LAW GRADUATE OVERPRODUCTION (2011)

[NOTE: Data on Mississippi are probably wrong for reasons stated in this post. The Mississippi Department of Employment Security published its own numbers, but they aren’t much better for reasons discussed here.]

Law Graduate Overproduction by State (2011)

Law Graduate Overproduction by BEA Region (2011)

This page tracks law graduate overproduction as of 2011 by contrasting state government lawyer job creation projections with ABA graduate data from the Law School Admissions Council. Link to the Am Law Daily comparison to the 2009 edition. At the national level, the BLS reports that the economy will create 212,000 lawyer jobs between 2010 and 2020 while the ABA law schools will produce more than 440,000 new law graduates on the very high end, assuming there is no decline in enrollments, which there certainly will be. These data are meant to depict where there are too many law students and should not be confused with applicants per job in various locations. There are a couple limitations to the data:

(1) They necessarily exclude non-ABA law schools because no centralized authorities track them. This is unfortunate because non-ABA law schools account for more than 16 percent of all law schools (I continue to exclude correspondence schools and the JAG school).

(2) Overproduction assumes every graduate works in the state he or she attended law school. This obviously isn’t true. It’s also theoretically possible that some law schools deliberately “underbid” those in other states, i.e. cheaply producing better graduates and exporting them to undercut local law schools. I dismiss this hypothesis as dubious given tuition rates, and ultimately it doesn’t matter. The oversupply problem wouldn’t exist if there were clear attorney shortages to compensate for surplus production in other regions. The following results demonstrate only three states “underproducing” graduates: Alaska, Nevada, and Wyoming, but those three can’t possibly absorb the tens of thousands of excess law graduates produced per year elsewhere.

Here’s a chart of the results, the numbers in parentheses are the number of ABA-accredited law schools operating in 2011. The ABA restored the University of La Verne’s provisional accreditation in 2011 just before its students graduated, so it’s counted too. A “*” denotes a state that has non-ABA-accredited law schools. As always D.C. and Puerto Rico are counted as states for the purposes of this analysis.

#	STATE/REGION	AVERAGE ANNUAL JOB OPENINGS	ABA GRADS (2011)	ANNUAL SURPLUS	GRADS PER OPENING
1	Mississippi (2)	30	316	286	10.53
2	Puerto Rico (3)*	100	678	578	6.78
3	Michigan (5)	320	2,072	1,752	6.48
4	Delaware (1)	60	252	192	4.20
5	Nebraska (2)	70	283	213	4.04
6	Vermont (1)	50	175	125	3.50
7	Massachusetts (7)*	700	2,288	1,588	3.27
8	Indiana (4)	270	818	548	3.03
9	Oregon (3)	180	537	357	2.98
10	Louisiana (4)	270	797	527	2.95
11	New York (15)	1,610	4,703	3,093	2.92
12	Minnesota (4)	320	887	567	2.77
13	Connecticut (3)	190	526	336	2.77
14	Rhode Island (1)	60	158	98	2.63
15	Iowa (2)	130	342	212	2.63
16	Ohio (9)	550	1,411	861	2.57
17	New Hampshire (1)	60	147	87	2.45
18	North Carolina (7)	460	1,123	663	2.44
19	Kentucky (3)	190	455	265	2.39
20	Pennsylvania (8)	740	1,739	999	2.35
21	Illinois (9)	970	2,183	1,213	2.25
22	Kansas (2)	140	309	169	2.21
23	South Carolina (2)	200	418	218	2.09
24	Arkansas (2)	130	269	139	2.07
25	North Dakota (1)	40	81	41	2.03
26	Missouri (4)	440	890	450	2.02
27	California (21)*	2,490	4,964	2,474	1.99
28	Wisconsin (2)	250	484	234	1.94
29	Virginia (8)	760	1,350	590	1.78
30	Alabama (3)*	240	416	176	1.73
31	Oklahoma (3)	270	462	192	1.71
32	Hawaii (1)	60	101	41	1.68
33	West Virginia (1)	80	125	45	1.56
34	Florida (11)*	1,960	2,998	1,038	1.53
35	New Mexico (1)	70	106	36	1.51
36	Idaho (1)	70	104	34	1.49
37	Maryland (2)	400	594	194	1.49
38	District of Columbia (6)	1,430	2,116	686	1.48
39	Texas (9)	1,630	2,343	713	1.44
40	Washington (3)	460	657	197	1.43
41	South Dakota (1)	40	55	15	1.38
42	Colorado (2)	340	462	122	1.36
43	Utah (2)	210	285	75	1.36
44	Georgia (5)	690	896	206	1.30
45	Maine (1)	70	90	20	1.29
46	Montana (1)	70	84	14	1.20
47	Arizona (3)	450	490	40	1.09
48	New Jersey (3)	750	783	33	1.04
49	Nevada (1)	130	128	-2	0.98
50	Wyoming (1)	80	73	-7	0.91
51	Alaska (0)	20	0	-20	0.00
N/A	Tennessee (3)*	N/A	472	N/A	N/A
U.S.A. (States) (200)		21,300	44,495	23,195	2.09
U.S.A. (BLS)		21,200	44,495	23,295	2.10
New England (14)		1,130	3,384	2,254	2.99
Mideast (35)		4,990	10,187	5,197	2.04
Great Lakes (29)		2,360	6,968	4,608	2.95
Plains (16)		1,180	2,847	1,667	2.41
Southeast (51)		5,010	9,635	4,153	1.92
Southwest (16)		2,420	3,401	981	1.41
Rocky Mountains (7)		770	1,008	238	1.31
Far West (29)		3,340	6,387	3,047	1.91

