The Red Velvet Lawyer

New Data Informing  the Debate In several postings  here ,  here , and here , I tracked the debate between Brian Tamanaha, author of Failing Law Schools , and Michael Simkovic and Frank McIntyre, co-authors of The Value of a Law Degree . In a recent posting , Simkovic & McIntyre update their economic analysis and take apart the basis for Tamanaha's more dismissal point of view.   They conclude: Comparing lifetime earnings of law degree holders to earnings of similar bachelor’s degree holders, we find that the pretax value of a law degree is approximately $1,030,000 on average, $770,000 at the median, $430,000 at the twenty-fifth percentile, and $1,420,000 at the seventy-fifth percentile. These figures include the opportunity costs of foregone wages while in law school and financing costs. We also provide separate analyses of earnings for men and women. We find that the value of a law degree at the median is higher for...

As you know, I have followed the debate between the authors of the report -- The Economic Value of a Law Degree -- and the author of a book -- Failing Law Schools (FLS) . I thought we were about done with the back and forth, but now it seems the author of FLS , the Law Professor at Washington University School of Law, Brian Tamanaha, has gotten help from a member of his faculty.  The story appears  here . Tamanaha has targeted a group of expensive ($40,000+/per year), mostly California law schools, that also have low employment stats when you look only at the category of  full-time jobs requiring bar passage.  I've discussed how to understand the reported employment numbers  here . In the end, I agree that prospective students should carefully consider the decision to go to law school.  They should carefully adopt a strategy that gets them the best education possible at a reasonable cost.  I discuss one possible strategy here .  And yes...

I've enjoyed the blog-based debate about the new report -- The Economic Value of a Law Degree -- which I summarized here .  Michael Simkovic and Frank McIntyre, its authors, have explained their methodology, which to my untrained eye, appears robust.  They have successfully responded over the last several weeks to the points made by Brian Tamanaha, author of Failing Law Schools . Simkovic's last blog post appears  here .  It goes into further detail about the methodology used to compare the two populations -- first, law school grads and second, bachelor degree earners most like law school grads. I am curious why this report has generated this type of debate.  Are we so accustomed to hearing bad news about law school that some good news seems automatically suspect?  Have the scambloggers so occupied the field for so long that we cannot easily make a shift in how we view the value of a law degree in today's market? Yes, getting a legal education...

Michael Simkovic, one of the authors of the new report -- The Economic Value of a Law Degree , is debating the author, Brian Tamanaha, of the 2012 book --  Failing Law Schools .  The debate began earlier this week and appears at Brian Leiter's Law School Reports .  It should be an interesting exchange that will go on for a while. Both authors are law school academics. Simkovic serves as an Associate Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law.  Brian Tamanaha, serves as the Dean of Washington University School of Law (my alma mater ). I summarized Simikovic's paper  here .  Tamanaha's book is available  here  (yes, I am encouraging you to use Barnes & Noble, and not Amazon). One of the factors affecting both authors' projections is the cost of law school tuition. Given the drop off in applicants to law school -- from about 100,000 in 2004 to about 50,000 this past recruiting season -- lower-tiered law schools have substant...

That’s right. A very large number of law graduates choose not to practice law.  Instead, they pursue careers in banking, other financial institutions, insurance, technology and e-commerce, management consulting,  corporate contracts administration, alternative dispute resolution, government regulation or compliance work, law enforcement, human resources, accounting, the military, government executive positions, legislative positions, administrative agencies, teaching, journalism, risk management, judicial clerkships, law school administration, law firm professional development or CLE training,  or other professions.  In the report I summarized in yesterday's blog , authors Simikovic and McIntyre analyzed data for 2009 from the U.S. Census Bureau and  the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to conclude that about three out of five law graduates work as lawyers.  Fifty-eight percent of all law degree holders report “lawyer” as their occup...

This past week, a number of news outlets and bloggers reported on a new economic analysis of the value of a law degree.  The authors make a persuasive, well-researched argument that a law degree confers measurable life-time advantages on law graduates compared to persons who get only a bachelor’s degree. The report:  Micahel Simkovic and Frank McIntyre, The Economic Value of a Law Degree (unpublished manuscript 2013) is found here .     Simkovic, an Associate Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law, and McIntyre, an Associate Professor of Finance and Economic at Rutgers Business School answered the following questions:  Does a law degree typically increase the earnings of law graduates compared to what such individuals would likely have earned with only a bachelor’s degree? How does the law school earnings premium vary by gender and at different points in the distribution of outcomes? How much of the increase in earnings is...