Summary: Fresh figures suggest improvement in JD hiring.
Constrictions dilate, depressions express themselves. With the difficulty we’ve seen amidst JD’s getting jobs in the legal field, we are finally seeing some reprieve. According to data from the National Association of Law Placement, 87 percent of last year’s grads have found employment, a finer figure than what we saw for the class of 2013.
Mind you, the stats have been fudged a bit. The data were collected through March 15, whereas previously Feb. 15 was the cut off, giving the grads an extra month to find employment.
Also, there have actually been fewer hires over last year. Only class size was down six percent, and so overall more students found employment, percentage-wise.
Naturally, with JD’s being vetted for their skills, empowered by skills offering more training for less money, there is a set of compensations rendering JD’s more competent than previous generations of lawyers. The market will inevitably shift and welcome the fresh league of lawyers.
“It is clear that the shrinking class size did indeed have a positive impact on the overall employment rate,” said James Leipold, the executive director of the organization, “and that is a dynamic that will likely continue to be in play for the next three graduating classes, each of which is projected to continue to come down in size in fairly dramatic steps.”
He further said that NALP expects “that the overall employment rate for the Classes of 2015, 2016, 2017 will continue to improve.”