Wall Street Journal on jobs for law grads

Today's WSJ carried a couple of stories on the current state of the legal job market and its effect on law school enrollments. The first, Job Prospects for Law Grads? The Jury's Out, summarizes the controversy surrounding allegations that many law schools have cooked-the-books regarding the reporting of post-graduation job placement data - and the lawsuits that have followed. 

The second article, Law School Loses Its Allure as Jobs at Firms Are Scarce, reports the ensuing affect on law school applications which have dropped to the lowest point in ten years. College career counselors are reporting that more undergrads are questioning the wisdom of pursuing of advanced degrees generally, not just the JD, because of burdensome loan debt and diminishing opportunities for high paying jobs.

"I'm hearing from the students I work with that they are concerned about the value of a law degree," said Tim Stiles, a career adviser at the University of North Carolina. Students, he said, often tell him they have read press accounts about the difficulty of finding law jobs.

Some students are starting to feel they don't need an advanced degree to improve their career opportunities, college advisers said.

Business-school applications for the fall 2011 class have not been tallied yet by the Graduate Management Admission Council. But last year, the average number of applications to full-time graduate programs declined 1.8%, the Council said, the first decline since 2005.

"When the economy first went down, students saw law school as a way to dodge the work force," said Ryan Heitkamp, a pre-law adviser at Ohio State University. "The news has gotten out that law school is not necessarily a safe backup plan."

(jbl).