Evidence Shows Most Lawyers Continue to Have Profitable, Fulfilling Careers
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After years of focus on the employment prospects of new lawyers, only one article has asked the key question: What happens to lawyers in the years after they graduate law school? Although the economic recession may have stalled some legal careers, lawyers historically make more as they gain experience.
Unfortunately, the article, published in the New York Times back in April, confused more than it clarified. The article drew conclusions about the careers of over 40,000 law school graduates from the class of 2010 based on the current employment of the 1,200 graduates who became members of the Ohio bar. These Ohio lawyers may or may not have been representative of all 2010 graduates. More importantly, because the study did not discern the Ohio lawyers’ 2010 employment or collect any salary information, it tells us virtually nothing about these lawyers’ careers.
The one reliable longitudinal study that has been conducted does not support the view of lawyers as miserable and debt-ridden. The “After the JD” study followed a representative cohort of law school graduates from the class of 2000 and found that the vast majority were satisfied with their decisions to become lawyers. Debt load had no effect on career satisfaction, and nearly half of the lawyers in the cohort paid off all of their debt by 2012.
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