Twenty-four percent of the surveyed lawyers were not practicing law in 2012, compared to about 9 percent who weren’t practicing law in 2003, according to preliminary survey findings. The results are from the After the JD study, which tracked a national sample of lawyers who passed the bar in 2000 with surveys in three waves—in 2003, 2007 and 2012.

“These are the golden age graduates,” said American Bar Foundation faculty fellow Ronit Dinovitzer … , “and even among the golden age graduates, 24 percent are not practicing law.”

The careers with the highest percentage of nonpracticing lawyers were the nonprofit and education sector, where about 75 percent weren’t practicing; and the federal government, where nearly 26 percent were nonpracticing. Nonpracticing careers ranged from law professors to real-estate agents to investment bankers, Dinovitzer said.

Read the entire ABA Journal article.

[RL]