So I was all set to write up the class of 2017 employment report two weekends ago, but I went out of town twice, so that distracted me from my very important blogging duties. To make up for that I’m redoing my annual employment report by foregrounding the actual important information and editorials and then following up with the employed-bar-passage-required full-time, long-term ranking of shame.
To begin with, here’s the table of graduate underemployment. (Everything on this post excludes the three Puerto Rico law schools.)
| STATUS (EXCL. P.R.) | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unemployed – Not Seeking | 1,245 | 1,014 | 939 | 795 | 553 | 494 | 469 | 441 |
| Unemployed – Seeking | 2,686 | 4,016 | 4,770 | 5,060 | 4,103 | 3,744 | 3,142 | 2,614 |
| Status Unknown | 1,458 | 1,453 | 1,073 | 979 | 841 | 766 | 557 | 437 |
| Total Grads | 43,526 | 43,735 | 45,757 | 46,112 | 43,195 | 39,423 | 36,619 | 34,392 |
| Unemployed – Not Seeking | 2.9% | 2.3% | 2.1% | 1.7% | 1.3% | 1.3% | 1.3% | 1.3% |
| Unemployed – Seeking | 6.2% | 9.2% | 10.4% | 11.0% | 9.5% | 9.5% | 8.6% | 7.6% |
| Status Unknown | 3.3% | 3.3% | 2.3% | 2.1% | 1.9% | 1.9% | 1.5% | 1.3% |
| Total Percent | 12.4% | 14.8% | 14.8% | 14.8% | 12.7% | 12.7% | 11.4% | 10.2% |
For ’17, the underemployment rate (“Total Percent” in the table) fell by yet another percentage point, almost all of which appeared in the Unemployed – Seeking category. This is good news. 10.2 percent is still a terrible rate, to say nothing of the 7.6 percent seeking work, but progress is progress.
On the reverse side, 67.1 percent of graduates found full-time long-term work in bar-passage-required jobs. Last year, that figure was 62.5 percent, so this is quite the jump. In three years, the percentage has risen by 10 points, which is quite notable, except that the absolute number of students finding these jobs has been roughly the same each year. Reducing students at unheralded law schools reduces poor outcomes.
So what differed this year? Let’s take a look at the analytic tables that compare this year to last year.
| EMPLOYMENT STATUS | NO. OF GRADS | GRADS PCT. OF TOTAL | PCT. CHANGE IN GRADS | DISTRIBUTION OF CHANGE IN GRADS | GINI COEFFICIENT | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 | 2016 | 2017 | |
| Employed – Bar Passage Required | 23,833 | 23,939 | 65.1% | 69.6% | 0.4% | -4.8% | 0.34 | 0.34 |
| Employed – JD Advantage | 5,162 | 4,021 | 14.1% | 11.7% | -22.1% | 51.2% | 0.36 | 0.38 |
| Employed – Professional Position | 1,390 | 1,091 | 3.8% | 3.2% | -21.5% | 13.4% | 0.54 | 0.54 |
| Employed – Non-Professional Position | 435 | 401 | 1.2% | 1.2% | -7.8% | 1.5% | 0.54 | 0.55 |
| Employed – Law School | 757 | 605 | 2.1% | 1.8% | -20.1% | 6.8% | 0.80 | 0.79 |
| Employed – Undeterminable | 21 | 23 | 0.1% | 0.1% | 9.5% | -0.1% | 0.95 | 0.92 |
| Employed – Pursuing Graduate Degree | 600 | 535 | 1.6% | 1.6% | -10.8% | 2.9% | 0.50 | 0.52 |
| Unemployed – Start Date Deferred | 253 | 285 | 0.7% | 0.8% | 12.6% | -1.4% | 0.64 | 0.59 |
| Unemployed – Not Seeking | 469 | 441 | 1.3% | 1.3% | -6.0% | 1.3% | 0.57 | 0.52 |
| Unemployed – Seeking | 3,142 | 2,614 | 8.6% | 7.6% | -16.8% | 23.7% | 0.46 | 0.43 |
| Employment Status Unknown | 557 | 437 | 1.5% | 1.3% | -21.5% | 5.4% | 0.67 | 0.66 |
| Total Graduates | 36,619 | 34,392 | 100.0% | 100.0% | -6.1% | 100.0% | 0.29 | 0.29 |
| EMPLOYMENT TYPE | NO. OF GRADS | GRADS PCT. OF TOTAL | PCT. CHANGE IN GRADS | DISTRIBUTION OF CHANGE IN GRADS | GINI COEFFICIENT | |||
