For those of you who didn’t [...]]]> I had the pleasure of interviewing Janet Stanton and Bruce MacEwen from JD Match recently. If you’re familiar with Adam Smith, Esq., you’ll know Bruce and Janet and their expertise on the economics of law firms. If you’re not, check out their bios here.

For those of you who didn’t catch the wave of discussion online (e.g.) surrounding the site’s official launch, JD Match is a new entrant in the online recruiting game. It’s a membership service founded in April 2011 to address the flawed system for recruiting law students into law firms. Registration is open to U.S. law schools, law students and firms seeking to hire from law schools. You can learn more about them on Facebook, Twitter, and their website.

FTH: Why create JD Match now? Is there really a demand for it?

JD Match: Yikes! This is one of those global questions. Fundamentally, JD Match addresses what is universally viewed as a chaotic and inefficient law student/law firm recruiting model. Recently, the flaws have been exacerbated as a) the on-campus interviewing process has become increasingly compressed and b) the recent recession caused the train wreck of classes piling into one another.

Even before the train wreck caused by the recession, people have been complaining about the dysfunction in law student recruiting seemingly forever, but not much had actually been done about it.

For example, offers and acceptances are out of synch. The sad result? Too many students could be holding out for their #1 firm to come through with an offer and choose to pass on an offer received from their #4 firm. Of course if firm #1 doesn’t deliver, students could end up with no offers at all.

Similarly, some students may be tempted to hoard offers. While this may be rational for them as individuals, it harms other students that firms don’t extend offers to while the firm is waiting to hear from the hoarder, and it hurts all the firms the hoarder ultimately rejects who could have used that valuable time in pursuit of more realistic students. The increased transparency inherent in JD Match should help obviate these unwelcome and frustrating outcomes.

Further, the increasingly compressed OCI process has unfortunate consequences for students and firms. Even the largest firms are struggling with the need to be present at schools conducting their OCI at exactly the same time. The impact on smaller firms is more severe, as underscored by data coming out of NALP showing reduced participation in OCI among mid-sized firms. Therefore, firms miss out on great candidates and students miss out on promising opportunities. One of JD Match’s features, JD Reach, allows firms to discover qualified candidates, even if firms don’t go to the campuses of those students.

We ourselves had written about the problems inherent in the system on Adam Smith, Esq. as far back as several years ago. But rather than continue to complain from the sidelines, we decided to take the bull by the horns.

Then an interesting thing happened. JD Match may have started as a rational exploration of a broken market but as we delved deeper we came to appreciate the profound human toll exacted by the dysfunction of current recruiting practices which resulted in too many mismatches, forcing young associates back into an already-crowded market. Solving for this further galvanized our sense of purpose.

JD Match’s offer of increased order, transparency and efficiency is meeting a market demand of firms and students, alike.

Your website says JD Match is a more “rational process.” What’s more rational about JD Match? And why should we care?

An underlying premise of ours is that mutual interest between a student and a firm will lead to longer-lasting, more satisfying matches. To that end, the algorithm identifies matches between students and firms where there is the highest degree of mutual interest.

Again due to the algorithm, students know that within the JD Match system, they receive the best and highest match available to them. And, firms know they receive the best available candidates for their open slots. This cuts down on a lot of second-guessing and, yes, angst on both sides. Knowing that you’ve done the best you can, even if less than you wanted, brings a higher degree of certainty and reassurance.

This year’s NALP employment numbers are out, and they show that the class of 2010 had some of the worst employment outcomes of the last 20 years. And, predictions are that the recovery in law land will be slow. In this environment, it seems both logical and prudent for students to pursue all credible options to obtain gainful employment at a firm.

What sort of criteria goes into JD Match’s search algorithm? Is it just data points of the LSAT, GPA, class rank variety? Or does it give weight to other factors, like location, experience, etc.? Or is it something completely different? Also, what are the sorts of “preferences” that firms and students have to select from?

The only “criteria” that go into the algorithm are the preferences of each member student and member firm. The reason is rooted in Econ 101; no one else is in a better position to know what’s good for you than you. For us to include any other factors would, in essence, be making assumptions of what matters to each individual student and firm. As we all know, law students and law firms are a diverse bunch and are not all looking for the same things.

Once firms have identified criteria they’re interested in, be it something as basic as college attended, or as granular as “chess player,” JD Match makes it very easy for firms to find students who match those criteria.

