In June 2011 both the legal and mainstream media covered Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc.’s release of a table showing the attorney surplus in each of the country’s 50 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico for 2009. I’d posted a near-identical analysis on my blog three months earlier after comparing the number of graduates from ABA-accredited law schools to the number of lawyer jobs created by growth and replacement in each state in 2009.

While the results of the two analyses were similar, EMSI and I had different purposes in producing them. My goal was only to calculate the surplus of ABA law school graduates over lawyer job openings because my research tends to focus more on the value of legal education and excessive student loan debt, which makes non-ABA and foreign law school graduates less relevant to me. EMSI, on the other hand, was more interested in the lawyer surplus itself.

I’d like to think I did a better job achieving my goal than EMSI did accomplishing what it set out to do. For example, EMSI originally found that both Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. did not suffer from attorney surpluses, but it failed to account for a couple of critical facts: Graduates of Wisconsin’s two law schools can petition the bar without taking Wisconsin’s bar exam thanks to the state’s diploma privilege rule. (As a Marquette grad, I know this from personal experience.) Washington, D.C., for its part, licenses a large percentage of its new lawyers by motion thanks to its generous rules. EMSI also calculated the annual number of lawyer jobs with its proprietary short-term measure of future job openings—a five-year period—while I used the ten-year projections provided by state governments. As a result, the annual lawyer job growth rate EMSI arrived at for some states was as much as 20 percent higher than the state government calculations, which led it to report lower law graduate and lawyer surpluses than I’d found.

Two years later, most state governments have updated both their lawyer employment estimates for 2020 and their projected annual lawyer job growth rate for the period spanning 2010 to 2020, so it’s possible to gauge any improvement or deterioration in the annual attorney surplus between the previous 2009 estimate and what is now available for 2011. For purposes of comparison, here are the 2008 and 2010 lawyer counts, the 2018 and 2020 projections, and the annual job growth rates for the periods between 2008 and 2018 and 2010 and 2020. I’ve included totals for each Bureau of Economic Analysis region as well.

STATE/BEA REGION No. Employed Lawyers Lawyer Employment Projections Annual Lawyer Growth Rate
2008 2010 2018 2020 2008 2010
Alabama 7,910 7,347 8,420 8,390 200 240
Alaska 1,330 993 1,270 1,048 30 20
Arizona 11,880 11,643 12,450 13,911 280 450
Arkansas 3,430 4,546 3,840 5,028 110 130
California 94,900 86,700 100,800 95,100 2,360 2,490
Colorado 14,090 14,158 14,710 14,897 330 340
Connecticut 9,940 9,208 9,930 9,396 190 190
Delaware 2,900 3,037 3,000 3,058 60 60
District of Columbia 42,410 41,669 44,180 48,041 970 1,430
Florida 52,980 54,091 56,820 63,384 1,370 1,960
Georgia 20,900 18,295 24,560 21,731 760 690
Hawaii 2,970 2,261 2,950 2,404 60 60
Idaho 2,710 2,621 3,080 2,812 90 70
Illinois 38,080 32,868 42,290 36,334 1,130 970
Indiana 9,740 9,249 11,310 10,191 340 270
Iowa 4,340 4,467 4,910 4,952 140 130
Kansas 5,210 5,059 5,940 5,528 170 140
Kentucky 6,510 6,860 7,070 7,460 180 190
Louisiana 10,770 9,301 11,270 10,249 250 270
Maine 2,800 2,811 2,800 3,007 50 70
Maryland 14,300 13,988 13,570 15,350 270 400
Massachusetts 21,600 21,114 21,900 24,093 430 700
Michigan 19,030 14,790 20,210 15,180 470 320
Minnesota 15,290 12,058 16,160 12,935 370 320
Mississippi 5,260 3,770 5,740 4,109 150 30
Missouri 11,520 12,434 11,410 14,441 220 440
Montana 1,870 2,550 2,070 2,717 60 70
Nebraska 3,400 3,254 3,750 3,366 100 70
Nevada 4,840 5,428 5,690 5,707 150 130
New Hampshire 2,350 2,439 2,400 2,571 50 60
New Jersey 28,650 26,165 28,650 28,688 540 750
New Mexico 3,550 3,019 3,580 3,116 70 70
New York 86,140 66,695 87,080 70,079 1,700 1,610
North Carolina 14,310 13,653 16,170 15,630 450 460
North Dakota 1,240 1,316 1,300 1,447 30 40
Ohio 19,860 20,198 20,750 21,817 460 550
Oklahoma 8,100 8,866 8,680 9,883 210 270
Oregon 4,980 5,049 5,610 5,800 160 180
Pennsylvania 28,400 27,953 29,400 30,067 640 740
Puerto Rico 4,180 3,949 4,350 4,178 100 100
Rhode Island 2,710 2,401 2,980 2,517 80 60
South Carolina 6,640 6,703 7,260 7,371 190 200
South Dakota N/A 1,520 N/A 1,611 N/A 40
Tennessee 8,720 N/A 9,160 N/A 210 N/A
Texas 44,680 44,329 51,360 52,215 1,500 1,630
Utah 7,080 5,398 8,580 6,456 280 210
Vermont 2,070 1,997 2,270 2,111 60 50
Virginia 19,780 19,391 23,390 23,275 730 760
Washington 14,840 14,231 16,320 16,003 440 460
West Virginia 2,940 3,062 2,970 3,258 60 80
Wisconsin 10,390 9,709 10,230 10,403 190 250
Wyoming 940 757 1,040 864 30 80
U.S.A. (States) 765,460 705,370 815,630 784,179 19,470 21,300
U.S.A. (BLS) 759,200 728,200 857,700 801,800 24,040 21,200
New England 41,470 39,970 42,280 43,695 860 1,130
Mideast 202,800 179,507 205,880 195,283 4,180 4,990
Great Lakes 97,100 86,814 104,790 93,925 2,590 2,360
Plains 41,000 40,108 43,470 44,280 1,030 1,180
Southeast 160,150 147,019 176,670 169,885 4,660 5,010
Southwest 68,210 67,857 76,070 79,125 2,060 2,420
Rocky Mountains 26,690 25,484 29,480 27,746 790 770
Far West 123,860 114,662 132,640 126,062 3,200 3,340