Plaintiffs attorneys who previously launched class actions targeting 14 law schools for allegedly inflating or misrepresenting postgraduate employment data announced Wednesday they aim to sue another 20 schools in 10 states by Memorial Day — and this time, they’re going after higher-ranked schools.

On-campus recruiting picked up slightly at law schools last fall, but that didn’t translate into major summer clerk hiring gains, according to data released today from the National Association for Law Placement, which anticipates continued volatility and modest growth.

A Maryland senator has proposed a budget amendment that would pit the state’s two public law schools against each other after Republican lawmakers voiced objections to a University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law clinic’s representation of plaintiffs in a pollution lawsuit against a local chicken farm.

The U.S. economy began to rebound in 2011, but that was not enough to convince law firms to ramp up associate hiring. The National Law Journal has ranked the top 50 law schools by the percentage of 2011 juris doctor graduates who took jobs at the nation’s largest law firms.

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.