The new ABA employment data are out, and last week I posted my 2019 law school rankings based on the employment outcomes. I posted two different version of the rankings, a first one here and a second one here, with slightly different methodologies that produced some important differences near the top. I also posted an analysis of the quality of "employment status," such as Bar Passage Required versus JD Advantage. If you still believe that JD Advantage jobs are as good as bar passage required jobs, you need to read that post. The data show that JD Advantage jobs generally are not good outcomes, and should not be included in the same category as bar passage required jobs.
In this installment, I look at the quality of employment "terms" and "types" as the ABA categorizes them. Employment "terms" are part-time versus full-time and long-term versus short-term. Employment "types" are the various types of employers, such as law firms with 501+ lawyers, solo practice, federal judicial clerkships, etc. This allows a comparison of the quality of the various categories of employment as they are reported to the ABA.
The table below shows the ranking from best outcomes to worst outcomes for the most common types and terms (scroll down for the full table).
Type of Employment |
Score |
Law Firm 501+ Lawyers FTLT |
0.312784 |
Clerkships_Federal_FTLT |
0.274073 |
Law Firm 251-500 Lawyers FTLT |
0.272517 |
Law Firm 101-250 Lawyers FTLT |
0.214882 |
PublicInterest_FTLT |
0.137334 |
Law Firm 51-100 Lawyers FTLT |
0.112393 |
Clerkships_StateLocal_FTLT |
0.087122 |
Law Firm 26-50 Lawyers FTLT |
0.062384 |
Education_FTLT |
0.008004 |
Law Firm 11-25 Lawyers FTLT |
-0.03431 |
PursuingGraduateDegreeNumber |
-0.07013 |
BusinessIndustry_FTLT |
-0.07165 |
Government_FTLT |
-0.09615 |
UnEmployedNotSeekingNumber |
-0.17534 |
Solo.FTLT |
-0.20678 |
Law Firm 2-10 Lawyers FTLT |
-0.20694 |
EmploymentStatusUnknownNumber |
-0.22871 |
UnEmployedSeekingNumber |
-0.29825 |
The table provides the intuitive results that Biglaw jobs (501+ lawyers) rank the highest, and "Unemployed Seeking" ranks the lowest. Remarkably, the size of law firm translates directly into its ranking. 501+ lawyer firms are the highest, followed by 251-500 lawyers firms, followed by 101-250 lawyer firms, and so on all the way down to 2-10 lawyer firms and solo practice which are essentially tied at the bottom (those jobs are actually ranked below "Unemployed Not Seeking"!) All of this relates to full-time, long-term jobs in law firms. Part-time and short-term jobs in these law firms all rank quite low, but are also unusual.
Federal judicial clerkships rank second in the table, but this is a very diverse category. Some federal judicial clerkships are much more selective than Biglaw jobs, while others are less selective. As discussed in my original law school ranking post, the diversity of federal clerkships causes some distortion near the very top of the law school ranking, where a large portion of the class heads to clerkships.
This way of looking at the data is a much more fine-grained analysis than simply counting the percentage of bar passage required FTLT jobs (or worse, including JD Advantage jobs!) As the table shows, bar passage required FTLT jobs differ greatly from one another, and although they are generally better than other types of outcomes (such as JD Advantage), they are far from monolithic. Therefore, those analyzing employment outcomes of various schools should use a ranking system like mine linked above that take into account different gradations of bar passage required jobs.
The full table with all terms and outcomes is below.
