In 2011, the United States economy began to rebound just a little bit but not enough to convince law firms across the country to hire new associates. A large number of law schools placed a small percent of their graduates in the country’s top 250 law firms, which happened at lower rates than in 2010. In 2010, 27 percent of law school graduates obtained jobs at law firms hiring new associates. In 2011, that number was only at 22 percent, which is a marketable reduction.
This is just some of the information released in a new study by Law.com’s The National Law Journal. Check out the study’s information to see which law schools made the list and where they landed. The study is released annually by the NLJ, which ranks the top 50 law schools in terms of associate placement at law firms across the country. The law schools make the list based on their percentage of graduates in 2011 to be hired by law firms in the NLJ top 250.
Some of the schools that made the top 50 include Columbia, Stanford, Duke, Cornell, George Washington, Southern Methodist University, Rutgers School of Law-Newark and the Brooklyn Law School. After you check out the entire list of law schools that made the NLJ top 50, be sure to leave a comment or two about your thoughts on the data and where the legal industry is headed in the economy.