Document Type

Article

Abstract

The University of Michigan Law School conducted mail surveys of selective classes of its alumni each year from 1966 and 2006. The survey was revived online in 2014 and has continued to the present. This memo relates to the surveys through 2006.

For many years, the survey instrument has included questions about graduates’ satisfaction with their law school experience “overall” as well as specific questions about their satisfaction with law school “intellectually,” “as career training” and “socially.” Strongly related to overall satisfaction with law school is the length of time that graduates have been out of law school – the longer out, the more satisfied graduates say they are with their law school experience. The paper explores this and many other factors that might contribute to law school satisfaction. Many, such as the sex of the graduate, proved in the end to have little or no relation to satisfaction. Among those factors that do show a strong relation, the strongest is the final law-school gradepoint average of graduates – the higher a graduate’s grades, the more satisfied with law school he or she was likely to be.

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