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New ABA Accreditation Standard: Is Bar Passage Rate Change Enough?
The American Bar Association recently passed a new standard for accreditation for law schools, mandating that to maintain accreditation, at least 75% of graduates of a law school must pass the bar within two years. Is that enough? Why not an additional standard—one that sets a requirement that within 3 years, a certain percentage of graduates must have a job that requires a legal education?
Tags: legal careers legal employment
Deciding on Law School and the Law: Talk to Lawyers!
To decide whether (and where), you should practice law, it’s important to talk to as many lawyers as you can—the more you talk with, the more you recognize the variety of legal practices and business environments. The reason prospective law students get so many different evaluations of the benefits and dangers of the actual practice of law is because it really is that varied.
Tags: advise-in solutions legal careers lawyer satisfaction
The ABA’s Abdication of Responsibility: Winners (Law Schools and The Bar Cartel) and Losers (Law Students) in the Rule Abandoning the LSAT (and Any Testing Requirement) for Law School Admissions
The reason to take off testing requirements is simply to respond to a tough market for law schools where a lot of law schools—many of whom probably shouldn’t be in business since what they do is put a lot of people in debt that they’ll never get out of—need bodies in seats to pay their bills. This is regulatory capture in its fullest sense—the ABA is doing the bidding of those it is supposed to be regulating while doing nothing—harming, actually—those who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of its regulation.
Tags: aba american bar association lsat gre law school admissions
Law School Employment Data: What to Trust When There’s No Question of Trust
No one has really figured out how to report law school employment data that is useful across the board, i.e., for all prospective and current law students. Over the past few years, the employment data has gotten better but there is no summary reporting design that could possibly fulfill every law student’s needs. The problem lies in the fact that there are tens of thousands of law school students with thousands of different needs and aspirations. No data set can get to all that. So what should prospective law students do?
Tags: aba law school employment data advise-in solutions law school employment statistics legal employment
Number of LSAT Takers Jumps Sharply: Who’s That Good For?
The year-over-year number of LSAT takers rose by 20% in the 2017-17 cycle. Since that portends an increase in law school applications as well, that’s good news for law schools, some of whom have struggled in the last few years with declining admission numbers and declining standards for remaining admissions. It’s moderately bad news for applicants.
Tags: law school application data law school applications law school debt law school financial aid legal careers
What Technology Means for Legal Employment
The work that junior lawyers used to do—due diligence, sifting through hundreds of thousands of e-mails in discovery, and corporate data rooms—is increasingly no longer human work but algorithmic work. There is good news and bad news here. The bad, fewer jobs; the good, better work.
Tags: legal job market lawyer happiness legal employment legal services demand legal hiring
You’re In the Money: Negotiating Financial Aid with Law Schools
Law school is expensive. On average, law school—after including living expenses, your inability to hold full-time work for at least the first year of law school, and everything else—will cost well over $200,000 in the U.S. That's a conservative number. But…law schools also have a fair amount of merit-based money for students they want. How can you negotiate with law schools to obtain your best law school admission at the best price?
Tags: law school admissions law school applications law school financial aid law school costs
ABA Proposal to Reduce Full-Time Faculty Requirement: Law Students (Present and Future) Should Make Their Voices Heard
The ABA’s proposal to jettison the requirement that full-time faculty teach the majority of upper-level courses is a terrible idea. The ABA is proposing to replicate what undergraduate institutions have been doing with adjunct faculty, with no protections for students. If you’re in law school now, or are thinking about going, or if you care about the quality of your lawyer, you should take up the ABA on its invitation to comment on the proposed change. Contact information below.
Tags: aba american bar association legal education law school education
A Counter-Perspective (Are We Being Too Negative About the Legal Market?): Part II
To continue our reaction to Ryan Calo's Forbes piece on the legal job (and education) market—should you, as a potential 2014 law school applicant, be optimistic? Well, let's first summarize our previous entry: so, law school is a bigger risk than it was ten years ago—maybe not 20 years ago, but certainly ten. The drop in applications clearly does create opportunities for applicants, since the same personal statement, LSAT score and grade point averages will likely get you into a better law school (read, “with better job prospects”) than it would have five years ago. But there are still more applicants than there are seats, and it’s still expensive.
Tags: legal job market law school ryan calo advise-in solutions best lsat score 2014 law school application
A Counter-Perspective (Are We Being Too Negative About the Legal Market?): Part I
Tags: legal job market kyle pasewark law school ryan calo attorney jobs law firms
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