The ABA's Young Lawyers Division on Saturday voted to press for greater transparency for would-be lawyers considering law school, giving them a greater understanding of the risks of assuming the sometimes staggering debt required to obtain a J.D.The division's assembly adopted a multi-point policy resolution, dubbed "Truth in Law School Education," urging law schools to improve post-graduate employment information provided to prospective students and to ensure that information is prominently featured in communications. The division is next expected to bring the resolution, which has had the support of ABA President Stephen N. Zack, to the ABA's policymaking House of Delegates at its annual meeting in August.
To remedy to current problem, the resolution calls for the following changes:
- that all ABA approved schools gives full employment information, including distinguishing between law/non-law and temporary/permanent.
- that all applicants to law school should have easy access to this data (either sent with enrollment information or "conspicuous notice" of where to find it.
- that ABA-approved schools should be more transparent with regard to graduate salaries and costs of attendance.
- that these should be integrated into the standards of approval for law schools.
The accompanying report also has some golden information regarding the Class of 2009's salary data (e.g., 69% of the academic jobs that are created by the schools are temporary, the percentage of solo practitioners among recent graduates rose 51% from 2008 to 2009).
Nice work, Jacqueline Epstein and whoever else put hard work into this. Hopefully the full ABA actually takes action on your resolution.
I love the way these guys are trying to take credit for all the work Law School Transparency has been doing to get this issue out into public debate.
ReplyDeleteThe ABA has never been at the "forefront" of anything, and for them to celebrate doing something that has been sorely needed for years is just too rich.
We'll see if this bears any fruit. My next target is going to be for the ABA to require independent auditing of the information law schools are required to provide to prospective students, especially in light of the Villanova scandal.
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