Tough Times For Law School Graduates

The law school class of 2010 . . . set a new record--only 68.4 percent of them are in jobs that require them to pass the bar exam, the lowest share since the Association for Legal Professionals began collecting data.

Another 10.7 percent of the class of 2010 are in jobs that require or prefer a J.D., while 8.6 percent have jobs that require neither a law degree nor bar passage. The class' overall employment rate--for jobs in and out of the legal profession--is lower than it's been for any class since 1996, at 87.6 percent. So counting unemployed new graduates, the actual percentage of those in jobs that require bar passage is even lower, at 60 percent.

From here.

Median debt loads for law school graduates are little under $100,000.

In not unrelated news, leading Denver law firm Isaacson Rosenbaum, which until recently had 40 attorneys, and has 23 shareholders and 5 associates at the time of the announcement (and includes the author of the Colorado Appeals Blog), will disband at the end of the month after more than fifty years in business. The financial crisis slump did in this real estate deal heavy firm. Many of the remaining attorneys are landing positions with other firms around town, however.