Job Searches, Law Schools

Top 5 Law Schools If You Want An Actual Legal Job (2016)

Did your law school make the list?

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law grads jobsSo, let’s say you’ve ponied up the six figures to get a law degree and even managed to pass the bar exam. The biggest question still remains — do you have a job? And not like a Starbucks/at least I’m not out on the streets kind of job, but a full-time, long-term job that requires bar passage and is not funded by your law school.

Those are the most coveted of jobs, especially within the 10 months after graduation, and the American Bar Association tracks those stats (and they get factored heavily in rankings). So, which law schools are the most likely to get you to the land of the gainfully employed (in legal jobs)?

Without further ado, the top 5:

1. University of Chicago Law School (~93% of 2016 grads with full-time, long-term jobs, bar passage required and not funded by law school)
2. Duke Law School (92%)
2. Columbia Law School (92%)
4. University of Michigan Law School (91%)
5. Cornell Law School (90%)

[UPDATE (2:51 p.m.): An earlier version of this article was based on an incorrect calculation of the top 5.]

Overall the percentage of law grads with full-time, long-term jobs that require bar passage and aren’t funded by law schools increased to 61.8 percent for the class of 2016, up from 59.2 percent for the class of 2015. But math is a bitch, and turns out that stat is not actually good news. As explained by Law.com:

Yet the actual number of those jobs fell by more than 4 percent—a decline of more than 1,000 from the previous year. The only reason the employment rate increased was because there were 2,860 fewer 2016 graduates on the job market. This marks the third straight year that the declining number of law graduates propped up the employment rate when the number of law jobs actually declined.

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So why is the total number of jobs going down? There are lots of theories. University of St. Thomas School of Law professor Jerome Organ says declining bar passage rates play a role:

Part of the continuing decline in the number of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions is attributable to the decline in the number and percentage of graduates passing the July bar exam.

And there are changes going on in the legal workforce that are impacting the jobs available for new grads, according to Pepperdine University School of Law professor Derek Muller:

It may be that we’re seeing fewer people exit the legal working force, either because they’re postponing retirement or some other reason. Some firms may be transferring legal services they used to give to entry-level attorneys to nonattorneys. Some might simply be doing the same with less.

All of which means law school grads with these sought-after jobs are still pretty lucky.

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These Law Schools Aced the 2016 Job Market [Law.com]

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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