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American law employment statistics: 17.3% (69/399, Class of 2025 ABA Emp Summary) of the Class of 2025 went to firms over 100 lawyers and 1.0% (4/399; state/local 13.8%) took federal clerkships, from the school's own ABA reporting, with top markets of DC (134), MD (51), NY (30).
17.3% (69/399, Class of 2025 ABA Emp Summary) of the Class of 2025 went to firms of more than 100 lawyers, from American's own ABA employment reporting (https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdf).
Overall employment at the ten-month date was 86.2% (344/399, all employed categories at 10 mo) across graduates, from the same source.
Large-firm placement is the number most people mean by outcomes, and it is worth reading beside the clerkship figure rather than alone.
1.0% (4/399; state/local 13.8%) took federal clerkships, from the same report (https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdf).
Clerkship rates track faculty relationships and grading distributions more than they track admissions selectivity, which is why schools with similar medians differ so much.
If a clerkship is the goal, the rate matters less than whether this school's recommenders are known to the judges you would apply to, and no published number captures that.
Our sheet records the top markets as DC (134), MD (51), NY (30), from the same reporting.
Geography is the most underrated column in any outcomes table. A school's placement is largely a statement about which city its network reaches, and that is far harder to change from inside than a grade is.
Read the concentration rather than the list. A school sending most of a class to one market is powerful there and a harder sell everywhere else.
OutcomeClass of 2025SourceEmployed at ten months86.2% (344/399, all employed categories at 10 mo)https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdfFirms over 100 lawyers17.3% (69/399, Class of 2025 ABA Emp Summary)https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdfFederal clerkships1.0% (4/399; state/local 13.8%)https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdfTop marketsDC (134), MD (51), NY (30)https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdfGraduates in the classhttps://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdf
Salary. The ABA employment summary reports status and employer type, not pay, and our verified fact set holds no salary figure for this school.
Who got which outcome. The percentages describe a class, and large-firm jobs concentrate at the top of the curve. A median student's odds are not the class average.
Durability. Ten months is an early snapshot counting a job held on one day. It is the standard because it is comparable, not because it is complete.
American publishes tuition of $66,990 FT + $2,182 fees (2025-26, 509); PT $2,481/credit and no single total cost of attendance figure, which American does not publish in its 509, against a median grant of $40,000 (2024-25 aid year, 509; 25th, 50th and 75th all print $40,000) reaching 59% of students, all from its own 509 (https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdf).
Outcomes only mean something next to that number. A given placement rate at full sticker and the same rate at half price are different propositions, and the second is usually the better one.
Run the arithmetic against your own likely award rather than the class median, because no 509 publishes grant size by admissions band.
Our master admissions file carries detailed committee texture for 31 schools: what the essay has to do, how hard the school protects yield, how it uses interviews, and how it behaves on scholarship. American is not one of the 31.
So this page makes no claim about how American's committee reads a file. Everything here comes from what American itself publishes: its ABA Standard 509 report and its own admissions pages.
A page that filled that gap with plausible-sounding advice would be indistinguishable from one that knew something, which is exactly why we would rather leave the hole visible. If you want committee-level read on this school, the honest source is the admissions office.
Our sheet records American's top markets as DC (134), MD (51), NY (30), from its own ABA employment reporting (https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdf). Read the concentration rather than the list.
Alongside that, 17.3% (69/399, Class of 2025 ABA Emp Summary) of the class went to firms over 100 lawyers and 1.0% (4/399; state/local 13.8%) took federal clerkships, from the same reporting.
In the Washington market specifically, those two numbers pull in different directions. Federal agencies, the Hill and the public interest sector employ heavily and appear in neither the large-firm column nor the clerkship column, so a modest large-firm rate here does not mean what it would mean in New York.
That is the honest way to read a DC school's outcomes: the large-firm figure describes one route out of several, and the geography column tells you which city's version of all of them you are buying into.
Put your own numbers beside the bands first. American publishes 157 to 163 on the LSAT and 3.32 to 3.75 on GPA, from its 2025 509 (https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdf), and everything else follows from where you land in those.
Then price it against the 509 again, noting that American posts no single total cost of attendance figure in its 509 against a median grant of $40,000 (2024-25 aid year, 509; 25th, 50th and 75th all print $40,000) reaching 59% of students. Three years of the gap is the number that will still matter in a decade.
Then decide what you would do with the degree, because a school's value is mostly a statement about a market rather than about a ranking, and the market is the part you cannot change from inside.
If any of those three is unresolved, that is the work to do next, and it is more useful than reading another page about this school.
Open https://www.american.edu/wcl/school/admissions/jd/apply/first-year/requirements.cfm ; https://www.american.edu/wcl/school/admissions/jd/apply/first-year/early-decision.cfm ; https://www.american.edu/wcl/school/admissions/jd/apply/first-year/faq.cfm and confirm every deadline, prompt and requirement against the live application, because everything on this page carries a date for a reason.
Place yourself against the published bands rather than the acceptance rate: 157 to 163 on the LSAT and 3.32 to 3.75 on GPA, from the 2025 509 (https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdf). Your position there decides what the rest of the application has to do.
Decide what this school is to you before drafting anything: a reach where the file must argue, a match where it must not get in the way, or a safety where the real question is how much money you can extract. Those are three different applications.
Every American figure on this page was read from American's own 2025 ABA Standard 509 Required Disclosure Report at https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/2025-standard-509-information-report-12-16-25-2.pdf ; Emp Summary: https://www.american.edu/wcl/academics/academicservices/registrar/aba-required-disclosure/upload/aba-employment-summary-2025.pdf, and recorded in our data sheet with that URL against each individual field rather than as a single citation at the bottom.
Application mechanics come from American's own admissions pages at https://www.american.edu/wcl/school/admissions/jd/apply/first-year/requirements.cfm ; https://www.american.edu/wcl/school/admissions/jd/apply/first-year/early-decision.cfm ; https://www.american.edu/wcl/school/admissions/jd/apply/first-year/faq.cfm. Where our sheet holds a field as unverified, this page says so instead of presenting it as settled.
The 509 refiles every December, so every number here has a known expiry date. We would rather you knew that date than trusted the page indefinitely.
Every LSAC figure on this page was taken from LSAC's own pages and last checked on July 26, 2026. Prices, dates and policies move without notice, so the source link sits next to each number rather than in a bibliography at the bottom.
Where LSAC has not published something, this page says so in those words rather than filling the hole with a plausible number. That is the difference between a gap and a guess, and only one of them is safe to plan around.
17.3% (69/399, Class of 2025 ABA Emp Summary) of the Class of 2025 went to firms of more than 100 lawyers, per the school's own ABA employment report.
1.0% (4/399; state/local 13.8%) took federal clerkships, from the same report.
The top markets were DC (134), MD (51), NY (30). Concentration matters more than the list: a school weighted to one market is a harder sell elsewhere.
86.2% (344/399, all employed categories at 10 mo) at the ten-month date across graduates.
No. The ABA employment summary reports status and employer type rather than pay, and our verified fact set holds no salary figure for this school.
Written by Ali, Georgetown Law, founder of Lovare Institut.
August 5, 2026
August 5, 2026