Bar Pass Rates and Job Placement
- Just as you should look at what kinds of students are entering a law school, it is also valuable to see how those students are doing once they leave. Unless you pass the state bar exam, you cannot practice as a lawyer in that state.
- You can receive information on the bar pass rates for any given school from your pre-law advisor at the college advising office.
- Job placement rates are something you'll need to individually query potential schools about. The number you'll want to ask for is the 6-month post-graduation job placement rate. This will tell you what percentage of the school's graduates have jobs within 6 months of graduating. It might also be worth asking how many of those jobs are in law professions, especially if a school has a relatively low bar pass rate.
- If a school has a low bar pass rate (less than 70%), or a low job placement rate, this might be cause for hesitation on your part. You may want to ask the school if there are other contributing factors that would make their numbers lower than expected. It may not be worth the cost of your law school education if you will be unable to practice after completing your J.D.
|
|
