US lawyer to take law school to court over inflated employment data

Anna Alaburda, 37, is the first law graduate to take her school to court over employment figures, The New York Times reports.

She first filed a lawsuit against Thomas Jefferson School of Law (TJSL) in 2011, claiming that she would not have enrolled at the school if she knew its statistics were misleading.

Ms Alaburda, who has not been able to secure a full-time job as a lawyer, is seeking $125,000 in damages to cover in part her $170,000 student debt.

Her lawyer, Brian A. Procel, said: “It has taken five years, but this will be the first time a law school will be on trial to defend its public employment figures”.

Mr Procel will argue that the distorted figures have been used to entice students to enroll at the school, potentially leaving them in lifelong debt.

He said TJSL claimed in 2011 that 92.1 per cent of its graduates were working at full-time jobs, up from its claims of 83 per cent employment during 2006-07, when the legal profession was in a healthier state.

A former TJSL employee is expected to testify that she was pressured into inflating employment data in 2006.