Finally, some good news: Data Spotlight: New Lawyers Glutting the Market

Note: Catherine Rampell at the New York Times’ Economix blog highlighted our findings (see here). In light of the feedback we’ve received as well as the comments under Catherine’s post — and ours — we have updated the piece.


For a while now, major media outlets — and a legion of bloggers — have reminded us that the job market for lawyers is lousy. Some law schools, in light of the dimming employment prospects for graduates, have resorted to grade inflation and other methods to, as The New York Times noted, “rescue their students from the tough economic climate — and perhaps more to the point, to protect their own reputations and rankings.”

Just how bad is the job outlook for lawyers? According to our quick analysis, every state but Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., and Nebraska produced more — in some cases, far more — bar exam passers in 2009 than the estimated yearly openings for lawyers in those states. The same glut holds true when comparing law school grads, via IPEDS from the National Center for Education Statistics, to the same opening estimates. ¹ And when you take into account nuances with the D.C. bar and how Wisconsin operates (see more below), there might not be any states with a shortage.


New York has far and away the largest oversupply; 9,787 law grads passed the bar exam there in 2009, more than 10% of the active attorney workforce in the state. ² EMSI estimates New York will need 2,100 new lawyers annually through 2015, creating a glut of 7,687 per year if the 2009 supply figures hold firm. (The imbalance is less striking with IPEDS completers.)
As is the case in every state, not all of these new grads will practice in New York. But the data still points to a surplus.

On the national level, there were nearly twice as many bar exam passers (53,508) in ’09 than openings (26,239). It should be noted that not all those who pass the bar exam in each state are new graduates. Some law school grads wait several years to take the test. Others take it multiple times before passing (the national pass rate in ’09 was 68%), and some have to take it again if they want to practice in another state. Still, the bar exam data appears to be the best measure of lawyer supply from year to year, with the exception of D.C. and Wisconsin. (We also compiled IPEDS completers by state to see how both datasets match up.)

Here’s the data (including median wages) and supply/demand comparisons for every state that we compiled using EMSI’s Analyst. Note: Use the table’s search function to quickly find any state; national figures are at the bottom.

Search:

	2010-15 Est. Annual Openings	2009 Bar Exam Passers	2009 Completers (IPEDS)	Surplus/Shortage	Median Wages
New York	2,100	9,787	4,771	7,687	$56.57
California	3,307	6,258	5,042	2,951	$50.61
New Jersey	844	3,037	787	2,193	$43.84
Illinois	1,394	3,073	2,166	1,679	$51.54
Massachusetts	715	2,165	2,520	1,450	$43.89
Pennsylvania	869	1,943	1,697	1,074	$46.05
Texas	2,155	3,052	2,402	897	$41.55
Florida	2,027	2,782	2,781	755	$36.39
Maryland	560	1,277	548	717	$41.46
Missouri	362	943	908	581	$39.96
Connecticut	316	880	510	564	$43.69
North Carolina	503	1,032	1,053	529	$37.79
Minnesota	378	888	948	510	$43.69
Ohio	686	1,194	1,513	508	$34.69
Georgia	779	1,217	894	438	$46.11
Colorado	547	967	509	420	$40.83
Virginia	956	1,375	1,435	419	$49.34
Louisiana	357	731	810	374	$33.35
Tennessee	389	735	446	346	$37.34
Washington	619	935	678	316	$37.37
Oregon	291	594	519	303	$34.51
Indiana	339	602	825	263	$32.48
South Carolina	262	506	410	244	$33.03
Kentucky	261	478	389	217	$34.39
Nevada	219	392	143	173	$40.32
Arizona	440	607	378	167	$37.51
New Mexico	134	298	114	164	$29.78
Michigan	862	1,024	1,993	162	$35.22
Kansas	190	351	296	161	$31.16
Alabama	295	455	406	160	$37.98
Iowa	155	290	556	135	$32.16
Rhode Island	102	209	184	107	$39.65
Hawaii	76	179	88	103	$33.70
Mississippi	173	268	335	95	$28.86
Utah	308	401	283	93	$37.04
W. Virginia	100	191	152	91	$32.51
Montana	81	163	83	82	$24.96
Maine	75	153	91	78	$29.70
Arkansas	152	227	243	75	$30.83
Wyoming	40	113	80	73	$29.86
New Hampshire	92	154	146	62	$30.84
Oklahoma	326	387	489	61	$29.56
South Dakota	38	83	73	45	$29.19
North Dakota	33	63	80	30	$28.78
Idaho	128	157	97	29	$30.77
Alaska	41	66	0	25	$37.80
Delaware	116	141	235	25	$60.67
Vermont	51	55	191	4	$30.48
Nebraska	112	109	279	-3	$32.47
Wisconsin	262	248	691	-14	$36.43
D.C.	618	273	2,109	-345	$70.96
Nation	26,239	53,508	44,376	27,269	$44.22

Please note the above chart and table were corrected to include the right number of IPEDS completers for North Carolina (1,053).

The wage data for lawyers is also interesting, if only for the wide variances by state. The District of Columbia has by far highest hourly median wages ($70.96) for lawyers in the nation while Montana has easily the lowest ($24.96), followed by North Dakota ($28.78) and Mississippi ($28.86).
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