Law School Rankings May Include Greater Emphasis on Job Results

There's a  great deal of buzz about including additional recent graduate salary and employment information in law school rankings.  You may have seen the web site,  Law School Transparency, which states the following mission on its site:

"Law School Transparency's goal is to help inform prospective law students about the value of a law degree by providing open access to ABA-approved law school employment information.....We aim to help prospective law students sort through employment information to understand some aspects of beginning a career post-graduation. We have also begun an initiative to collaborate with law school administrators and the ABA in the creation of a new reporting standard."

In July, Law School Transparency asked all ABA-Accredited law schools for their recent graduate employment data.  So far, LST reports that 11 law schools responded to their request, most acknowledging the need to offer accurate information to prospective law students.  This week, Ave Maria Law School agreed to provide the stats LST is requesting.  Some Law Schools say they are waiting to make a decision about whether they will provide the information.  The excerpt LST published of the response received from Northwestern Law School provided this most enlightening insight about Forbes' plans to compile and provide such data in the form of a new law school ranking system:

"Forbes recently conducted a survey of law school alumni which asks for similar types of information. Forbes intends to use the survey results to create a new ranking of law schools based on these employment-related outcomes. We were happy to participate and assist them in this endeavor."

This isn't the first recent reference to a possible new ranking system.  The ABA Journal notes several sources have hinted during the past month that Forbes is making such plans.   Much of the attention to this effort came to light when an unemployed 2009 law school graduate went on a 24-day hunger strike in an effort to prompt law schools to hand over job information. The strike ended when she received no replies from the schools.

Law School Transparency sites deficiencies in current employment reporting standards used by the ABA and U.S. News & World Report.   "These standards aggregate employment outcomes, overemphasize certain portions of the class, and make it difficult to answer meaningful questions about employment prospects."  The project goes on to say it requests all of the same information schools currently provide to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) plus two additional bits of information: the source of the salary information and journal status.

In the meantime, interested prospective law students can find a wealth of recent law school graduate salary and placement information on NALP's web site, including:

Market for Law Graduates Changes with Recession: Class of 2009 Faced New Challenges (July 22, 2010 Press Release)

Employment for the Class of 2009 - Selected Findings (PDF)

Salary Distribution Curve for the Class of 2009 Shows Relatively Few Salaries Were Close to the Mean

Information about the class of 2010 is not yet available on NALP's Recent Graduates/Research and Statistics page.

The Lexis Hub has submitted an information request to Forbes in order to determine whether a new ranking system with greater graduate salary and employment detail is in the works.  We will keep you posted on that when more information is available.

Sources:

National Association for Law Placement (NALP)

ABA Journal

Law School Transparency