This is also provided via JD Reach which extends the reach of firms to discover students they haven’t met or who may be from schools they may not visit. During recruiting season, JD Match can identify students matching certain particular characteristics each firm individually specifies. For example, firms can search for students in the top 10% of their class at Tier 2 law schools, or for fluent Mandarin speakers. Firms can also use freeform keyword searches of their own devising such as “chess,” “Latin,” or “track and field.” For this reason, we are encouraging students to create a robust profile and represent themselves more accurately to firms, as people; not just class rank and GPA. Students can upload their resume, writing samples, articles, messages to firms, etc., enhancing their chances of being found by firms who are seeking candidates like them.

Similarly, firms have great latitude in what they can include in their profiles, from a simple link to their career services page on their firm’s website, descriptions of their practice areas or distinct advantages, up to and including videos.

After spending significant amounts of money on a law degree, how does a recent graduate or a young lawyer decide whether JD Match is the right investment for them?

Student membership in JD Match is less than $100 per year. This is equivalent to one law school application and less than LSAT fees. This provides students an additional option to find a position at a firm as JD Match does not replace the current practices.

Moreover, the feedback from the algorithm provides real market feedback as to where students more likely fit in the market allowing them to make more realistic choices. Further, JD Match allows more firms to discover more students than before – even from schools the firm didn’t visit. Finally, for students at the end of OCI without an offer, JD Match offers JD Recommends. This is a separate algorithm (yes, we shamelessly stole the phrase from Amazon – “We have recommendations for you.”) that develops a composite profile of students a firm did rank highly and searches for unmatched students who fit that profile and “recommends” them to the firm. It is up to the firm how they choose to use this information.

And, one note of clarification, currently, JD Match is available to current students, only (1Ls/2Ls/3Ls/LLMs). We have plans to include recent grads who don’t yet have a job.

Thank you for that clarification on that last point. I would think that for a student with limited current prospects this would be a sound strategic investment. What advice would you have for a young lawyer just entering the workforce?

1. You have a 40-year career ahead of you; it’s going to be a marathon and not a sprint.
2. The most valuable asset you will ever have is your own human, personal and intellectual capital. Do your utmost to build its value every day. Nobody will do it for you and no one else will be looking out for you the way you can for yourself.
3. You may think the first question you have to answer is whether you want to be a practicing lawyer all your life. That’s the wrong question.
4. The right question, or rather the right way to find out what you ought to do, is to pursue different things until you find the one you’re absolutely passionate about doing. That might be as a lawyer (a litigator! A securities lawyer! A small company startup lawyer!) or it might not be. But if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, work will become a grind and you’ll never be as successful as people who are doing the same thing you are and are passionate about it.
5. You’ll know the answer to #4 when you see it.

—
About Janet Stanton, CEO of JD Match
Janet graduated from Vassar College and entered the business world. She worked in brand management at Johnson & Johnson and went on to notable advertising agencies such as Grey and Benton & Bowles. She spent 16 years at Bates Worldwide, reaching the level of Executive Vice President and was then President of a mid-sized agency near Philadelphia. Janet served as Director of Client Relationships Program at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and joined Adam Smith, Esq. in 2008. She is currently Chair of the Development Committee of Doug Varone and Dancers, an established contemporary dance company. Janet is based in New York.

About Bruce MacEwen, President of JD Match
Bruce received his undergraduate degree from Princeton, magna cum laude in Economics and earned his JD at Stanford Law. He practiced at two distinguished firms in New York, Breed, Abbot & Morgan and Shea & Gould. Following that, Bruce practiced in-house for 10 years at Morgan Stanley/Dean Witter. In 2002, he founded Adam Smith, Esq., LLC which is both a management consultancy to large, sophisticated law firms as well as an online publication. Recent engagements for the consultancy have included developing strategic plans for firms, and advising on the consequences of the “Great Reset” as well as the trend towards increasing segmentation among Global 100 firms. The publication generates 4-million page-views/year and focuses on such topics as strategy, leadership, globalization, M&A, finance, compensation, and cultural considerations. Readership skews to senior management at the largest firms. Bruce is currently a Fellow in the College of Law Practice Management and is based in New York.

