We know by now how hard the legal market is for fresh JD’s: finding employment is no longer a certain thing, and coming to the market strapped with as much as $150,000 in debt means you can’t be fickle about what you get. About half of JD’s aren’t even working in the field after 9 months out of school. Of course this is discouraging, and since less students are taking the LSAT, law schools have been hiking tuition to counterbalance the difference. What this ultimately means is that those seeking to go to law school should be anything but nonchalant in their choice of law schools. Finding a program that fits their budget and opens the most doors for them is definitely in their interest to find out.
Fortunately, the National Jurist has produced a list of the Best Value Law Schools, ranking law schools according to bar passage rates, tuition, costs of living, and graduation debt. After compiling their yearly list, they determined the 15 top schools.
Number one for the second time was the University of Alabama, with a tuition of $19,660, a 2012 average debt of $67,611, an employment rate of 89.3 percent, and average 2-year bar pass rate of 94.7 percent.
Numbers 2-15 include the following:
2. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
3. Louisiana State University
4. University of Nebraska
5. University of South Dakota
6. Brigham Young University
7. University of Kentucky
8. Georgia State University
9. Florida State University
10. William and Mary Law School
11. University of Georgia
12. UC – Irvine
13. University of New Mexico
14. University of Texas
15. University of Mississippi