Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Must be a slow news day
New York Times journalist Elizabeth Olson recently reported that the law school graduating class of 2015--which was very close to the size of the class of 1996--had about the same number of private sector jobs 9 months after graduation as the class of 1996. That's a pretty good outcome considering that the economy-wide employment population ratio in February 2016 was 3.6 points lower than in February 1997. Olson puts a negative spin on the non-story.
UPDATE: Casey Sullivan at Bloomberg provides more balanced coverage, noting the smaller class size at the outset of his story and focusing on overall earnings rather than job counts in one segment of the market.
For previous coverage, see
Smaller or Larger Law Class Sizes Don’t Predict Changes in Financial Benefits of Law School, Feb. 2, 2016
and
Timing Law School (forthcoming in JELS)
https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2016/08/must-be-a-slow-news-day.html