The rankings still appear as easy to game as they were last year, and every year prior. And they still make no effort to provide a ranking of value – expected/average earnings over cost or [...]]]> Catholic University law school rose 19 places in this year’s US News rankings to #79. A few thoughts…

The rankings still appear as easy to game as they were last year, and every year prior. And they still make no effort to provide a ranking of value – expected/average earnings over cost or some such calculation. While I’m glad that my law school is moving up the rankings I still think the rankings, as a whole, do a disservice to those who most rely on them – prospective law students. This group continues to get an incomplete picture of what prospects law school really offers and what it really costs. If law school is viewed as a contract — and it is, of a kind — then prospective law students deserve better access to information that will enable them to shape their expectations to what is “reasonable” given the market conditions, the law school’s merits, and the real cost. This is not to say such data isn’t available. It is. My point is simply that it should be as available as the US News rankings.

That said, if we accept the rankings for what they are, this is a big deal for our school. Our school’s news release tries to explain the rise:

An improvement in the law school’s peer assessment among members of the bench and bar, as well as improved median LSAT scores and an increase in the number of members of the Class of 2010 employed at graduation, appeared to favorably affect the 2012 tabulations.

If that’s true, the 1st and 3rd reasons are significant with the 2nd (LSAT scores) being an important criterion for admission. But peer assessment and employment statistics are important because they seem to more directly relate to a graduate’s career prospects and school prestige in the legal community.

In terms of employment the US News ranking comes on the heels of a call from US News for law school deans to improve employment reporting data. For this year, US News explains its change in methodology for this year’s ranking:

In the past, new J.D.s counted as employed at graduation and at nine months out if they were working full or part time in a legal or non-legal job or pursuing additional graduate school education after their J.D.; so did 25 percent of those whose status was “unknown.” Now, both the at graduation and nine months after employment rates are figured solely based on the number of grads working at that point in time full or part time in a legal or non-legal job divided by the total number of J.D. graduates. Also, those who are not seeking employment are now counted in the calculation as part of the total number of J.D. graduates; previously, they were excluded from the size of the graduating class and the calculation. U.S. News believes that this calculation is a more realistic presentation of the employment data that is currently available to U.S. News.

The peer assessment score is explained as follows:

In the fall of 2010, law school deans, deans of academic affairs, chairs of faculty appointments, and the most recently tenured faculty members were asked to rate programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark “don’t know.” A school’s score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of “don’t know” counted neither for nor against a school. About 66 percent of those surveyed responded.

Though it seems that the school’s mention of “bench and bar” would refer to US News’ “Assessment Score by Lawyers/Judges”:

In the fall of 2010, legal professionals, including the hiring partners of law firms, state attorneys general, and selected federal and state judges, were asked to rate programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark “don’t know.” A school’s score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of “don’t know” counted neither for nor against a school.

In the the fall 2010 lawyer and judge survey, U.S. News for the first time surveyed 750 hiring partners and recruiters at law firms who made the 2010 Best Law Firms rankings produced jointly by U.S. News and the publication Best Lawyers. Their ratings are included in the lawyer and judge survey score. About 14 percent of those lawyers and judges surveyed responded. The two most recent years lawyers’ and judges’ surveys were averaged and are weighted by .15.

Interestingly, this assessment by lawyers captures — almost exclusively — the views of only those lawyers that work at large law firms. That’s hardly a useful survey universe.

So, to the extent that the rankings affect the school’s reputation and the employment prospects of graduates, this is good news. And setting aside the problems with the current US News methodology, to the extent that prospective law students must still hunt for some of the more critical pieces of information the rankings — US News or otherwise — are still seriously deficient.

Evidently, he’s “being the change” he wants to see. (What does that even mean anyway? I want my law school to [...]]]> Ethan Haines is on a hunger strike. As the self-appointed spokesman for all law students, he is “disillusioned by law school employment statistics, commercial school rankings, and antiquated career counseling programs.”

Evidently, he’s “being the change” he wants to see. (What does that even mean anyway? I want my law school to do more to get me a job so I’ll starve myself? If law schools are really as negligent and out of touch as Ethan appears to believe, would they really care if he starves himself to death?)

Go get em, Ethan. In the meantime, I’ll eat the food you would have. Seriously. Can you pass that month-old cookie over here?

While I sincerely hope that Ethan’s protest has some impact, I doubt it will.

I’m glad for the attention Ethan’s effort is focusing on the shortcomings of law school career counseling offices. I wonder what more they can do though? The travesty that is employment data reporting and commercial rankings formulations have been well-documented. But the law school career office has not gotten as much attention.

Our career office manages fall recruiting, hosts a job board, schedules mock interviews, runs lectures, maintains an alumni database, helps with resume and writing sample review, publicizes and co-hosts job fairs and networking events. At some point, isn’t up to the graduate students to do some legwork too?

