The Law Schools With The Most Unemployed Graduates (2018)

How is the employment scene looking for recent law school graduates? We’ll start with the good news: compared to the class of 2017, a larger percentage of 2018 law school graduates were able to find full-time, long-term jobs where bar passage was required or for which a law degree offered an advantage within 10 months of receiving their degrees. About 78.6 percent of 2018 graduates landed these plum jobs, up from 75.3 percent in 2017. Hooray! Congratulations, one and all.

Now, for the bad news: the good news we just discussed wasn’t so good after all, as the total number of desirable law jobs recent graduates landed increased by less than 3 percent — that’s only 714 more jobs. The only reason that the overall employment rate increased is because fewer law school graduates were trying to secure jobs, by a measure of about 2 percent. This is the fifth straight year that the declining number of law graduates has propped up their employment rate.

So, with fewer law school graduates competing for jobs, one would assume (or hope) that would mean that fewer law school graduates were unemployed 10 months after receiving their degrees, right? Wrong.

Law.com produced several helpful charts based on law school employment data for the class of 2018. Today, we will highlight the most alarming chart of all, the law schools with the highest percentage of unemployed graduates. Here are the top 15 law schools on that chart for your sadistic viewing pleasure:

1. Inter American University of Puerto Rico: 32.85 percent
2. Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico: 29.20 percent
3. University of San Francisco: 27.81 percent
4. Mississippi College: 24.53 percent
5. Concordia Law School: 24.14 percent
5. University of La Verne: 24.14 percent
6. Thomas Jefferson School of Law: 21.53 percent
7. University of Puerto Rico: 20.74 percent
8. Texas Southern University: 19.34 percent
9. Florida Coastal School of Law: 18.82 percent
10. Charleston School of Law: 18.18 percent
10. Southern Illinois University-Carbondale: 18.18 percent
11. Golden Gate University: 18.07 percent
12. Western Michigan University: 18.04 percent
13. Nova Southeastern University: 17.81 percent
14. Florida A&M University: 17.56 percent
15. McGeorge School of Law: 17.29 percent

That was depressing. (For what it’s worth, we suspect that all three Puerto Rico law schools landed on the list due to the fact that the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria and has since been in “recovery.” You apply to jobs without electricity.)

Click here to see the rest of the law schools with the highest percentage of unemployed graduates, as well as other informative charts detailing the law schools with the highest percentage of graduates working in Biglaw and in state and federal clerkships.

Are you a recent law school graduate who hasn’t been able to find a job? What has your law school done to help you? We’re interested in learning about your experiences — good or bad — and may anonymously feature some of your stories on Above the Law. You can email us, text us at (646) 820-8477, or tweet us @atlblog.

Law Grads Hiring Report: Job Stats for the Class of 2018 [Law.com]

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.