Recent data published by the American Bar Association shows that the percentage of 2015 law graduates who have found full-time, long-term employment in bar-passage-required or JD advantage positions has grown modestly in the last year, from around 69 per cent for the Class of 2014 to just over 70 per cent in the last year. However, one commentator has a word of warning for anyone who might interpret the growth, however slight, as cause for optimism. According to Professor Jerry Organ of the University of St Thomas School of Law, the modest growth actually masks a far steeper decline in both the number of students graduating from American law schools and the number of full-time positions available to them. ‘Across these 201 law schools [included in the ABA data] there were 39,817 graduates in the Class of 2015 compared with 43,633 graduates in the Class of 2014, a decline of 3,816 graduates or 8.7 per cent,’ Mr Organ explains. Meanwhile, the actual headcount of graduates in full-time bar-passage-required or JD advantage positions has in fact fallen year-on-year by around 7.2 percent, from 30,076 graduates in the Class of 2014 to just 27,914 graduates in the Class of 2015.

Source: The Wall Street Journal