Law schools won’t have to report the job placement percentage of their most recent graduating classes, leading some to believe that the American Bar Association is trying to shield schools from impending bad news, according to a report this week from the National Law Journal.
The NLJ reported that law schools will not have to report the percentage of their 2010 graduates who landed jobs requiring bar passage or the percentage of graduates in part-time jobs.
Such statistics are important competitive measurements for law schools.
The data, which normally has to be reported to the American Bar Association, will be kept veiled for a year after the ABA chose not to include certain questions about job placement on its annual questionnaire for law schools.
The ABA’s ruling, the NLJ’s report stated, prompted criticism that it is “protecting law schools from reporting what would surely be grim statistics.”
There’s been no shortage of reports nationwide about law school graduates being thrust unto the world with six-figure loan debts and vastly depleted job prospects.
So for at least a year, the horror stories that turn up in newspapers won’t have much data to accompany them.
The National Association for Law Placement will still ask law schools the question about job placement, though it only publishes aggregate data, according to the NLJ.
The chairman of the ABA told the NLJ that the organization wasn’t trying to protect law schools, but that there were questions over how different types of jobs are defined.
The question will be back on the next year’s query, the story stated, with planned improvements on the job definition.
The report also said the ABA is looking at collecting law school graduate employment data more quickly, so as to give prospective students a better glimpse at what they’ll face when they get out in the real world.
The accuracy of the job placement numbers that law schools report is also a point of contention.
The ABA actually added a question about whether graduates are in jobs that are paid for by their law school — “a tactic some schools have used in the past to improve their job placement figures,” according to the NLJ report.
Law schools won’t have to report the job placement percentage of their most recent graduating classes, leading some to believe that the American Bar Association is trying to shield schools from impending bad news, according to a report this week from the National Law Journal.
The NLJ reported that law schools will not have to report the percentage of their 2010 graduates who landed jobs requiring bar passage or the percentage of graduates in part-time jobs.
Such statistics are important competitive measurements for law schools.
The data, which normally has to be reported to the American Bar Association, will be kept veiled for a year after the ABA chose not to include certain questions about job placement on its annual questionnaire for law schools.
The ABA’s ruling, the NLJ’s report stated, prompted criticism that it is “protecting law schools from reporting what would surely be grim statistics.”
There’s been no shortage of reports nationwide about law school graduates being thrust unto the world with six-figure loan debts and vastly depleted job prospects.
So for at least a year, the horror stories that turn up in newspapers won’t have much data to accompany them.
The National Association for Law Placement will still ask law schools the question about job placement, though it only publishes aggregate data, according to the NLJ.
The chairman of the ABA told the NLJ that the organization wasn’t trying to protect law schools, but that there were questions over how different types of jobs are defined.
The question will be back on the next year’s query, the story stated, with planned improvements on the job definition.
The report also said the ABA is looking at collecting law school graduate employment data more quickly, so as to give prospective students a better glimpse at what they’ll face when they get out in the real world.
The accuracy of the job placement numbers that law schools report is also a point of contention.
The ABA actually added a question about whether graduates are in jobs that are paid for by their law school — “a tactic some schools have used in the past to improve their job placement figures,” according to the NLJ report.