The American Bar Association has long maintained accreditation rules governing law school admission and bar passage rates, but none of those regulations directly addresses law graduate employment.

Scott Norberg.

A former ABA insider now argues that it’s time to add law jobs to the list of factors that determine whether a law school gets the organization’s stamp of approval. Schools that send fewer than 60 percent of graduates into full-time jobs that require bar passage—or jobs for which a law degree offers an advantage—within 10 months of leaving campus should come under extra scrutiny and risk losing accreditation if they can’t meet that threshold, argues Scott Norberg in his new article, “J.D.s and Jobs: The Case for an ABA Accreditation Standard on Employment Outcomes,” that appears in the Association of American Law School’s Journal of Legal Education.