Job Searches, Law Schools

Law Grads Feel 'Practice Ready,' Employers Seem To Disagree

A new survey reveals perverse incentives for law schools.

By  
on

A well executed survey can expose the deep hypocrisy of a group’s world view, especially when that group is law students. My all-time favorite example of this was the Kaplan survey that illustrated how law students thought that their classmates were making a horrible decision to go to law school, while they themselves were making a very wise choice.

That survey looked at people’s views on the way in. Today we’ve got a survey that looks at what people think about their law school experience on the way out. In general, they really liked their law school experience… except for when it came time to get a job…

We’ve talked before about how “practice ready” curriculum is a red herring. Students say they want practical training, because they think it will help them get jobs. Employers say they want “practice ready” graduates, but they don’t hire such people. They hire the people who post the best grades at the best schools, just like they’ve always done.

Law schools, desperate for any way to convince students to matriculate, have trumped up their clinical and experiential offerings. But they haven’t done the one thing that could really help students navigate the ridiculously tough legal job market: amped up Career Services to the point where those offices are job hunting ninjas.

All of that sadness and inconsistency is captured in this Kaplan survey:

According to a Kaplan Bar Review survey* of over 1,200 law school graduates from the class of 2014, a strong majority of tomorrow’s attorneys give their alma maters strong marks overall…

* On making them “practice-ready” for the workforce: Graduates also rated their former law schools highly in this category. 25% gave their schools an “A”, while 40% gave them a “B”. A “C” was given by 21%, while 9% assigned a “D” and 4% an “F”.

* On helping them find jobs in the law industry: Of the categories surveyed, this was the only one to receive a double-digit percentage of “F”s: 15% of students flunked their law schools, while 17% gave their schools a “D”. Twenty-eight percent gave their schools a “C” grade; 27% gave it a “B”. Only 13% felt their schools merited an “A”. According to the American Bar Association, 57% of graduates from the class of 2013 were employed in long-term, full-time positions where passing the bar is required – slightly up from the class of 2012 – though that percentage varies widely by law school.

Sponsored

I mean… HOW THE F**K DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE PRACTICE READY IF YOU CAN’T GET A JOB? Jesus Christ people. Put the Kool-Aid down.

It’s stuff like this that gives law schools perverse incentives to focus on things that don’t help law students get jobs. According to the survey, 40% of kids gave their law school an “A” overall, and 52% gave their professors an A. But only 13% gave career services an A. Overall, 60% of respondents gave Career Services a C or lower, while 85% gave their overall law school a B or higher. WHAT THE F**K??? Can you not take a freaking SURVEY without exposing a rank inability to think ahead?

You know what law deans think when they see stats like this? They think “Well, let’s continue to screw over career services. Having that office be a pile of excrement does not impact how graduates feel about our law school.”

At some level, law students are getting the kinds of law schools they deserve. If you go to law schools based on rankings, based on “professorial quality,” or based on how nice their campus looks, then you are gong to get law schools that are obsessed with rankings, snagging the highest paid professors, and funding capital projects.

This is the world that law students are choosing. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for law deans to tell the students they are wrong.

Sponsored

Kaplan Survey: Class of 2014 Law School Graduates Give Their Schools Solid Grades in Professor Quality, “Practice Ready” Training and ROI — But Job Placement Gets More “F”s than “A”s [Kaplan]

Earlier: The Hubris of Would-Be Lawyers
The Myth Of The ‘Practice Ready’ Law Graduate

Topics

, ,