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How can you measure a law school’s worth, aside from the bar passage rates of its graduates? If you’re seriously considering investing in a law degree, then another telling sign of a school’s success — or lack thereof — is its employment rate. Generally speaking, law schools with high full-time, long-term employment rates are preferred over law schools where graduates struggle to find work as attorneys.
But which law schools had the highest percentage of graduates employed in full-time, long-term jobs where bar passage is required or a J.D. is considered an advantage? Thanks to U.S. News, of course there’s a ranking for that.
As you may have guessed, the law schools with the best job prospects are some of the usual suspects, the elite schools found at the tippy top of the U.S. News rankings. Here they are, based on the class of 2018’s employment statistics that were used in the most recent rankings (rounded, excluding graduates with law school-funded positions):
- Columbia: 94.2 percent
- University of Virginia: 92.3 percent
- Cornell: 91.3 percent
- Penn (Carey): 90.9 percent
- Chicago: 90.3 percent
- Stanford: 90.2 percent
- Northwestern: 90 percent
- NYU: 89.5 percent
- Harvard: 88.8 percent
- Duke: 88.2 percent
You may be wondering how the rest of the T14 placed when it came to their employment statistics. At the tail end of the elite schools, we have Michigan (84.2 percent), UC Berkeley (83.8 percent), and Georgetown (78.5 percent). But what about Yale? As it turns out, at 82.8 percent, the best law school in the nation has the second-worst rating of graduates in full-time, long-term jobs or J.D. advantage positions. Why? Because Yale also has 25 graduates employed in prestigious clinical positions that happen to be school-funded. At the end of the day, Yale still wins.
Where does your law school stand when it comes to its employment rates? U.S. News included information on 30 additional schools for this year’s ranking. Click here to take a look or check out your school’s most recent Employment Outcome Report to find out.
40 Law Schools Where Grads Leave With Law Jobs [U.S. News]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.