Career Prospects for Lawyers Improve as Fewer Compete for Jobs

On Wednesday, the American Bar Association released what might be the best news law students have heard in years: The job market is not as miserable as it used to be. People who graduated from law school in 2014 are more likely to be in jobs that required passing the bar exam, or where having a law degree is an advantage, according to data from more than 200 ABA-accredited schools.

Sixty percent of law grads in the class of 2014 landed long-term, full-time positions they needed a passing Bar Exam grade for—generally regarded as the most coveted jobs available right out of law school. That figure is up from 55 percent 2011. The share of students who had full-time, long-term jobs where a J.D. degree was preferred went up to 11 percent, from 8 percent in 2011.