The New York Bar Association has taken action after finding that many law graduates were not getting jobs. Following a report by the NYC Task Force ‘New Lawyers in a Changing Profession’ the association has set up a programme to help graduates get employment. The Task Force found that ‘about 56 per cent of 2011 and 2012 law graduates were employed full time in jobs requiring bar passage nine months after graduation. The overall employment rate for the class of 2012 was the lowest  since 1994, with only 84.7 per cent  of graduates for whom employment status was known holding any kind of job.’ The City Bar New Lawyer Institute, one of the pilot programmes, was created to help new lawyers transition into practice. The year-long CLE curriculm for 2014 law graduates provides students with training and advice in professional networking and job interview training, as well as mentorship opportunities. The Institute stated it will sponsor programs designed to introduce all new lawyers in NYC.

Practical skills

The Task Force criticised the amount of insufficient training in practical skills for law students saying that law schools excelled  in education and training on legal principles, theory, critical thinking and logical reasoning, but suffered from a lack of experience in solving real world problems. They called for increased assessments, including writing assignments, to be made throughout the semester, in addition to using the third year of law school for ‘practice-ready’ learning and real experience, which could include formal and informal mentoring by experienced attorneys.‘Despite the difficult job environment, there is a large unmet demand for legal services, especially among moderate-income households,’ the report stated. There ‘must be a cultural shift in the focus of the profession away from the limited number of ‘BigLaw’ opportunities and towards a wider range of sustainable career opportunities.’The findings came from Fall 2013 report.