Type of Employment |
Score |
Law Firm 501+ Lawyers FTLT |
0.312784 |
Clerkships_Federal_FTLT |
0.274073 |
Law Firm 251-500 Lawyers FTLT |
0.272517 |
Law Firm 101-250 Lawyers FTLT |
0.214882 |
PublicInterest_FTLT |
0.137334 |
Law Firm 51-100 Lawyers FTLT |
0.112393 |
Clerkships_Other_FTLT |
0.089036 |
Clerkships_StateLocal_FTLT |
0.087122 |
Clerkships_Federal_FTST |
0.066185 |
Law Firm 26-50 Lawyers FTLT |
0.062384 |
Clerkships_Other_FTST |
0.040129 |
EmployerTypeUnknown_FTST |
0.031743 |
Law Firm 251-500 Lawyers FTST |
0.026276 |
Employed_UndeterminableFTST |
0.020755 |
Education_FTLT |
0.008004 |
Law Firm 51-100 Lawyers PTST |
-0.00179 |
Clerkships_Federal_PTLT |
-0.00417 |
Law Firm 11-25.FTST |
-0.00429 |
Law Firm 501.FTST |
-0.00749 |
Clerkships_Federal_PTST |
-0.01336 |
Law Firm 251-500 Lawyers PTLT |
-0.01438 |
Law Firm 101-250 Lawyers PTLT |
-0.01894 |
Law Firm 26-50 Lawyers PTLT |
-0.02404 |
PublicInterest_FTST |
-0.02733 |
Clerkships_StateLocal_PTLT |
-0.03019 |
Education_PTST |
-0.03141 |
Clerkships_StateLocal_FTST |
-0.03205 |
Employed_UndeterminablePTLT |
-0.03336 |
Law Firm 11-25.FTLT |
-0.03431 |
PublicInterest_PTST |
-0.03831 |
Law Firm 26-50 Lawyers FTST |
-0.0471 |
Law Firm 51-100 Lawyers FTST |
-0.05093 |
EmployerTypeUnknown_PTLT |
-0.05095 |
Education_FTST |
-0.05112 |
EmployedStartDateDeferredNumber |
-0.05151 |
Unknown.PTLT |
-0.05345 |
Clerkships_StateLocal_PTST |
-0.05665 |
Law Firm 501.PTLT |
-0.05717 |
Law Firm 51-100 Lawyers PTLT |
-0.06336 |
Government_PTLT |
-0.06375 |
Law Firm 26-50 Lawyers PTST |
-0.06458 |
Law Firm 11-25.PTLT |
-0.06477 |
EmployerTypeUnknown_PTST |
-0.0698 |
PursuingGraduateDegreeNumber |
-0.07013 |
Law Firm 101-250 Lawyers PTST |
-0.07101 |
BusinessIndustry_FTLT |
-0.07165 |
Education_PTLT |
-0.07279 |
Unknown.PTST |
-0.07408 |
Law Firm 501.PTST |
-0.07435 |
Employed_UndeterminablePTST |
-0.07606 |
Law Firm 11-25.PTST |
-0.07904 |
Government_FTST |
-0.08242 |
PublicInterest_PTLT |
-0.08615 |
Unknown.FTST |
-0.08633 |
BusinessIndustry_PTST |
-0.09133 |
Government_FTLT |
-0.09615 |
Solo.FTST |
-0.10499 |
Employed_UndeterminableFTLT |
-0.10533 |
Unknown.FTLT |
-0.10756 |
EmployerTypeUnknown_FTLT |
-0.10811 |
Solo.PTST |
-0.11725 |
Government_PTST |
-0.12265 |
Solo.PTLT |
-0.12352 |
Law Firm 101-250 Lawyers FTST |
-0.126 |
Law Firm 2-10 Lawyers PTST |
-0.15077 |
BusinessIndustry_FTST |
-0.1514 |
Law Firm 2-10 Lawyers FTST |
-0.16464 |
BusinessIndustry_PTLT |
-0.16782 |
UnEmployedNotSeekingNumber |
-0.17534 |
Solo.FTLT |
-0.20678 |
Law Firm 2-10 Lawyers FTLT |
-0.20694 |
Law Firm 2-10 Lawyers PTLT |
-0.221 |
EmploymentStatusUnknownNumber |
-0.22871 |
UnEmployedSeekingNumber |
-0.29825 |
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