When the Great Recession hit, the legal industry was not immune, taking a major hit to the belly. One law firm cut seven percent of its associates. Over the past decade, 12 major firms have closed, leaving 1,000 partners out in the cold, according to BostInno.
Despite all of this, law schools continue to churn out new graduates each year, some of them with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Just five years ago there were 43,000 graduates with 75 percent of them employed as attorneys within nine months of graduation. Last year, the numbers were 46,500 graduates and 64 percent.
Nancy Cremins is a startup lawyer with Gesmer Updegrove. Cremins said, “The legal profession is not really like what you see on The Good Wife or Law & Order.”
“The jobs of lawyers are being streamlined,” Cremins said, “and, in some cases, replaced by technology solutions and companies like LegalZoom, who provide canned solutions for people who can’t or don’t want to hire a lawyer.”
Cremins also told BostInno the following: “Whenever I meet someone who tells me they want to go to law school, admittedly, I try to talk them out of it. Or, at the very least, make sure they understand the consequences of that kind of student loan debt.”
The American Bar Association collects data nine months following a class graduating from law school. In this data, the ABA analyzes where graduates are employed, if they have full-time or part-time employment and if they are working a job that requires a law degree.
The list below features the top law schools in the Northeast region that have the best employment numbers for the Class of 2013 as determined by BostInno.
No. 41 University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Total 2013 Graduates: 103
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 42.72 percent
No. 40 Western New England University
Total 2013 Graduates: 133
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 50.38 percent
No. 39 Roger Williams University
Total 2013 Graduates: 175
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 50.86 percent
No. 38 Suffolk University
Total 2013 Graduates: 479
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 53.03 percent
No. 37 Pace University
Total 2013 Graduates: 294
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 55.78 percent
No. 36 Pennsylvania State University
Total 2013 Graduates: 200
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 56 percent
No. 35 New England Law | Boston
Total 2013 Graduates: 342
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 56.43 percent
No. 34 City University of New York
Total 2013 Graduates: 138
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 56.52 percent
No. 33 Touro College
Total 2013 Graduates: 230
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 58.70 percent
No. 32 University of Connecticut
Total 2013 Graduates: 187
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 61.5 percent
No. 31 Drexel University
Total 2013 Graduates: 138
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 61.59 percent
No. 30 New York Law School
Total 2013 Graduates: 562
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 61.92 percent
No. 29 Northeastern University
Total 2013 Graduates: 218
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 61.93 percent
No. 28 Cardozo School of Law
Total 2013 Graduates: 398
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 64.07 percent
No. 27 Hofstra University
Total 2013 Graduates: 319
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 64.26 percent
No. 26 Villanova University
Total 2013 Graduates: 240
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 65.42 percent
No. 25 Rutgers University-Newark
Total 2013 Graduates: 270
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 66.30 percent
No. 24 Quinnipiac University
Total 2013 Graduates: 148
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 66.89 percent
No. 23 University of Maine
Total 2013 Graduates: 96
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 67.71 percent
No. 22 Widener University-Harrisburg
Total 2013 Graduates: 121
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 67.77 percent
No. 21 Rutgers University-Camden
Total 2013 Graduates: 276
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 68.48 percent
No. 20 St. John’s University
Total 2013 Graduates: 309
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 69.58 percent
No. 19 Vermont Law School
Total 2013 Graduates: 200
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 70 percent
No. 18 Syracuse University
Total 2013 Graduates: 204
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 70.1 percent
No. 17 Duquesne University
Total 2013 Graduates: 205
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 70.24 percent
No. 16 University of Buffalo-SUNY
Total 2013 Graduates: 233
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 71.24 percent
No. 15 Boston College
Total 2013 Graduates: 253
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 72.73 percent
No. 14 Albany Law School of Union University
Total 2013 Graduates: 196
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 73.47 percent
No. 13 Boston University
Total 2013 Graduates: 278
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 74.82 percent
No. 12 University of Pittsburgh
Total 2013 Graduates: 242
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 75.21 percent
No. 11 Fordham University
Total 2013 Graduates: 481
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 75.26 percent
No. 10 Brooklyn Law School
Total 2013 Graduates: 478
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 77.41 percent
No. 9 Seton Hall University
Total 2013 Graduates: 309
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 78.32 percent
No. 8 University of New Hampshire
Total 2013 Graduates: 107
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 78.50 percent
No. 7 Temple University
Total 2013 Graduates: 295
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 79.32 percent
No. 6 Yale University
Total 2013 Graduates: 203
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 89.66 percent
No. 5 Cornell University
Total 2013 Graduates: 193
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 91.19 percent
No. 4 New York University
Total 2013 Graduates: 537
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 95.53 percent
No. 3 Harvard University
Total 2013 Graduates: 578
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 95.67 percent
No. 2 University of Pennsylvania
Total 2013 Graduates: 259
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 96.91 percent
No. 1 Columbia University
Total 2013 Graduates: 437
Class of 2013 Employment Rate: 97.03 percent
Check out other law school profiles on LawCrossing.