Top Law Schools

Just tinkering with the new ABA 509 reports, and I was looking at attrition rates. Some things are not surprising, e.g., T1 schools do a great job of retaining students, and TTTT's have students leaving in droves. So I was surprised by certain trends.

For example, the following schools had only one student leave after 1L, at most:
CONNECTICUT, UNIVERSITY OF 0
CORNELL UNIVERSITY 0
LEWIS AND CLARK COLLEGE 0
NORTH CAROLINA, UNIVERSITY OF 0
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 0
PENNSYLVANIA STATE - PENN STATE LAW 0
SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY 0
STANFORD UNIVERSITY 0
TEXAS AT AUSTIN, UNIVERSITY OF 0
VERMONT LAW SCHOOL 0
YALE UNIVERSITY 0
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 1
ARIZONA, UNIVERSITY OF 1
CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY, UNIVERSITY OF 1
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY 1
LOUISVILLE, UNIVERSITY OF 1
NOTRE DAME, UNIVERSITY OF 1
ST. THOMAS, UNIVERSITY OF (MINNESOTA) 1
TENNESSEE, UNIVERSITY OF 1
UTAH, UNIVERSITY OF 1
WASHINGTON, UNIVERSITY OF 1

By comparison, here are the schools that had 20 or more students leave
AKRON, UNIVERSITY OF 20
BARRY UNIVERSITY 20
ELON UNIVERSITY 21
FLORIDA A&M UNIVERSITY 22
MITCHELL|HAMLINE 22
PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY 22
SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY 23
NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY 26
CAPITAL UNIVERSITY 29
JOHN MARSHALL LAW SCHOOL 29
NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL 29
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY 29
WESTERN STATE COLLEGE OF LAW 30
SAN FRANCISCO, UNIVERSITY OF 33
TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY 33
ST. THOMAS UNIVERSITY (FLORIDA) 35
WIDENER UNIVERSITY-DELAWARE 35
WIDENER-COMMONWEALTH 35
SOUTH TEXAS COLLEGE OF LAW HOUSTON 36
ST. MARY'S UNIVERSITY 36
ATLANTA'S JOHN MARSHALL LAW SHOOL 40
GOLDEN GATE UNIVERSITY 46
ARIZONA SUMMIT LAW SCHOOL 47
SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY 49
WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY 50
CALIFORNIA WESTERN SCHOOL OF LAW 59
NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY 69
SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL 69
THOMAS JEFFERSON SCHOOL OF LAW 73
FLORIDA COASTAL SCHOOL OF LAW 76


I was going to highlight the schools that surprise me in both categories, because there are at least a couple in both groups, but I think I'll just leave this here.

PS: Look at some of those numbers on the bottom... how on earth does the ABA look at that and not say, enough is enough?! With that many students leaving after one year (with massive, nondischargeable debt), something is clearly very wrong. Sorry, I wasn't trying to make this one of those posts, but I just had to point it out.

Holy shit! Thank you for this... I would never have imagined 70 something students leaving 1L year, even from those schools.

I'll never understand why the ABA allows this shit to go on.

The schools where lots of students leave are the schools with low entry requirements. Is the trend really suprising? One of the roles those schools fill is letting people with poor stats take a shot at a law degree. If someone is not defined by their stats and can succeed, great. If not, it’s better that they get terminated early on, rather than spend 3 years of money (and likely never pass the bar). That’s why the ABA doesn’t have a problem with this.

Now, you can say this tier of schools shouldn’t exist and shouldn’t be taking money from students at all, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. But I think that’s an issue distinct from their severe curves and high attrition rates.

i'm assuming this is non-transfer attrition?

School I’m familiar with low key encourages students to drop out after bad first semester grades. Worried about bar passage rate on one hand, and otoh not super grubby money hungry I guess.

Have you done the ratios on these schools? I'm not sure just a baseline number of people leaving without a population to compare to will actually help as much.