Obviously, it’s not that simple. And in many ways it’s not the career office’s fault that the economy has tanked and they have very little control over the size of their budget. However, when I think of my interactions with our career office, I wonder what value they really add. Herein is what intrigues me about Ethan’s effort.

Despite all the “activity” the career office appears to be engaged in, I have a hard time knowing whether that activity is worth anything, or whether it really can be worth anything. The career office isn’t a placement service or a staffing agency. They help students put themselves in a position to find a good job by providing resources to connect with other alumni and notifying students of open, publicized opportunities. Beyond that, the career office is at the mercy of the law school’s budget (often just an allocation from the University and not a direct correlation to tuition payments) and the quality of students and education the law school produces – neither of which the career office has any control over.

So… there are a few of my thoughts. What do you want your career office to be doing that it’s not already? ]]> http://fightthehypo.com/2010/08/14/good-more-for-me/feed/ 3 http://fightthehypo.com/2010/08/09/the-sense-of-impending-anything/ http://fightthehypo.com/2010/08/09/the-sense-of-impending-anything/#comments Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:04:14 +0000 Casebook Sherpa http://fightthehypo.com/?p=1053 Have I told you my new favorite joke?

Most don’t find it funny.

Frankly, I love it.

I crack myself every time I tell it. That’s probably because I’ve never been much of a joke teller and this one qualifies more as a witty rejoin than full on joke.

Anyway, goes something like this…

Someone: [...]]]> Have I told you my new favorite joke?

Most don’t find it funny.

Frankly, I love it.

I crack myself every time I tell it. That’s probably because I’ve never been much of a joke teller and this one qualifies more as a witty rejoin than full on joke.

Anyway, goes something like this…

Someone: Wow! Entering your last year of law school. That must be a great feeling.

Me: Definitely.

Someone: Must be nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Me: It is. I just can’t tell whether it’s daylight or a train. Either way, it’ll all be over soon.

Someone: *Stares quizzically* (Unless they’re a lawyer or law student. In that case, I get a chuckle.)

Me: **Laughing uproariously** (mostly on the inside)

Some gallows humor never hurt anyone I suppose.

I think it’s the sense of impending… what exactly? doom? elation? freedom? crushing debt payments?…. what?….

It’s this sense of impending anything (and everything) that’s exhilarating and frightening at the same time.

Thousands of law students in classes past entered this last year with that future, at least in the short-term sense, determined. A job offer in hand, ready to be bored to death during their last year of school. The last few years have changed that, particularly at second tier schools like ours where even summer gigs have been hard to come by.

For my part, my summer has given me much more hope that the daylight I’ll at some point emerge into will in fact be what I’d hoped – a hard won, rewarding career.

Still, I’ll never let go of the truth to my joke that this economy and any long-term changes it has yielded may not make it easy or possible to emerge unscathed into a job that is relatively well-paid and stable as many of our predecessors have done.

Sure, that weighs on me, but not nearly as heavily as some assume when I tell the joke or talk about school or law or whatever.

It is after all really just a joke.

And I am after all generally optimistic about my last year in school and what comes next.

I’m spending this summer at a law firm in Northern Virginia where the attorneys dress business casual. Obviously [...]]]> Do clothes make the man or woman? Is there anything to be said for giving some more thought to what you wear in a professional setting rather than just settling for whatever you’ve done in the past?

I’m spending this summer at a law firm in Northern Virginia where the attorneys dress business casual. Obviously for client meetings and court dates, lawyers suit up. But the rest of the time they’re fairly casual. This is actually similar to the dress code my current company has. Yet, I think the contexts and expectations are a bit different.

By Virginia standards, the firm I’m working at is slightly larger than average (27 attorneys), has been around for 100 years, and has a very collegial environment.

What’s a Summer Associate to do in this situation?

When I asked Interwebs this question, this was among the leading search results: “Your first day at the firm is really important.  More than likely, someone will take you on an office tour on your first day and introduce you to other associates and partners.  Try to make a good first impression on everyone.  Be very respectful.  Wear a suit, even if your firm has business casual dress code.  Also, you will be filling out tons of forms. Make sure that you have all the important documents and information with you (I.D., SSN etc.).  Do NOT be late!!”

The ABA Journal quotes a fashion consultant: “Business casual, he says, means wearing a mix of slacks, shirts, blazers and ties. Yes, ties. “Ties show that you respect your peers, your position and your environment,” he says, and they should be de rigueur for every male attorney.”

