New Survey: "State of the Legal Field"

You may have heard that the number of students enrolling in law school in 2014 was the lowest in 41 years, while law school debt increased and the job market is still tough.  BARBRI, the bar exam and law student preparation firm, decided to assess the current state of the legal field by conducting the first survey of its kind including all three groups: current law students; practicing attorneys; and law school faculty.  Released this month, State of the Legal Field Survey: Insights from BARBRI's First Annual Survey of Law Students, Law School Faculty and Attorneys, summarizes the results.

Conducted by an independent research firm, the survey asked some key questions. How did 3L's assess their preparedness to practice law?  What did practicing lawyers and law school faculty consider the most important skill for newly graduated attorneys? What were all groups' expectations and experiences of paying off student loan debt? How did attorneys assess expected job openings in the next few years?  Would the new and experienced lawyers choose to go to law school again?  Take a look at the findings. 

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

How Americans View Privacy: New Report

This week the Pew Research Center published a fascinating report, "Public Perceptions of Privacy and Security in the Post-Snowden Era."  The Center's Internet Project commissioned a representative online panel of 607 adults to take four surveys over the course of a year.  The findings of this report are based on results from the first survey, conducted in January 2014, and reflect Americans' views of how secure they feel various channels of communication are for sharing private information. According to a recent BBC News article by Jane Wakefield based on comments from report author Mary Madden, a Pew Internet Project senior researcher, "the next survey, due next month, will look specifically at attitudes to how information is stored and secured and the following one will focus on behavioural changes in the post-Snowden world."

Read the report, and engage with the profiles and views of survey participants via this interactive created by the Internet Project.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Ideas on How to Improve The Bluebook? Online Survey - Reply by November 8

Citing Legally recently posted a survey for ideas on how to improve the Bluebook, if you would like to participate in the survey, submissions must be recieved by November 8.

"In preparation for the commencement of work on the 20th edition of The Bluebook, due out in 2015, that manual’s proprietors have placed a survey online at: https://www.legalbluebook.com/survey.  Anyone with views on how that reference might be improved in scope, delivery, or content should register them … soon."


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat