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Law Schools With Highest Unemployment

2017 was a good year for most law grads, 75.3% of whom landed full-time, long-term jobs that require bar passage. That was up from 72.6% in 2016, Above The Law reports.
Despite these growing numbers, there are still a few schools where unemployment is shockingly high.
Law Schools With High Unemployment Rates
Law.com recently released its “Law Grads Hiring Report: Job Stats for the Class of 2017.”
These schools below are still struggling to get their grads hired by graduation.
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Overall Law Industry Struggling
Amongst the list are Whittier Law School and Valparaiso University School of Law – two law schools that have recently closed down.
Part of the reason why these law schools are struggling is the overall market for law grads.
Despite small bumps in percentage points, the overall employment rate for law grads still falls below its peak of 91.9% in 2007. Since then, the law industry has been struggling to hire newly minted law grads, The New York Times reports.
“While demand for other white-collar jobs has grown substantially since the start of the recession, law firms and corporations are finding they can make do with far fewer in-house lawyers than before, squeezing those just starting their careers,” Noam Scheiber writes for The New York Times.
According to The New York Times article, fewer than 70% of Valparaiso law grads from the Class of 2015 were employed and less than half were in jobs that didn’t even require bar passage. To make matters worse, only three out of 131 of its graduates obtained jobs in large law firms.
In an interview with The New York Times, Kyle McEntee, executive director of the advocacy group Law School Transparency, warns applicants against attending law schools that struggle to employ their graduates.
“People are not being helped by going to these schools,” McEntee tells The New York Times. “The debt is really high, bar passage rates are horrendous, employment is horrendous.”
Sources: Above The Law, Law.com, The New York Times