that law students are increasingly oriented toward public interest, and that there are ample funding opportunities in public interest work to sustain these graduates.

Additionally, extremely large law firm placement continues to boom. Placement is up more than 1000 graduates in the last several years, breaking 5000.

Despite a bevy of new federal judges confirmed to the bench, federal clerkship placement slid, a suggestion, perhaps, that federal judges continue to look toward clerks with experience. The drop in state clerkship and government clerkship placements might be related to the pandemic, but we’ll see if those rebound next year.