U.S. Senator Criticizes ABA Reporting Of Law School Data

Tax Prof Blog: U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) sent a letter today calling on the American Bar Association to increase its efforts to protect current and prospective law school students from misleading information from law schools on post-graduation employment and merit scholarships.

In the letter, Senator Boxer noted that the ABA’s Section of Legal Education recently started to address deficiencies in current post-graduation employment and salary reporting requirements, but she expressed disappointment that the group decided not to require law schools to report the percentage of their graduates working in the legal profession or the percentage of graduates working in part-time legal jobs in its upcoming questionnaire. This information is critical to ensuring that prospective law school students know what their real jobs prospects are before they commit to a costly legal education.

Senator Boxer wrote, “In a year when a number of lawsuits alleging consumer protection law violations have been filed against ABA law schools, when major newspapers have devoted thousands of words to problems with law school reporting practices, and when two United States Senators have encouraged significant changes to your policies, it is surprising that the ABA is resorting to half measures instead of tackling a major problem head on.”