KEYTLaw's Law Blog

ABA Journal:  “New statistics from NALP paint a bleak picture of the job market for 2011 law grads.

The overall employment rate nine months after graduation was 85.6 percent, the lowest it has been since 1994, according to a NALP – The Association for Legal Career Professionals press release. But the [...]

ABA Journal:  “Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law isn’t the first to consider helping new graduates hard-hit by the dismal legal economy establish their own law firms.

But it’s hoping to do so in a bigger way than others than other law schools have previously done.

Salon:  “Approximately half of the 45,000 people who will graduate this year from ABA-accredited law schools will never find jobs as lawyers. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that over the next decade 21,000 new jobs for lawyers will become available each year, via growth and outflow from the profession.)  Most of those [...]

ABA Journal:  Law School Transparency has resived its estimates of the total cost of financing a legal education.  The group’s new numbers show that the cost of paying full, out of state tuition prices are even higher than originally estimated. 

Previously, Law School Transparency had estimated that the average cost of [...]

OpenMarket.org:  “Federal financial aid policies have encouraged law students to borrow increasing amounts to attend law school, despite the glut of lawyers (oddly, government policies encourage more people to go to law school, driving up law school tuition, even as the Obama administration seeks to cut back on vocational education aimed at training [...]

The American Interest:  “Spring is here, which means that it’s acceptance letter season around many American kitchen tables this time of year. And because many graduate as well as undergrad schools send out acceptances around this time of year, both high school and college students will be checking the mail to see whether [...]

ABA Journal:  A state court judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by nine New York Law School graduates against their alma mater.

Although the plaintiffs contend they were somehow misled by published NYLS employment data into believing that their post-graduation job prospects were better than they are, Manhattan Supreme Court [...]

Lawyerist.com: Bloomberg Law interviews solo David Anziska, who has filed 14 class actions against law schools for misstating employment numbers.

Watch the video about the lawsuits against law schools.

ABA Journal:  Law grads who can’t find a job may want to try expanding their horizons, according to the publication that ranks law schools.

There are success stories outside of law practice, says the U.S. News & World Report’s Law Admissions Lowdown. The blog lists five alternative careers for grads that [...]

National Law Journal:  “Judge José Cabranes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit offered a three-part remedy for what ails the U.S. legal academy before a packed ballroom of legal educators who gathers in Washington for the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting.  Cabranes, like others before him, noted [...]

ABA Journal:  “In 2010, 85 percent of law graduates from ABA-accredited schools boasted an average debt load of $98,500, according to data collected from law schools by U.S. News & World Report. At 29 schools, that amount exceeded $120,000. In contrast, only 68 percent of those grads reported employment in positions that require [...]

ABA Journal:  Legal academics like to think their students are studying the law because they want to advance justice, right wrongs and serve the underprivileged. But most students are motivated at least partly—and often substantially—by the lure of money, according to a law dean who decided to evaluate whether law school makes economic sense.

In [...]

ABA Journal:  Yale law professors Akhil Reed Amar and Ian Ayres are citing the example of an Internet shoe-selling company in an essay suggesting ways to discourage would-be law students who are unlikely to succeed after graduation.

Zappos offers $3,000 to new employees at the end of a four-week training course [...]

ABA Journal:  Lawmakers who are gathering a “treasure trove” of data about law schools could use the information in congressional hearings, according to a published report.

According to the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.), an unnamed congressional staffer says senators are “strongly considering” hearings. “Congressional hearings, were they to happen, wouldn’t [...]

ABA Journal:  The University of Illinois acknowledged Monday that its law school reported and/or published inaccurate admissions data in six of the last 10 years.

The university, in a prepared statement (PDF), said it had determined that Paul Pless, the law school’s former assistant dean for admissions and financial aid, who [...]