At the same time, data from the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), shows administration of the summer's LSAT exams are also higher compared to last year’s registration.
The employment rate for lawyers in the Class of 2017 is more than a full percentage point higher than from the same period in 2016. That's according to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) selected findings report, released ahead of the Jobs & JDs: Employment and Salaries of New Law School Graduates—Class of 2017 report coming out in the fall.
The data shows the employment rate for graduates whose status was available was 88.6%, compared to 87.5% from the year before. However, the total number of jobs found by graduates was down by more than 1,200 over that same period.
The only segment of the job market that saw actual gains in employment was in law firms with more than 500 lawyers, according to information from the data.
Additionally, the mean law firm salary for lawyers is up 4% to $119,740, representing an increase of more than $5,000 from 2009’s previously measured high.
“The employment outcomes findings for members of the Class of 2017 are surprisingly strong," said James G. Leipold, NALP’s executive director. "Most notable is a bar passage required employment rate that jumped more than four percentage points from the previous year, and a private practice employment rate that has now increased for six years in a row.”
“Barring another economic slowdown or interruption and barring a significant jump in law school enrollment as a result of rising applications, the employment outlook for recent law school graduates looks brighter (if not exactly rosy) than it has at any time since 2008, and that is good news.”
However, year-to-date figures from the LSAC show 37,474 aspiring lawyers took the LSAT exam in 2018, up 23.5% from 2017's 30,333 test-takers. Approximately 67% of the 2018 registrants took the exam for the first time, according to information from the organization.
Leipold, though, expressed optimism about the data trends. “All of this suggests that the dramatic falloff in law school enrollment, coupled with a recovering Big Law market, has in some ways provided the correction that was needed, and we are closer than at any time since the recession to having the number of law school graduates more closely match the number and kind of jobs available,” Leipold said.
He added, though, the legal job market does still has room for improvement, despite apparent gains.
“While the worst of the underemployment problem has now been remedied, the unemployment rate ten months after graduation still remains much higher than it should be," he said. "Despite the strong recovery of the job market for law school graduates since the recession, this elevated unemployment rate remains an important marker of the current job market for new law school graduates.”
Additional information can be found from the NALP statistics and LSAC data.