Month: May 2016

Change in Graduate Outcomes Driven by Small Jobs

My second cut at the class of 2015 employment data:

Comparing the law-school classes of 2015 to 2014 (and excluding our three Puerto Rico law schools), there were 3,772 fewer graduates, a decline of 8.7 percent. Four employment categories constituted nearly 90 percent to this change: bar-passage-required jobs (52%), JD-advantage jobs (13.1%), law-school-funded jobs (14.3%), and unemployed grads seeking jobs (9.5%).

Changes among the employment types accounted for 85 percent of the 3,772 fewer graduates. The four largest drivers were 2-10-lawyer practices (25.9%), business-and-industry jobs (23.6%), government jobs (11.6%), and public interest jobs (7.5%).

Finally, I looked at the distribution of graduates among the employment categories and statuses by their Gini coefficients. Some of these are more informative than others given the small number of grads that fit into some of them, e.g. the two dozen employed – undeterminable grads. There’s nothing unexpected here. Aside from solos and unknowns, outcome inequality at law firms increases with firms’ sizes. Federal clerkships are still doled out like income in a landlocked, kleptocratic, military dictatorship. Public interest jobs aren’t so easy to come by either, which casts some doubt on the willingness of grads to take them given their student loan burdens.

In all, I’m surprised so little of the decline is attributable to fewer unemployed grads. Instead, it appears that small-law and non-law jobs took much more of the hit. The change in how law-school-funded jobs are tallied distorts these results somewhat, and I look forward to years in which the employment criteria remain constant. At least the categories and statuses (mostly) added up correctly.

Here’s an analytic table I base these opinions on.

EMPLOYMENT CATEGORY NO. OF GRADS GRADS PCT. OF TOTAL PCT. CHANGE IN GRADS DISTRIBUTION OF CHANGE IN GRADS GINI COEFFICIENT
2014 2015 2014 2015 2015 2015 2014 2015
Employed – Bar Passage Required 26,794 24,832 62.0% 63.0% -7.3% 52.0% 0.30 0.32
Employed – JD Advantage 5,913 5,420 13.7% 13.7% -8.3% 13.1% 0.36 0.37
Employed – Professional Position 1,787 1,634 4.1% 4.1% -8.6% 4.1% 0.49 0.53
Employed – Non-Professional Position 600 537 1.4% 1.4% -10.5% 1.7% 0.57 0.54
Employed – Law School 1,577 1,037 3.7% 2.6% -34.2% 14.3% 0.73 0.79
Employed – Undeterminable 21 25 0.0% 0.1% 19.0% -0.1% 0.93 0.94
Employed – Pursuing Graduate Degree 693 649 1.6% 1.6% -6.3% 1.2% 0.44 0.50
Unemployed – Start Date Deferred 313 285 0.7% 0.7% -8.9% 0.7% 0.64 0.63
Unemployed – Not Seeking 553 494 1.3% 1.3% -10.7% 1.6% 0.54 0.57
Unemployed – Seeking 4,103 3,744 9.5% 9.5% -8.7% 9.5% 0.43 0.47
Employment Status Unknown 841 766 1.9% 1.9% -8.9% 2.0% 0.67 0.68
Total Graduates 43,195 39,423 100.0% 100.0% -8.7% 100.0% 0.27 0.29
EMPLOYMENT STATUS
Solo 902 653 2.1% 1.7% -27.6% 6.6% 0.51 0.53
2-10 7,657 6,680 17.7% 16.9% -12.8% 25.9% 0.34 0.33
11-25 1,875 1,737 4.3% 4.4% -7.4% 3.7% 0.37 0.39
26-50 1,036 942 2.4% 2.4% -9.1% 2.5% 0.42 0.44
51-100 799 807 1.8% 2.0% 1.0% -0.2% 0.46 0.46
101-250 1,090 952 2.5% 2.4% -12.7% 3.7% 0.50 0.52
251-500 1,082 1,059 2.5% 2.7% -2.1% 0.6% 0.66 0.66
501-PLUS 3,968 4,008 9.2% 10.2% 1.0% -1.1% 0.78 0.77
Unknown 247 254 0.6% 0.6% 2.8% -0.2% 0.80 0.83
Business Industry 6,608 5,718 15.3% 14.5% -13.5% 23.6% 0.35 0.36
Government 5,038 4,602 11.7% 11.7% -8.7% 11.6% 0.32 0.33
Public Interest 2,160 1,878 5.0% 4.8% -13.1% 7.5% 0.50 0.51
Federal Clerkship 1,275 1,222 3.0% 3.1% -4.2% 1.4% 0.67 0.70
State/Local Clerkship 2,056 2,007 4.8% 5.1% -2.4% 1.3% 0.57 0.58
Other Clerkship 37 125 0.1% 0.3% 237.8% -2.3% 0.93 0.86
Education 772 635 1.8% 1.6% -17.7% 3.6% 0.46 0.49
Unknown Employer Type 90 206 0.2% 0.5% 128.9% -3.1% 0.84 0.94
Total Employed by Type 36,692 33,485 84.9% 84.9% -8.7% 85.0% 0.29 0.30

That’s all.