The median state ratio of graduates to job openings is 2.02, the mean 2.37, and the average deviation 1.03. Only Georgia, Maine, Montana, Arizona, New Jersey, Nevada, Wyoming, and of course Alaska are below the first average deviation; Delaware is in the second average deviation above the average; Michigan is in the third; and Puerto Rico and Mississippi are way out there.

For an appendix, here’s a table of the states by employed lawyers, growth rates, net jobs between 2010 and 2020, and the average annual job openings.

STATE/REGION	EMPLOYED LAWYERS (2010)	PROJECTED LAWYER EMPLOYMENT (2020)	GROWTH RATE	NET JOBS	AVERAGE ANNUAL JOB OPENINGS
Alabama	7,347	8,390	14.2%	104	240
Alaska	993	1,048	5.5%	6	20
Arizona	11,643	13,911	19.5%	227	450
Arkansas	4,546	5,028	10.6%	48	130
California	86,700	95,100	9.7%	840	2,490
Colorado	14,158	14,897	5.2%	74	340
Connecticut	9,208	9,396	2.0%	19	190
Delaware	3,037	3,058	0.7%	2	60
District of Columbia	41,669	48,041	15.3%	637	1,430
Florida	54,091	63,384	17.2%	929	1,960
Georgia	18,295	21,731	18.8%	344	690
Hawaii	2,261	2,404	6.3%	14	60
Idaho	2,621	2,812	7.3%	19	70
Illinois	32,868	36,334	10.5%	347	970
Indiana	9,249	10,191	10.2%	94	270
Iowa	4,467	4,952	10.9%	49	130
Kansas	5,059	5,528	9.3%	47	140
Kentucky	6,860	7,460	8.7%	60	190
Louisiana	9,301	10,249	10.2%	95	270
Maine	2,811	3,007	7.0%	20	70
Maryland	13,988	15,350	9.7%	136	400
Massachusetts	21,114	24,093	14.1%	298	700
Michigan	14,790	15,180	2.6%	39	320
Minnesota	12,058	12,935	7.3%	88	320
Mississippi	3,770	4,109	9.0%	34	30
Missouri	12,434	14,441	16.1%	201	440
Montana	2,550	2,717	6.5%	17	70
Nebraska	3,254	3,366	3.4%	11	70
Nevada	5,428	5,707	5.1%	28	130
New Hampshire	2,439	2,571	5.4%	13	60
New Jersey	26,165	28,688	9.6%	252	750
New Mexico	3,019	3,116	3.2%	10	70
New York	66,695	70,079	5.1%	338	1,610
North Carolina	13,653	15,630	14.5%	198	460
North Dakota	1,316	1,447	10.0%	13	40
Ohio	20,198	21,817	8.0%	162	550
Oklahoma	8,866	9,883	11.5%	102	270
Oregon	5,049	5,800	14.9%	75	180
Pennsylvania	27,953	30,067	7.6%	211	740
Puerto Rico	3,949	4,178	5.8%	23	100
Rhode Island	2,401	2,517	4.8%	12	60
South Carolina	6,703	7,371	10.0%	67	200
South Dakota	1,520	1,611	6.0%	9	40
Tennessee	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Texas	44,329	52,215	17.8%	789	1,630
Utah	5,398	6,456	19.6%	106	210
Vermont	1,997	2,111	5.7%	11	50
Virginia	19,391	23,275	20.0%	388	760
Washington	14,231	16,003	12.5%	177	460
West Virginia	3,062	3,258	6.4%	20	80
Wisconsin	9,709	10,403	7.1%	69	250
Wyoming	757	864	14.1%	11	80
U.S.A. (States)	705,370	783,315	11.2%	7,881	21,300
U.S.A. (BLS)	728,200	801,800	10.1%	7,360	21,200
New England	39,970	43,695	9.3%	373	1,130
Mideast	179,507	195,283	8.8%	1,578	4,990
Great Lakes	86,814	93,925	8.2%	711	2,360
Plains	40,108	44,280	10.4%	417	1,180
Southeast	147,019	169,885	15.6%	2,287	5,010
Southwest	67,857	79,125	16.6%	1,127	2,420
Rocky Mountains	25,484	27,746	8.9%	226	770
Far West	114,662	126,062	9.9%	1,140	3,340