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Wednesday, May 23, 2018
2018 Hiring Report - Subject Areas Over Time
Jeremy Bearer-Friend commented: "I wonder whether there are certain patterns over time for entry-level hiring by area of law. For example, whether tax hiring is constant even when total number of hires dips, or whether civ pro is generally 20% of the hires each year, etc. Some categories may be more consistently coded over time so this could be tricky to do but thought worth asking!"
I went through and cleaned up the data a little so that the categories were consistently coded over time and then did a cross-year comparison of hiring areas. Results follow. Note that these are the results for U.S., tenure track hires only--the same group on which I usually run the data aggregation.
Each year, candidates can list between zero and four subject areas in which they work. (In 2011 they were allowed to list a maximum of three; in all other years, a maximum of four.)
First, I looked at all subject areas ("All Areas") that candidates listed in a given year. For example, if Candidate A listed "Tax, Con Law, Civ Pro" (interesting candidate!), then this person would be responsible for three entries in the below compilation. As you can see, Crim and Civ Pro lead the pack each year. Other 1L subjects are also very popular. (Click for bigger graphics.)
I did not see any areas where the raw number of hires stayed fixed across time, though the percentage of hires did seem to remain roughly steady.
Second, I looked at just Area 1 -- that is, the subject area that the candidate listed first. So, for example, Candidate A, our "Tax, Con Law, Civ Pro" candidate, would be responsible for only one entry on in this compilation: Tax. This might represent the person's main area of interest. The results were similar here. (Click for bigger graphics.)
Below the fold, a list of every subject area listed in any year. And for those of you who really want to play around with this, here is a link to the raw data, cleaned up a little. It is yearning for more pivot charts.
All Areas, All Years
Academic Success
Accounting
Admin
Admiralty
Advertising
Agency & Partnership
Agricultural
American Indian Law
American Legal History
Antidiscrimination Law
Antitrust
Appellate Practice
Arbitration
Arctic Law
Art Law
Banking
Banking
Bankruptcy
Behavioral Law & Econ
Bioethics
Biotech
British Legal History
Bus Orgs
Business Ethics
Business Law
Business Reorgs
Capital Markets Regulation
CED
Child/Family & State
Chinese Law
Civ Pro
Civil Litigation
Civil Rights
Civil/Comparative Law
Climate Change
Clinical
Collateral Consequences
Commercial Arbitration
Commercial Law
Community Property
Comparative Con Law
Comparative Law
Complex Litigation
Con Law
Conflicts of Law
Constitutional Design
Consumer Finance
Consumer Law
Contracts
Copyright
Corporate
Corporate Finance
Corporate Fraud
Corporate Governance
Corporations
Crim
Crim
Crim Justice Administration
Crim Pro
Criminal Defense
Critical Legal Studies
Critical Legal Theory
Critical Race Theory
Cross-Border Business
Cross-Border Insolvency
Cultural Property
Cyber Law
Cybersecurity
Death Penalty
Debtor and Creditor
Disability Law
Disaster Law
Dispute Resolution
Diversity & Law
Domestic Violence
Education
Elder Law
Election Law
Empirical Legal Studies
Empirical Methods
Employee Benefits
Employment Disc
Employment Law
Energy Law
English Legal History
Enivronmental
Entertainment Law
Entrepreneurship
Environmental
Ethics
Evidence
Experiential Learning
Experimental Methods in Law
Extradition
Family Law
FDA Law
Fed Courts
Federal Sentencing
Federalism
Feminist Legal Theory
Finance
Financial Institutions
Financial Reform
Financial Regulation
Financial Stability
Financial Transactions
First Amendment
Food Law & Policy
Foreign Relations
Freedom of Expression
Gender & Law
Genetics and the Law
Health Care
Health Care Financing
Health Care Reg
Health Law
Healthcare
History of Common Law
Housing Finance
Housing Law
Human Rights
IBT
Immigration
Immigration
Indigent Defense
Information Law
Information Privacy
Institutional Structures
Insurance Law
International Law
International Trade
Internet Law
Int'l Arbitration
Int'l Business Transactions
Int'l Civil Litigation
Int'l Con Law
Int'l Crim
Int'l Development
Int'l Economic Law
Int'l Economics Law
Int'l Energy Law
Int'l Financial Reg.
