| Summary: | This dissertation studies various aspects of the legal labor market in the United States, with a special emphasis on the economic returns to obtaining a legal degree. The first chapter describes the legal labor market and legal education system from a high level, documenting its trends and key features. It concludes, contrary to widespread reports in the media, that the legal labor market has not suffered a special crash, and is emerging from the recession in a manner similar to other educated labor market sectors. The second chapter presents an econometric analysis of detailed data to establish the expected economic returns to obtaining a JD in 2000, well before the 2008 recession and the supposed stagnation of the legal labor market. It estimates that the rate return for graduates of top-tier law schools is substantial, comparable to the rate of return from a college degree. However for graduates of low-tier law schools the rate of return, while positive, is not clearly higher than the rate of return for many other investment opportunities. The third chapter synthesizes information from the first two chapters to consider what these historical estimated returns to a JD reveal about the expected returns for current law school students. It concludes that students who gain admittance to even middle-tier law schools have reason to be optimistic about the return on their investment, though attending a low-tier law school may be an unwise decision from a financial perspective. The fourth chapter is relatively distinct from the first three. It studies the self-selection of lawyers into government or private sector jobs. It shows that government lawyers are on average less-qualified, and that this difference has a material impact on government performance in cases brought before the Supreme Court.
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