'The Pride of Indiana': An Empirical Study of the Law School Experience and Careers of Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington Alumni

Gender, race, and job satisfaction of law graduates: Intersectional evidence from the National Survey of College Graduates

“…There is less information about job satisfaction of Asians relative to non‐Asians. Dau‐Schmidt et al (2006) show that relative to non‐Hispanic White graduates, Asian alumni of Indiana University School of Law 5 years (classes of 1995–1999) and 15 years (classes of 1985–1989) after graduation have lower job satisfaction; this study also shows that Hispanic alumni were more satisfied than non‐Hispanic Whites 15 years post‐graduation. The Portrait Project Survey of Asian American lawyers shows generally high levels of career satisfaction, although women express lower levels of satisfaction than do men (Chung et al, 2017).…”

Overstating the Satisfaction of Lawyers

“…Some authors reporting on the results of their surveys have simply reported mean scores and made no characterization whatever of the general level of satisfaction of their respondents (Dau‐Schmidt et al. ), but many others group together the supermajority in their categories above the midpoint—usually around 80 percent in most surveys—and then point to the high contentment of US attorneys in general or to the high contentment of respondents to their particular surveys . I am among those who have done so .…”

“…38. With slight hyperbole, Kenneth Dau-Schmidt and his coauthors, reporting on a study of the graduates of the University of Indiana Law School-Bloomington, said: "All surveys suffer from response biases, in particular that the more successful among those surveyed tend to be the ones who respond" (Dau-Schmidt et al 2006, 1428.…”

“…In responding to questions such as these, the overwhelming majority of lawyers have put themselves into one of the top two categories of satisfaction on questions with four‐ or five‐point scales and into one of the top three categories of satisfaction on questions with seven‐point scales (Organ 2011). Some authors reporting on the results of their surveys have simply reported mean scores and made no characterization whatever of the general level of satisfaction of their respondents (Dau‐Schmidt et al 2006), but many others group together the supermajority in their categories above the midpoint—usually around 80 percent in most surveys—and then point to the high contentment of US attorneys in general 11 or to the high contentment of respondents to their particular surveys 12 . I am among those who have done so 13 .…”

“…See discussion in text, infra. The Michigan questions in the same form have been used each year since 2001 by Kenneth Dau‐Schmidt and colleagues to learn about the work satisfaction of the graduates of Indiana University School of Law‐Bloomington (Dau‐Schmidt et al 2006, 1428 n5). Using questions in essentially the same form, the After the J.D.…”