Int'l Human Rights
Int'l Humantarian Law
Int'l IP
Int'l Law & Dispute Settlement
Int'l Orgs
Int'l Trade and Investment
Investment Funds
Investment Law
IP
Islamic Law
Judicial Administration
Judicial Behavior
Judicial Writing
Jurisdiction
Jurisprudence
Juvenile Justice
Labor & Employment
Labor Law
Land Use
Law & Anthropology
Law & Development
Law & Econ
Law & Finance
Law & Gender
Law & Lit
Law & Neuroscience
Law & Philosophy
Law & Psychology
Law & Religion
Law & Science
Law & Sexuality
Law & Social Movements
Law & Social Science
Law & Society
Law & Sociology
Law & Statistics
Law & Tech
Law & the Economy
Law and Citizenship
Law Firm Management
Law of Democracy
Law of the Sea
Law of War
Law of Warfare
Legal Anthropology
Legal Ethics
Legal History
Legal Philosophy
Legal Profession
Legal Theory
Legal Writing
Legislation
Litigation
Local Government
Machine Learning
Maritime Law
Media & Communications Law
Media Law
Mediation
Medieval Law
Mergers and Acquisitions
Military Law
National Security
Natural Resources
Negotiation
Neuroscience & the Law
Nonprofits
Oil & Gas
Patent Law
Police Accountability
Political Theory
Post-Conflict Justice
Post-Conflict Obligations
Post-Conviction Crim Pro
Poverty Law
Poverty, Inequality, Race & the Law
Presidential Powers
Prison Law and Policy
Prisoner's Rights
Privacy
Private Int'l Law
Prof Resp
Property
Public Int'l Law
Public Law
Race & the Law
Real Estate Law
Real Property
Refugee Law
Regulation
Regulation of Police
Regulation of Risk
Regulation of Vice
Remedies
Roman Law
Rule of Law
Rural Development
Science & Law
Sec Reg
Secured Transactions
Sentencing
Sentencing Reform
Separation of Powers
Social Enterprise
Social Welfare Law
Sociology
South Asian Law & Politics
Statutory Interpretation
Tax
Tax Exempt Orgs
Technology Law
Telecommunications
Torts
Torts
Trade Law
Trademarks
Transnational Litigation
Trial Ad
Trusts & Estates
Venture Capital
Veterans Law
Water Law
White Collar Crime
Wills & Trusts
Work & Family
Workplace Law
Wrongful Convictions
Posted by Sarah Lawsky on May 23, 2018 at 07:22 PM in Entry Level Hiring Report | Permalink
Comments
Such comprehensive information and so clearly put together, Sarah, thank you.
Posted by: Alexander Tsesis | Sep 5, 2018 11:32:27 AM
This may be a methodological issue, but I think if you count together "Bus Orgs", "Bus Law", "Corporate", and "Corporations" you get a result worth knowing about for "Area 1":
2011 16
2012 5
2013 3
2014 6
2015 5
2016 7
2017 6
2018 6
And that number gets a little higher if you include a few oddball subjects like "Corp Governance" and Corp Fraud".
Posted by: Anon | Jun 2, 2018 4:38:12 PM
One admin hire and two international law hires? Yikes!
Posted by: Anon | May 24, 2018 2:34:19 PM
I need a 'shaking fist at AALS' emoji. So much FAR data going to waste! They're sitting on a treasure chest. Thankfully, I have seen them be quite open to suggestions. As a law student I lobbied them to update the AALS bylaws on nondiscrimination to make gender identity and expression explicitly protected categories (which in turn would require all member schools to adopt congruent nondiscrimination policies) and checking their bylaws now they've been updated to be trans inclusive. Hurray! I wonder what the full backstory is for that 2016 vote to change.
On comprehensiveness, I bet you're hitting above 80% these days now that the reputation of the spreadsheet is so well established. It's very well known. But that's just speculation I guess. Thank you so much for doing all this work for the profession!
Posted by: Jeremy Bearer-Friend | May 24, 2018 12:34:39 PM
Jeremy, in 2013, Alexander Tsesis called every single law school to find out about their entry level hires, in order to see how many the self-reported spreadsheet had captured. He found that the spreadsheet had gotten about 83% of the new hires. (See link below.) I don't have any reason to think the accuracy has gone down since then, and it may have gone up, since I now do some outreach to schools as well as having people self report. But I think it's safe to think it's capturing between 80% and 85% of hires (and perhaps more).
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2014/03/2013-full-hiring-report.html
As for whether AALS or SALT is keeping track of this...who knows? One could imagine a world in which AALS in particular provided all sorts of data reporting and analysis on the entry-level market; it wouldn't be difficult for them to do, and in fact they used to do so. They've pulled the page from the web, but you can see it in the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/19990218163611/http://www.aals.org/statistics/index.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20100110042414/http://aals.org.cnchost.com:80/resources_statistical.php
They were actually running, among other things, analyses of the FAR forms, providing information like success rate overall, success rate by gender and race, etc.
Alas, those days are over.
Posted by: Sarah Lawsky | May 24, 2018 9:58:49 AM
This is so fascinating. Thank you. I'm struck by the fact that substantial majority of new hires do not list a 1L required course as their primary area. Possibly a strategy for signaling one is a specialist? Most common specialty outside 1L classes seems to be IP, consistently beating torts, contracts, and con law for area 1. And that no one area crosses the 10 percent mark makes the market seem quite consistently diverse.
Separately, I hope AALS or SALT track the total number of entry-level, tenure track hires so can know what proportion of hires are captured by the self-reported spreadsheet. For all the dues schools are paying seems like this is something they should be tracking, too (or could be compensating you for!)
Posted by: Jeremy Bearer-Friend | May 23, 2018 11:28:53 PM
That's a whole lotta "other"! I find that sort of encouraging about the range of subjects people are getting hired to teach.
One thing I think can be gleaned from the "Area 1" chart is that many successful candidates do not list their "service" course / 1st year course as their #1 field. Perhaps, I would like to think, they are listing their real #1 interest as their #1 interest.
Posted by: Joey Fishkin | May 23, 2018 11:22:04 PM
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