Following months of discussion, a committee reviewing ABA accreditation standards has agreed upon changes in the way law schools report graduate employment and salaries. If approved in March, the changes would mark the most dramatic step to date toward improving law school consumer information.

Changes in the legal profession — and how law schools should respond — was the hot topic during a recent conference drawing 3,000 educators. To hammer home the need for law schools to adapt or risk looking outdated, one speaker showed a picture of Swedish pop group ABBA and played part of their hit song “Waterloo.”

Two Yale University Law School professors have suggested that law schools pay struggling first-years to leave.

In 2010, the first time Law School Transparency asked schools to cough up detailed lists of graduate employment data, it didn’t go so well. The organization hopes for better success this year, and sent letters this week to all ABA-accredited law schools asking them to release reports generated by NALP.

Eight of New York state’s 15 law schools have reported higher pass rates for the July 2011 bar exam among first-time candidates, a change from last year, when 12 schools reported a lower pass rate over the 2009 exam. At the same time, schools’ average pass rate remained static at 86 percent.