The law firm Andrews Kurth advises the following: “Remember the business part of business casual. Business casual is a nightmare to fashion-police any time of the year, but it can be brutal during the summer, particularly among law students whose wardrobe consists of shorts and T-shirts. Err on the side of business when you’re in the office. As for after-hours events, keep your “casual” dress on the conservative side. Nothing too skimpy or grungy.”

And this discussion at The Style Forum is quite helpful.

I was certainly planning on wearing a suit at least for the first day. I have a fairly decent business casual wardrobe. It’s nothing to write home (or to GQ) about, but it’s decent. My initial thinking was wearing a blazer without a tie as my predominant “style.”

What do you think?

Is a mix of ties and suits and sport coats what I should be going for?
What are some things I might need?
What are the “staple” items – blue blazer, charcoal slacks, etc?
What did you find helpful?
Where is the line between too casual and too dressy?
How is the calculation for women different?

The law school combines low in-state tuition, focus on clinical skills (they have 14 clinical programs), high first-time bar passage rates, and low debt loads for [...]]]> I’m intrigued by these stories this week about North Carolina Central School of Law being the best buy for law school.

The law school combines low in-state tuition, focus on clinical skills (they have 14 clinical programs), high first-time bar passage rates, and low debt loads for graduates. The school admits to being a “no frills” law school, unconcerned with rankings and prestige but obsessed with value and quality.

Could this be a “model” for other schools to follow? Smaller, localized schools that eschew rankings manipulation and bells and whistles in favor of quality and clinical acumen?

My initial impression was that perhaps this is the beginning of a trend, a move away from rankings-obsession. But as I think about it, NC Central doesn’t seem all that different from many schools.

While there may be too many law schools out there overall, many law schools actually and exclusively serve a regional demographic that prepare students to be good lawyers. This doesn’t always (often?) lead to a good USNWR ranking. If anything, the attention they divert to upping their US News ranking only distracts them from doing what NC Central is trying to do – focus on clinical skills, reduce debt load, and graduate competent lawyers who pass the bar in one try and are better prepared than peers who paid 6 times as much for school.

NC Central isn’t a new model so much as a school that provides permission, in a sense, to ignore the rankings if you believe in what you’re doing and you’re graduating good lawyers. Of course, this is all notwithstanding the prestige and alumni network factors. But I think if you’re graduating quality people those things take care of themselves.

What it does for the prospective law student is challenge the notion that you should go to the most highly ranked school you get into. I don’t think it’s a fatal challenge, but if you live (and intend to stay) in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area and your choice is between Duke, UNC, Wake Forest, and NC Central perhaps NC Central isn’t as bad a choice as the US News rankings would suggest, particularly if it means the difference between $80K in debt and $20K (or less) with even somewhat similar job prospects in the region. (UNC, incidentally, is #22 on the best value list.)

I guess it depends what you want and what you value…. and, definitely, depends on the job market and anticipating future market trends.

In response to my question about the effect of the economy on the firm’s business, a BigLaw Partner said, “Well, if it kills the billable hour it’ll be the best thing [...]]]> This post over at Virginia Lawyers’ Weekly got me thinking about some of the more memorable moments from my interviews this fall.

In response to my question about the effect of the economy on the firm’s business, a BigLaw Partner said, “Well, if it kills the billable hour it’ll be the best thing that ever happened to us.”

In another BigLaw interview, one Partner asked me what I liked so much about his firm, Firm A. Clearly confused by having 4 interviews that week and 2 that day, I proceeded to tell him everything I liked about Firm B. When he looked at his co-interviewer and said something to the effect of, “Huh. They never told us about that” I replied, “Maybe the website suggests those things are more ingrained than they really are.” Ugh. (No callback there, in case you were still wondering.)

In yet another BigLaw interview (Firm B, actually), the interviewing Partner saw that I had some volunteer work with an Autism advocacy organization. He proceeded to tell me all about his neighbors’ 16-year-old autistic son and what I think they should do for him (despite my experience being legislative and regulatory analysis and not treatment and care). Seventeen minutes (WTF???!!!) later I got to answer the lone question about my other qualifications.

These are tame in comparison to other stories out there. What are your most memorable legal and non-legal job interview moments?

But evidently, the job market is so tight that the ABA is [...]]]> I’ve heard rumors that the legal job market is a little tight these days. Have you heard about that? Is that really true? I find that hard to believe. I mean law school is basically a guarantee of making serious bank. Isn’t it?

