14 Feb Y2K Law Grads: One-Quarter Not Practicing

The American Bar Foundation just completed a study in which they learned that roughly a quarter of those who took the bar exam in 2000 are not practicing law currently. The study checked on this same group in 2003 and 2007 as well. Only 9% were not practicing law back in 2003. Some apparently are law professors or investment bankers. This is interesting because the year 2000 was the bottom when the Internet era ended but a long-term growth surge continued until 2008.

Sadly the study also showed that women in the study population (about 3000 were in the survey) were being paid about 80% of their male counterparts if they were practicing law, and as low as 67% of the men if they were out of law. But overall the respondents still felt law school was a good investment, ranking it a 5.5 out of a possible 7.

Lessons? Law schools need to do more to prepare graduates for possible careers outside the law. Also, create a stronger value proposition to going to law school given the tremendous cost if there is a decent shot the graduate will not practice. And of course, we need to work much harder to remove the pay disparity between the genders.