Law school graduate employment rate for top-tier jobs remains high for the class of 2025

April 22, 2026

Law school graduate employment rate for top-tier jobs remains high for the class of 2025

CHICAGO, April 22, 2026 - Overall, 87.7% of class of 2025 graduates from Council-accredited law schools were reported to be employed in full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated or J.D. Advantage jobs on March 16, 2026, roughly 10 months after graduation. While the percentage of all jobs represented by this category was slightly higher than the same figure last year for the class of 2024, 87.1%, the percentage represents a smaller overall number of full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated or J.D. Advantage jobs, as the class of 2025 was 7.0% smaller than the class of 2024. Employment data is collected and reported annually by the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, and all data is current as of March 31, 2026.

"We continue to see a strong job market for graduates of Council-accredited law schools in the types of jobs most law graduates pursue," said Jenn Rosato Perea, managing director of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. "The total number of full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated or J.D. Advantage jobs represented in the data is lower than in past years, but the overall percentage of graduates getting these jobs remains high."

For the class of 2025, the aggregated school data shows that 31,743 or 87.7% of the 2025 graduates of the 195 law schools enrolling students and approved or provisionally approved by the Council to offer the J.D. degree were employed in full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated or J.D. Advantage jobs roughly 10 months after graduation. That compares to 33,931 or 87.1% of the graduates reporting similar full-time, long-term jobs last year. The actual number of full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated or J.D. Advantage jobs decreased by 2,188 or 6.4% year-over-year. Notably, due to a change in reporting protocols, Bar Admission Required/Anticipated and JD Advantage jobs that were law school funded are included in this year's percentage. If full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated and JD Advantage positions that were Law School/University Funded were included in last year's percentage, it would have been 88.1%.

An online table provides select national outcomes and side-by-side comparisons for the classes of 2024 and 2025. Further reports on employment outcomes, including links to individual school outcomes and spreadsheets aggregating those reports, are available now on the Required Disclosures page of the Council's website. Schools can make corrections to their individual school outcomes for the class of 2025 until Friday, June 12, 2026. These corrections will be reflected in the Employment Summary Reports that are required to be posted publicly on their websites, as well as on the Required Disclosures page.

Each year's employment outcomes measure the post-graduation status of law graduates on March 15 (or the following Monday when March 15 falls on a weekend), approximately 10 months after spring graduation. Under Interpretation 509-2 of Standard 509, law schools are permitted to publicize additional employment outcome data as long as the information complies with Standard 509(a). Standard 509(a) requires that all information that a law school reports, publicizes or distributes shall be complete, accurate and not misleading to a reasonable law school student or applicant.

The Council, under Standard 509 of the ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools, requires schools to report and publicly disclose varied information for compliance and consumer information purposes, including employment outcomes. Employment and other statistics are posted to the Council's Statistics web page.

The Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (the Council) is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the national accrediting agency for programs leading to the J.D. As the national accreditor, the Council is separate and independent from the ABA and works on a non-profit basis for the betterment of legal education at a national level. The Council's work ensures a national standard of quality for legal education across every U.S. jurisdiction so that graduates' law degrees are portable among states. Follow the latest Council news at http://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/accreditation/