With over one million lawyers in the United States and 50,000 new lawyers joining the ranks of the profession every year, law represents one of the country?s most influential professions; lawyers are responsible not only for the administration of justice, but also are key players in the country?s economic and political life. While the profession has become much more diverse by gender and race, prestige and money also tend to be disproportionately allocated to white males. The result is a profession with major divisions in the settings within which lawyers work, the clients they represent, and the daily work with which they engage. Understanding who lawyers are, how lawyers make their careers, which lawyers attain elite positions, and whom lawyers serve are key issues both in terms of access to the profession and the way that the profession serves the ends of justice.
After the JD (AJD) is the first empirical study of a nationally representative cohort of new lawyers. AJD is tracking the professional lives of more than 4,500 lawyers who passed the bar in the year 2000. The sample was interviewed in 2003 and again in 2007 and will be interviewed by web, mail, and telephone surveys in 2012 (approximately twelve years into their careers). By year twelve, many respondents will have experienced important transitions in their personal and career trajectories, including the achievement of partnership in private law firms, attainment of supervisory positions in government or business, establishing a solo or small firm practice, or exit from law practice altogether. The study assesses the personal, professional, and contextual factors that lead to different career outcomes. It is particularly interested in examining the influence of gender, race, and ethnicity on career development. The timing of the third wave, which follows the global financial crisis that began in 2008, will also allow researchers to assess the effects of the economic collapse on the legal profession and individual lawyer careers.
After the JD III - The Trajectories of Legal Careers The After the JD Project (AJD) is the first longitudinal study of the careers of a nationally representative sample of lawyers in the United States. The study has systematically tracked the professional and personal lives of more than 5,000 lawyers who passed the bar in the year 2000. With three waves of interviews--in 2003, 2007, and now 2012--the study provides an in-depth portrait of the diverse careers of women and men, and racial and ethnic minority lawyers across various geographic and legal markets. Given the centrality of the legal profession in the political, social, and economic fabric of American society, AJD sheds important new light on the role that law plays in our society. The results confirm a portrait of a highly differentiated career system in which lawyers work in a variety of practice settings, with very different patterns of work load, clients, legal specialty, and pay. While women and minorities have gained entry to the profession in unprecedented numbers, they continue to lag in earnings and promotion to partnership in large law firms and continue to be overrepresented in less remunerative fields of government and public interest practice. Legal careers have become increasingly fluid, as this cohort of young lawyers on average reports three job changes and some one in five report that they are not practicing law in their current position. This has been a period of historic upheaval in the legal profession, with the collapse of the global economy in 2008 and new concerns about the value of legal education in an uncertain job market. Yet 75% of AJD3 respondents report that they are moderately or extremely satisfied with their decision to become a lawyer. Most AJD3 respondents report that they think their legal education was a "good investment" and that they would go to law school again if they had to do it over. An important objective of the AJD Project is to make available this unique dataset to other scholars. The longitudinal nature of the research design will allow students of careers, the professions, and law to examine the distinctive stages of professional lives. What career strategies appear most successful for young lawyers? Do these strategies vary by gender, race, and class; by legal market; by the selectivity of the law school from which lawyers graduate; or other dimensions? These issues are but a subset of important questions that the After the JD study addresses.