But evidently, the job market is so tight that the ABA is lobbying the Obama Administration to give law students who have been unable to find a job because of the recession  some debt relief:

The American Bar Association is lobbying the Obama administration and Congress to extend relief to recent law school graduates who went into debt to finance their legal educations but haven’t been able to find a job because of the recession.

The ABA wants the government to let unemployed graduates convert private loans into federal ones. The change could allow them to defer repaying those loans for as long as three years.

The effort is in its early stages — executives of the largest provider of private law school loans, Access Group Inc., weren’t even aware of it, according to spokeswoman Linda Smith.

Okay so it’s not debt forgiveness, but it is a form of relief.

The proposal, developed by the curiously-named Commission on the Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Profession and Legal Needs, would allow law school grads to borrow from the federal government to immediately pay off private student loans in order to take advantage of the government loan programs’ flexible repayment options.

And with that note, I mount my high horse of the day…

Law school drama notwithstanding, law students are grown ass men and women. They can make their own decisions and face the consequences of such decisions?

There’s an inherent risk in taking on debt that you’ll never be able to pay it off. If you need to take out private loans and you think that’s a good decision, by all means do it, but that’s between you and your lender. If the loan process was fair and you understood the terms, the government should have nothing to do with helping you get out of it.

Law school does not guarantee that you will draw down a job paying 160K upon graduation, despite what you may assume or have been negligently (intentionally?) led to believe by law school admissions and career offices. If you can’t find a job upon graduation you better figure something else out or put somethings together to make it work temporarily or try to renegotiate your loan terms.

If you want more favorable debt terms you have any number of choices: go to a cheaper school, go part-time, work at the university you’re attending (if they offer tuition discounts), work at job that will pay your way, or, and get this… don’t go to law school.

I’m not immune to the idea that the information prospective law students is shockingly minimal and therefore it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to have a clear picture of the risk you’re taking on the various factors you need to consider when selecting a law school and determining whether you can or should take on the debt that school requires. I would support something like what Indiana University Law  School Professor Bill Henderson has proposed:

If we evaluate outcome measures from the perspective of law students rather than law schools, there are at least three pieces of information that the [ABA Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar] should collect and publish annually in a format that facilitates school-to-school comparisons:

1. Bar Passage. Working in conjunction with the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) and the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), the Section should construct a database that compares scores on the Multistate Bar Exam after controlling for entering credentials, jurisdiction, and law school attended.  Preliminary evidence suggests large variations–above and beyond entering credentials–in law schools’ ability to get their students over the bar exam hurdle. See Henderson Letter to Special Committee (January 30, 2008).  This information is crucial to diversifying the bar because minority students historically have significantly lower bar passage rates. Both educators and students need to know which schools are most effective at erasing this gap.  Principled objections to the bar exam as an outcome (so often voiced by professors) need to be squared with the practical realities faced by students.
2. Employment Outcomes.  How many graduates are working in non-legal settings?  What are the salary ranges and distributions within legal and non-legal practice settings? Is there any evidence that some schools have better placement records as a result of curricular initiatives?  Remarkably, no one in legal education knows the answers to these questions. Schools should be required to submit a list of the employers and job titles for all of its graduates, and the Section should then code and compile these lists in a way that reveals the full range of outcomes, thus enabling meaningful school-to-school comparisons.  The lists themselves need not be published; the binning process would capture the useful information while also ensuring student anonymity.  There is a high probability that the current ABA coding system (e.g., “academia”, “business”) contains outcomes that make $120K in legal education look like a bad investment.  The Section should follow up with these graduates to better understand their circumstances, including the decision-making process that the graduates relied upon.
3. Debt Loads. Because of the scholarship process used by virtually all law students, tuition is a misleading indicator of law school cost.  Debt is a more accurate measure.  But means and medians are not enough; students need to see full distributions. Specifically, they should have access to a histogram of a school’s debt loads at graduation. And not just law school debt, but also total educational debt and consumer debt.

If the Section focused on the above approach, they will not need to develop the thousand-flowers-bloom approach embodied in the Special Committee’s Final Report.  In a market will better information, law schools will find and leverage their own competitive advantage in order to survive–and let’s be honest, some schools won’t.  From a societal perspective that is okay.  The Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar needs to wake up to the fact that is is regulator with a fiduciary responsibility to law students, not law schools.