The Red Velvet Lawyer

Appreciate the Recognition for ASL's Mission! I got back from some restorative massage to find a nice email from ADR colleague, Art Hinshaw, a blogger on ADR Prof Blog . He congratulated me for getting recognition from Brian Leiter's ABA Top 100 Blawg for my recent posting on job prospects for future graduates. Here's Prof. Leiter's posting: Thursday, November 21, 2013  We are on track for there to be more new jobs for lawyers than there are new law school graduates... By Brian Leiter ... by 2016 or 2017 . Hopefully this will help some of those currently unemployed, but it is also probably quite good news for those starting law school now or next year. (I commend Professor Young for taking the time to run the numbers, which in the current toxic cyber-environment where facts are never welcome [recall the irrational reception in cyberspace of the Simkovic & McIntyre study , even though it completely altered the terms of debate in the real world]...

The Tide Turns Again? New Jobs Exceed the Number of Law Graduates in 2016? At the conference of the Midwest Association of Prelaw Advisors held at the end of October 2013, Professor Jerry Organ predicted that jobs would exceed the number of law school graduates in 2016 (as I recall). He suggested that the market would turn because applicants to law school would continue to decline while the trend in new law jobs would hold at least steady. So, here is my attempt at supporting this prediction.  I am using data provided by LSAC at the MAPLA conference, which I have discussed in earlier postings.  I am also relying on data provided by NALP . I make the following assumptions: Enrollment of first-year law students will decline by 8.0% from the previous year through the 2015 entering class. Each entering class experiences an attrition rate of 12 percent. So, only 88 percent of each first-year class graduates three years later. New full-time jobs in three categori...

Who Should Go to Law School Today? At the MAPLA conference in late October, which I have covered in several postings , Washington University School of Law Dean Kent Syverud described three things: Who should go to law school today; Who should not go to law school today; and Which school a student should pick.  Who Should go to Law School Today? You should still go to law school, despite the debt-to-annual income ratio , if you: Care passionately about obtaining the skills needed to change the world; Will make sacrifices to earn the J.D. degree; Will be astute at figuring out how to get an affordable education; Will be flexible and adaptable to the changing career landscape; and,  Will be adaptable to obtaining new skills as that landscape changes. Who Should not Go to Law School Today? Dean Syverud also advised that you should not go to law school if: You don't know what else to do; It only helps college or unive...