Despite the endless publicity about the poor job market for law school graduates since the recession, the entry-level legal job market has actually been improving for the past three years. The improvements have been incremental, and it is still a scrappy and competitive job market for new law school graduates, but falling law school enrollment and a strengthening economy are likely to support continuing improvements for the next few graduating classes.
The employment data without context can be confounding. For instance, although the overall job market is improving, the overall employment rate for law school graduates, as measured nine months after graduation, has fallen for six years in a row, and was measured at only 84.5 percent for the class of 2013 after reaching an historic high of 91.2 percent in 2007.
