Of the 4,702 students who graduated from New York state’s 15 law schools in 2011, only 57.2 percent had found within nine months full-time, long-term jobs requiring bar admission, according to figures released on June 18 by the American Bar Association. The state figure is slightly better than the national average of 54.9 percent.
The data is perhaps the most sobering yet in a season of bad news about new lawyer employment. Less than one week earlier, the National Association for Law Placement reported that only two-thirds of new graduates landed any type of job requiring a law degree, and that the overall employment rate hit an 18-year low at 85.6 percent (NYLJ, June 11).