| 2016 | 2017 | 2016 | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 | 2016 | 2017 | |
| Solo | 508 | 439 | 1.4% | 1.3% | -13.6% | 3.1% | 0.61 | 0.58 |
| 2-10 | 6,269 | 5,773 | 17.1% | 16.8% | -7.9% | 22.3% | 0.35 | 0.33 |
| 11-25 | 1,739 | 1,695 | 4.7% | 4.9% | -2.5% | 2.0% | 0.41 | 0.42 |
| 26-50 | 942 | 998 | 2.6% | 2.9% | 5.9% | -2.5% | 0.43 | 0.45 |
| 51-100 | 797 | 800 | 2.2% | 2.3% | 0.4% | -0.1% | 0.48 | 0.48 |
| 101-250 | 958 | 977 | 2.6% | 2.8% | 2.0% | -0.9% | 0.51 | 0.51 |
| 251-500 | 1,008 | 1,003 | 2.8% | 2.9% | -0.5% | 0.2% | 0.68 | 0.64 |
| 501-PLUS | 4,243 | 4,611 | 11.6% | 13.4% | 8.7% | -16.5% | 0.78 | 0.77 |
| Unknown | 228 | 96 | 0.6% | 0.3% | -57.9% | 5.9% | 0.91 | 0.85 |
| Business Industry | 4,930 | 4,142 | 13.5% | 12.0% | -16.0% | 35.4% | 0.36 | 0.36 |
| Government | 4,402 | 4,133 | 12.0% | 12.0% | -6.1% | 12.1% | 0.32 | 0.32 |
| Public Interest | 1,638 | 1,617 | 4.5% | 4.7% | -1.3% | 0.9% | 0.47 | 0.48 |
| Federal Clerkship | 1,197 | 1,170 | 3.3% | 3.4% | -2.3% | 1.2% | 0.72 | 0.69 |
| State/Local Clerkship | 2,091 | 2,050 | 5.7% | 6.0% | -2.0% | 1.8% | 0.58 | 0.58 |
| Other Clerkship | 20 | 24 | 0.1% | 0.1% | 20.0% | -0.2% | 0.93 | 0.93 |
| Education | 583 | 483 | 1.6% | 1.4% | -17.2% | 4.5% | 0.49 | 0.48 |
| Unknown Employer Type | 45 | 67 | 0.1% | 0.2% | 48.9% | -1.0% | 0.94 | 0.91 |
| Total Employed by Type | 31,598 | 30,078 | 86.3% | 87.5% | -4.8% | 68.3% | 0.30 | 0.31 |
For ’17, there were 2,227 fewer graduates than in 2016, a decline of 6.1 percent. Three employment statuses accounted for nearly 90 percent of the difference between the two classes: Employed JD Advantage (51.2%) (!), Unemployed – Seeking (23.7%), and Employed – Professional Position (13.4%). This pretty much tells you what you need to know about this year’s employment report.
Changes among the employment types accounted for 68.3 percent of the 2,227 graduates. The four largest drivers were business-and-industry jobs (35.4%), 2-10-lawyer practices (22.3%), government jobs (12.1%), education positions (4.5%), and solo practices (3.1%). Notably, jobs at 501-plus-lawyer firms grew by 368 people, so it pushed back against the graduate decline (-16.5%). Biglaw’s gains are consistent with last year’s trends, as is the decline in small-law jobs.
I won’t discuss the Gini coefficients as I did last year. The most desirable jobs are still distributed worse than wealth in a kleptocracy.
Editorial: This year’s employment report showcased many of the similar trends from last year: Good outcomes substituting for worse ones. It differs in that JD advantage jobs took a big hit while bar-passage-required jobs grew slightly. What’s interesting here is that overall, law-firm jobs fell nonetheless. Somewhere in the employment type outcomes are compositional changes where grads found law jobs and not JD advantage jobs. I sure hope none of that is accounting shenanigans by law schools.
Finally, I’m happy that the ABA has not implemented its decision to change how it collects and displays employment data. Readers will note that I did not repeat the mistakes regarding law-school-funded jobs that I made last year, and yes, I recognize that perhaps I don’t find much use for short-term or part-time job categories. Nevertheless, the purposes of careful data collection are usefulness, detail, transparency, and consistency—not what’s convenient for law-school employees.
That’s all for now.
Similar editions of this post from prior years can be found here:
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