The staff of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce was instrumental in the production of this report from conception to publication. [...] ger such a good bet, applications and enroll- ments plummeted.10 Law school applications The most recent dimming of the JD’s appeal fell from a high of 87,900 in 2010 to a low of occurred in the aftermath of the Great Reces- 54,400 in 2015, a drop of 38 percent, while total FIGURE 1. [...] 33 Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce analysis of data from the American Bar Association, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. [...] PART 2 Some Law School Graduates Earn Top Dollar, but Many Do Not 21 Who Pursues Law Credentials, and How Well Do They Do Financially? Women outnumber men at law percent of all law school students.60 Men have schools, and their enrollment shares been abandoning law school in droves: since the peak in law school enrollments in 2010, the are highest at the schools with the number of men enrolled at. [...] though there are fewer white students overall, As the total number of law students fell in the they still make up the majority of law school aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007–09, students, comprising 60 percent of students FIGURE 9.
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Table of Contents
- Reprint Permission 2
- Acknowledgments 4
- Contents 5
- Figures and Tables 6
- Introduction 8
- Graduates of the law schools of Columbia University the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago have the highest net earnings four years after graduation. 8
- The legal field is expected to grow over the next decade but opportu- nities could change along with new developments in AI and other tech- nologies. 11
- Wide gaps in outcomes mark the disparities between law schools. 12
- Law schools are becoming more demographically diverse but the legal field is still disproportionately white and male. 14
- Debt-to-earnings ratios are critical to determining return on investment from law degrees. 17
- Evaluating the ROI of a Law Degree 18
- A law degree offers a lifetime earnings boost relative to a bachelors degree alone but the best earnings outcomes are concentrated at a handful of institutions. 18
- PART 1 18
- Non-JD legal masters programs are fast growing but still represent just a fraction of total enrollments at law schools. 22
- An undergraduate degree in a law- related major does not necessarily lead to work in the legal field. 25
- Who Pursues Law Credentials and How Well Do They Do Financially 27
- Women outnumber men at law schools and their enrollment shares are highest at the schools with the lowest earning outcomes. 27
- PART 2 27
- The gender wage gap is already evident just four years after graduation and is larger among older lawyers. 28
- HispanicLatino students experienced the largest numeric increase in law school enrollments amid broader declines. 32
- Disparities in earnings by race and ethnicity become even more pronounced when gender is also factored in. 36
- Where law graduates workand their legal specialtyhas consequences for how much they earn. 37
- Just over half of recent law school graduates work in law firms. 39
- As with earnings outcomes employment outcomes vary across law schools by race and gender. 41
- Debt and Bar Passage 44
- Debt weighs heavily on many law school graduates. 44
- PART 3 44
- Race and ethnicity are closely linked to how much debt students leave school withand how likely they are to fund their bar studies with further loans. 47
- Bar passage rates vary across institutions with implications for graduates job and earnings prospects. 49
- The Future of Legal Occupations 53
- Legal jobs make up less than 1 percent of US employment and most require workers to have a masters professional or doctoral degree. 53
- PART 4 53
- Conclusion 55
- PART 5 55
- References 57
- Data Sources and Methodology 61
- College Scorecard 61
- Data from the College Scorecard have a number of limitations including 61
- APPENDIX A 61
- American Bar Association ABA 63
- National Center for Education Statistics NCES 67
- National Postsecondary Student Aid Study NPSAS 67
- Postgraduate Undergraduate and Associates-Level Rankings 68
- APPENDIX B 68
