How to read a law school's employment stats without being misled
Every ABA-accredited law school publishes its employment and bar numbers in a standard format. Here is which figures matter and which ones flatter.
The question we keep seeing
“This school advertises 95% employment. Another says 78%. Is the first one actually twice as good?”
The short answer
- An 'employment rate' can include part-time, short-term, non-legal work and jobs the school itself paid for.
- The figure to compare is full-time, long-term, bar-passage-required — and every school reports it.
- A bar passage rate means little until you compare it with the average for the states those graduates sat in.
Law schools are unusually well documented. Under the American Bar Association's Standard 509, every accredited school must publish its admissions, employment and bar figures in a defined format, on a public site.Footnote 1Source 1American Bar Association — Standard 509 Required DisclosuresHosts every ABA-accredited law school's annual filing, plus compiled employment-outcome and bar-passage reports covering all schools. Employment is broken down by category, and school-funded positions are reported as a separate line.abarequireddisclosures.org That is a gift — but only if you read the right columns.
The number that means what you think it means
The ABA breaks employment into categories. The one most people have in mind when they picture 'employed as a lawyer' is full-time, long-term, bar-passage-required: a real job, lasting, that requires a law licence to do.
A headline 'employment rate' often folds in several other categories — JD-advantage roles, professional positions that do not require a licence, part-time work, and short-term work. None of those are disgraceful outcomes. They are just not the same thing, and adding them together produces a number that cannot be compared between schools.
School-funded jobs are reported separately for a reason
Schools may hire their own graduates, and some do so at meaningful scale. The ABA requires those positions to be reported as a separate line.Footnote 1Source 1American Bar Association — Standard 509 Required DisclosuresHosts every ABA-accredited law school's annual filing, plus compiled employment-outcome and bar-passage reports covering all schools. Employment is broken down by category, and school-funded positions are reported as a separate line.abarequireddisclosures.org It exists so that a school cannot quietly buy its own employment rate.
Look at the funded figure next to the headline one. A school with a high employment rate and near-zero school-funded positions is telling you something different from a school with the same rate and a large funded count.
A short checklist
- Find the school's Standard 509 report and its employment summary.Footnote 1Source 1American Bar Association — Standard 509 Required DisclosuresHosts every ABA-accredited law school's annual filing, plus compiled employment-outcome and bar-passage reports covering all schools. Employment is broken down by category, and school-funded positions are reported as a separate line.abarequireddisclosures.org
- Read the full-time, long-term, bar-passage-required count, and divide by total graduates yourself.
- Check the school-funded line against that number.
- Compare the first-time bar passage rate with the state average the school reports beside it.
- Look at where graduates actually work — the report names the largest employment states.
None of this requires trusting a ranking. It is the school's own filing, in a format the accreditor defined so that schools could be compared.
Katalyna reads those filings for every accredited school and shows them on the law school search — jobs, school-funded positions, federal clerkships, and bar passage against the state average.
Try it in Katalyna
Law school search
Medians, employment and bar passage for every ABA-accredited school, read from their own filings.
Frequently asked
Compare the full-time, long-term, bar-passage-required share rather than the headline rate, and compare it against other schools in the same region and tier. A single national threshold does not mean much.
Not automatically — some are genuine public-interest fellowships. But they are reported separately on purpose, and a large funded count alongside a high advertised rate is worth asking about.
On the ABA's required disclosures site, which hosts every accredited school's filing, plus compiled employment and bar-passage reports for all schools at once.