The
Profession of Law By the Numbers
Web
research exercise
Professor Barbara Glesner Fines
2009
Please
complete the following worksheet. Submit
your answers to me before the first class.
To submit your answers:
1. Write the answers only in the text of an email
– be sure to label the question you are answering
2. Complete this form and email it to me as an
attachment
3. Deliver a hard copy of your answers (on this
form or on a separate paper) to me personally.
Personal Demographics
NAME
_____________________________________________________________________________
IN WHAT AREA OF LAW DO
YOU EXPECT OR HOPE TO PRACTICE LAW (If you do not intend to practice law, what
do you expect or hope to do with your law degree)?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
IN WHAT GEOGRAPHIC AREA DO YOU EXPECT OR HOPE TO BE EMPLOYED
AFTER
Demographics of the Profession
According
to the American
Bar Association,
1. How many licensed attorneys were there in
the
2. What percentage are male?
__________________________________________________________________________
3. What percentage are White/Caucasian?
__________________________________________________________________________
4. What age group makes up the larges
percentage of attorneys?
__________________________________________________________________________
Economics
5. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
what is the median salary
of lawyers in all practice settings 9 months after graduation?
__________________________________________________________________________
6. According to the 2007 Missouri Bar
Economic Survey,
what are the two main
sources of clients for attorneys in
7. According to a
ABA Law Student Division’s slideshow on loan repayment assistance programs, (slideshow is available as a PowerPoint or in
PDF format)
what is the mean loan debt
for law school graduates?
__________________________________________________________________________
Practice settings
8. According to the American
Bar Association,
What percentage of
lawyers are in private practice? ________________________________________
9. According to the UMKC law school’s
placement office,
what percentage of UMKC
Law graduates practice in
Client groups
10. According a
review of the book John P. Heinz, et. al, Urban
Lawyers: The New Social Structure of the Bar (2005),
between 1975 and 1995,
how has the percentage of attorneys serving mostly individuals changed?
__________________________________________________________________________
11. According to the Legal Services Corporation
report, Documenting the Justice Gap in America: The
Current Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans (2005),
what
is the ratio of legal aid attorneys to the
__________________________________________________________________________
Legal Education
12. According to the 2008
Report of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement, what percentage of third-year
law students frequently come to class unprepared? (this
is a fairly big pdf file – give it time to load)
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
13. According to that same study, what
percentage of third-year students use their computers during class to surf the
web? ___________________________________
14. Ask one question about the legal profession
you have wondered about. Try to find the
answer. Provide a citation to the source
of your answer.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
To
read more about the sociology of the profession see:
Donald D. Landon, Country lawyers : the impact of
context on professional practice (1990) KF297 .L355 1990
John
P. Heinz, et. al., Urban Lawyers: The New Social Structure of the Bar (2005)
KF298 .U73 2005
Marc
Galanter, "Old and in the Way": The
Coming Demographic Transformation of the Legal Profession and its Implication
for the Provision of Legal Services, 1999 Wisc.
L. Rev. 1081