ABA Journal:  Would-be law students are less optimistic about finding a job after law school and more worried about student debt, according to a new survey.

Sixty-seven percent of surveyed people considering or applying to law school say they are concerned about finding a job after graduation, compared to 63 percent who expressed concern last year, according to the poll (PDF) by Veritas Prep.

At the same time, the number of students who are extremely confident about finding a job is declining. Twenty-six percent of the respondents said they will always be able to find a job if they have a J.D., a drop of nine percentage points from last year. The National Law Journal has a story, while Veritas summarizes the findings in a press release.

Finding a job that would allow payment of student debt was the top concern, expressed by 73 percent of the respondents. Last year, the top concern was finding an appealing long-term career path.

ABA Journal:  The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is defending the way it manages the collection and reporting of law school placement data.

The section also is reiterating its commitment to the clarity and accuracy of such data by vowing to vigorously enforce the standard requiring law schools to fairly and accurately report basic consumer information, including job placement data, or risk the possible loss of accreditation.

The statement, issued Monday, comes in the wake of recent revelations that two law schools—Villanova University and the University of Illinois—have falsfied admissions data reported to the section.

It also comes in response to criticism from U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and others that the section is somehow dragging its feet on its pledge to begin collecting more detailed job placement data from schools.

ABA Journal: Essays, test scores and grades aren’t the only criteria being considered by law school admissions officers.

A new survey by Kaplan Test Prep reveals that admissions officials are also looking online for information, according to the National Law Journal, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog and a press release.

Forty-one percent said they researched an applicant using an online search engine, and 37 percent said they had looked up an applicant on Facebook or another social networking website.

Admissions officers who went online were able to turn up some damaging information. Thirty-two percent said they found something that hurt an applicant’s chances of admission.

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.”

ABA Journal:  The litigation against law schools over employment statistics may be expanding.

Two law firms announced today that they plan to sue 15 more law schools in seven different states, according to Law School Transparency, which posted the press release. The suits will challenge the schools’ reported employment rates for law graduates.

Prior suits against Cooley Law School, New York Law School and Thomas Jefferson School of Law in California have claimed law students were misled by job statistics that didn’t specify whether jobs obtained by grads were in the legal field.

In a conference call with reporters, lawyer Jesse Strauss of Strauss Law said the 15 new schools were targeted either because alumni approached the law firms, the schools were in markets saturated with lawyers, or the schools released implausible statistics. According to the press release, the average debt for 2009 graduates of the 15 schools is more than $108,000