Of the 40,000 students that graduated from US law schools last year only 17,168 have landed jobs in private practice, a new employment survey from the National Association of Law Placements has found. While the overall employment rate for grads has remained relatively steady year-on-year at 86.7 per cent, the number of students scoring jobs in private practice is at its lowest level in 20 years. ‘I was surprised to see that the private practice number was so low,’ commented NALP executive director James Leipold. ‘You have to go back to 1996 to find a comparably small number of private practice jobs.’ While the overall employment rate for US law grads is now 2 per cent higher than in 2012, it is still more than 5 per cent lower than in the pre-recession job market enjoyed by the Class of 2007.

Sources: Wall Street Journal; NALP