Is a Law Degree Still Worth the Price?

Fifteen law schools have been sued for allegedly reporting misleading employment data. For years, almost all law schools claimed to have a 90% or better overall employment rate. Since 2012, we now know that at many ABA-accredited schools less than 50% of their graduates find long-term, full-time jobs that require passage of the bar exam—the actual attorney jobs. Many schools also have relatively low bar-exam passage rates and high attrition rates (i.e., high percentages of students who flunk out or drop out). Professor Johnson demonstrates how to find relevant data about a law school and how to analyze over twenty different criteria in assessing whether the school has sufficiently satisfactory outcomes and is, therefore, worth attending. Such a thorough analysis will help prospective students avoid getting "vanity degrees"—the diplomas that look lovely in a picture frame but that may not make one employable as an attorney.

"Professor Johnson's book, "Is a Law Degree Still Worth the Price?", is an important and very informative resource for individuals applying for, or considering applying for, law school, particularly individuals who do not have stellar LSAT scores and who will have to borrow money to attend law school. The book, and the numerous statistics in the book, will make any prospective law school student a more sophisticated consumer better able to analyze the costs and benefits of a legal education and to decide which law school to attend, if the student decides to attend law school."
—Douglas Rogers, a former partner of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP for over 20 years and a graduate of Yale Law School