New findings from the National Association for Law Placement, Inc. (NALP) show that Black and Native American law school graduates had the lowest overall employment rates, and Black graduates were employed in bar passage required jobs at a rate 17 percentage points lower than white graduates.
NALP on Oct. 21 released “Jobs & JDs, Employment and Salaries of New Graduates, Class of 2019,” available at www.nalp.org/bookstore. It has data on over 97% of Class of 2019 graduates from ABA-accredited law schools.
The employment rate was up 0.9 percentage points to 90.3% of graduates for whom employment status was known, compared to 89.4% for the Class of 2018; the highest employment rate since 91.9% for the Class of 2007.
The report includes an expanded demographics section, featuring breakouts by race/ethnicity and gender, salary data by employment sector and race/ethnicity, as well as new reporting for non-binary graduates.
Women had the highest employment rate (90.6%), but men had a higher median salary ($75,000) than women ($70,000) and non-binary graduates ($67,500).
Employed non-binary graduates were almost four times as likely to take a job in public interest than employed graduates overall (30.8% vs. 8.0%).
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander graduates and white/Caucasian graduates had the highest employment rates (92.9% and 92.1%, respectively), while Native American or Alaska Native and Black or African American graduates had the lowest employment rates (85.5% and 85.4%, respectively).
White/Caucasian graduates had the highest rate of employment in bar passage required/anticipated jobs (79.8%), while the rate was 17 percentage points lower for Black or African American graduates (62.4%).
Median starting salaries for employed graduates by race/ethnicity ranged from about $62,000 for Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander graduates to $125,000 for Asian graduates, partially due to greater levels of employment in private practice.
Graduates who were transfer students also reported higher rates of employment in private practice (61.5%) and had a higher median starting salary ($85,000) than graduates overall.
Employed graduates identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual were almost twice as likely to be employed in public interest positions than graduates overall (15.7% vs. 8.0%).
Graduates with disabilities had a lower overall employment rate (84.9%), and lower percentage of graduates employed in bar passage required/anticipated jobs, at 64.1%.
The percentage of graduates taking jobs for which bar passage is required or anticipated grew by 3.4 percentage points, increasing from 72.8% in 2018 to 76.2% in 2019, following a one percentage point increase in the previous year.
Well over half (55.2%) of employed graduates obtained a job in private practice, a slight increase of 0.4 percentage points over the previous year and the closest the percentage has come to the 55.9% figure for 2009.
96.3% of jobs were full-time positions. The percentage of jobs reported as part-time has declined for eight years in row, and accounts for 3.7% of jobs, compared with 4.5% for 2018.
The national median salary was $72,500, up 3.6% compared to the Class of 2018, and surpassed the all-time high of $72,000 for the Classes of 2008 and 2009. The national median law firm salary was $125,000, up 4.2% over the previous year. Additionally, 35.0% of all law firm salaries were reported as $190,000. The national mean salary was $100,540, up 2.4% when compared to $98,150 for the Class of 2018.
Learn more at www.nalp.org/classof2019.
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