Spring Self-Reported Entry Level Hiring Report: Reporting Rate 2013

As last year, I here compare the self-reported placement with the number of alumni from each school on the market this year, as reported on Leiter's Law School Reports last fall. 

The graph below  gives the self-reported hiring rate (the "reporting rate") for tenure-track U.S. law school jobs for each of the schools listed in Leiter's chart. This is calculated by dividing the number of reported tenure-track U.S. law school hires for a given school by the number of alumni from that school on the market this year based on the first FAR distribution, as reported by Leiter.

For example, the SSRELHR (Spring Self-Reported Entry Level Hiring Report) shows that 16 reported hires received their JD from Harvard, and Leiter reports that Harvard had 57 alumni in the first FAR distribution, so Harvard has a rate of 16/57, approximately 28%. 

This is all subject to a lot of caveats, of course--here are four, and I'm sure I'm missing some. There are both numerator and denominator issues: 

(1) Numerator: I don't know whether the apparently "unsuccessful" candidates weren't hired, or were hired but weren't reported to the SSRELHR.

(2) Numerator: Some schools tend to report their alumni to the SSRELHR very faithfully, so the reporting rate might well differ by school.

(3) Numerator: The data analysis includes only tenure-track, U.S. positions. Some people received other sorts of jobs. For example, seven Chicago hires were reported--one at a non-U.S. law school. If that hire were included in the data analysis, the Chicago percentage would go from 6/12 = 50% (already very high) to 7/12=58% (even higher!).

(4) Denominator: The "number of people on the market" is drawn from the first FAR form distributions. There are subsequent, albeit smaller, distributions, and some people hired were not in the FAR pool at all.

Keeping those caveats in mind:

Virginia 4/7 (57%); Chicago 6/12 (50%); Yale 18/37 (49%); NYU 12/31 (39%); Duke 5/13 (38%); Michigan 5/13 (38%); Penn 1/3 (33%); Harvard 16/57 (28%); UCLA 2/8 (25%); Northwestern 3/14 (21%); Cornell 3/14 (21%); Texas 2/11 (18%); Georgetown 3/18 (17%); Stanford 2/13 (15%); Berkeley 3/20 (15%); Columbia 2/18 (11%).

This is also available on the spreadsheet, on the tab labeled "Reporting Rate."

Originally posted 5/27/13; edited 5/28/13 to reflect change in Michigan.