The 14 Worst Law Schools (Based on Employment Statistics)

The good folks at Constitutional Daily analyzed data from Law School Transparency and compiled a list of law schools with underemployment scores higher than their employment scores. (Visit Constitutional Daily for further details.)

Basically, these schools have more underemployed graduates than employed ones, according to LST's numbers.

That sounds pretty bad to me.

Here are the 14 schools ranked by the difference between their underemployment and employment scores (h/t TaxProf Blog):

1. Santa Clara (-28.2%)
2. Florida A&M (-25.0%)
3. Golden Gate (-19.5%)
4. San Francisco (-15.1%)
5. Barry (-13.2%)
6. Whittier (-13.1%)
7. Chapman (-11.7%)
8. Western New England (-10.4%)
9. Florida Coastal (-6.7%)
10. Detroit-Mercy (-4.9%)
11. John Marshall (-3.6%)
12. Thomas Jefferson (-2.7%)
13. Thomas Cooley (-1.4%)
14. Ave Maria (-1.2%)

There are another 5 schools that comprise a list of dishonorable mention. Their Employment Score is lower than their combined Under-Employment Score and unknown employment status rates. They are: California Western, Texas Wesleyan, New England, Liberty, Capital. 

And then there are these 16 schools which do not provide enough data to calculate either an Employment Score or Unemployment Score: Appalachian School of Law, Boston University, Florida International University, Georgia State University, Indiana University - Indianapolis, Inter American University, New York University, North Carolina Central University, Phoenix School of Law, Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, University of La Verne, University of Puerto Rico, University of Richmond, University of South Dakota, University of Southern California, and University of The District of Columbia.

Strange that NYU and USC don't provide enough data to calculate either an employment score or unemployment score. You'd think that schools traditionally ranked so highly would brag about their stats...


Note: An earlier version of this post included Toledo Law. On 5/16, an Assistant Dean at The University of Toledo College of Law emailed me:

In a May 8 post – http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/worst-law-schools-employment-statistics.html - you reported on the Constitutional Daily blog’s “Fracked Fifteen” list, which was compiled using Law School Transparency (LST) Clearinghouse statistics.  The list included The University of Toledo College of Law. 

LST used incomplete/incorrect data in their Clearinghouse’s “Key Stats” section, producing a lower employment score and higher unemployment score for Toledo Law than we actually have and leading directly to our inclusion on that list.

LST has corrected their information as of 5/15/2012 and the correct scores appear here - http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/clearinghouse/?school=toledo
Because your blog commented on the former, incorrect statistics, we ask that you please remove the reference to Toledo Law or correct it immediately.