T he UNC School of Law deserves credit for leading a nationwide movement for greater transparency among law schools.
The movement concerns the way in which law schools disclose their graduates’ long-term employment rates and market themselves to potential law school candidates. Many law schools artificially inflate employment rates by hiring their own students immediately after graduation for yearlong fellowships paid for by the school or university. This job meets the American Bar Association’s definition of long-term employment as a one-year minimum. UNC’s law school, however, boasts a 69 percent employment rate, ranking 33rd, without a fellowship program.
At a time when much of the media’s coverage of UNC’s academics has been fairly negative, the law school deserves an honorable commendation for its efforts to be more honest about its graduates’ prospects. In doing so, the school has made a sacrifice and suffered a marginal dip in rankings — a testament to the school’s commitment to integrity and honesty.
The University of Virginia, UNC’s pretentious cousin to the north, boasts an employment rate of 95.6 percent, the highest in the country. This statistic factors into its law school’s overall ranking — eighth in the country. Unfortunately, this number does not reflect the true long-term employment from UVA’s law school, as 15.9 percent of the school’s employed graduates are hired by the University’s one-year fellowship programs.
UNC’s law school’s dedication to transparency is evidence of its dedication to its students. The school is choosing to provide honest information to prospective students, even at the risk of losing marketability in the form of deceiving national rankings.
The broader University should be willing to make similar sacrifices for the sake of integrity.
