We’ve written before about the tough job market for recent law-school graduates. The climate is hard partly because of the weak economy, but also partly because the nation’s law schools are churning out many more lawyers than the economy needs even in the long run.
Now a few researchers have tried to quantify exactly how big that surplus is.
The numbers were crunched by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. (also known as EMSI), a consulting company that focuses on employment data and economic analysis. The company’s calculations were based on the number of people who passed the bar exam in each state in 2009, versus an estimate of annual job openings for lawyers in those states. They also looked at data from the Department of Education on law school graduates each year to get another measure of the quantity of new lawyers. Estimates for the number of openings [are] based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau.
According to this model, every state but Wisconsin and Nebraska (plus Washington, D.C.) is producing many more lawyers than it needs. (See table after the jump for full data, and additional caveats.)
In fact, across the country, there were twice as many people who passed the bar in 2009 (53,508) as there were openings (26,239). A separate estimate for the number of lawyers produced in 2009 — the number of new law-school graduates, according to the National Center for Education Statistics — also showed a surplus, although it was not quite as large (44,159 new law grads compared with 26,239 openings).
In raw numbers, New York has the greatest legal surplus by far.
In 2009, 9,787 people passed the bar exam in the Empire State. The analysts estimated, though, that New York would need only 2,100 new lawyers each year through 2015. That means that if New York keeps minting new lawyers apace, it will continue having an annual surplus of 7,687 lawyers.
California and New Jersey have the next largest gluts of new lawyers, according to EMSI.
As noted above, not every state is overproducing lawyers. Nebraska appears to have a small deficit of lawyers. Wisconsin is also listed as having a deficit according to the number of people who passed the bar exam, but the bar-passers figure may not be a good metric (as noted by many readers in response to an earlier version of this post). Graduates of University of Wisconsin Law School and Marquette University Law School, in Milwaukee, do not have to take the bar exam in order to practice law, so there may be many new lawyers not counted in this figure. Note that the Education Department’s figures for the number of people who completed law school in Wisconsin is far higher, and would indicate that Wisconsin too has a surplus of new attorneys.
The place list with the biggest shortage is the District of Columbia, which is projected to have 618 new jobs opening annually for lawyers for the next few years, but had only 273 bar-passers in 2009. But as several readers observed in the comments, the District of Columbia waives in lawyers who are barred in other states, meaning that these figures probably underestimate the number of newly-minted lawyers in the nation’s capital. (If you know how to calculate a better estimate for this figure, please e-mail us.)
The District of Columbia has the highest median wage for lawyers in the country: $70.96 an hour.
| 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 | 279 | 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 | 44,159 | 27,269 | $44.22 |
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