I asked a similar question in the MBA forum, but I'm considering the joint MBA/JD and thought I'd gather any opinions here too.
When I look at published alumni lists, they always show lots of lawyers, judges, and other very sucessful professionals.
These schools graduate hundreds of students a year. What about the alumni that get deadended in middle management or end up chasing ambulances? Do HLS, Yale, etc intentionally omit these alumni or are they too embarassed to contact the schools with updated career info?
Probably a combination. Some don't want to be included out of embarassment and some alumni records get conveniently "lost" when the schools are publishing their stats.
If you graduate from Yale and you chase ambulances, you would have too much pride to report it. Either you wouldn't contact them or you would lie. I don't think the schools have much if any censorship.
I can't believe the law schools would lie. What is the incentive to the individual? There are not stock options like Enron and positions in academia dont' pay enough money to justify anything like this.
They may overlook questionable data submitted by alumni (I'll bet on that) but I just can't fathom they outwardly lie.