Source: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/rankings
Bar Applicants (2009)
79,125
Bar Passage (2009)
54,027
Bar Failure
25,098
Source: http://www.ncbex.org/fileadmin/mediafiles/downloads/Bar_Admissions/2009_Stats.pdf
For those of you wondering, nearly a third of all bar takers in 2009 failed, according to the National Conference of Bar Examiners. If you ever sat in a classroom and did the "look at the person to your left, now look at the person to your right, now look at yourself" thing, yeah, one of those three people has a pretty strong chance of failing the bar at least once.
And for the sake of argument, assume that the tuition costs associated with law school and costs of room and board increased, if only a little bit, since the following was produced in 2008. Also assume that where it says more than 80% of students, from any law school tier, will have debt, that I assume you will have some amount of debt, because the chances are hugely in favor of that being the case. Finally, assume that the percentages of students employed as cited will have decreased since 2008 (the publication date) and 2006 (the data year).
Please note that in 2006, with boom hiring, the average top 14 graduate was close to $100K in debt. Both law school and undergraduate tuition has increased dramatically since 2006.
