A free, honest, public viewer of ABA 509 disclosure data for every U.S. law school.
What this is
Exhibit 509 is a map-driven dashboard that organizes every ABA Standard 509 disclosure into one searchable place. It's free, open to anyone, no account required, and exists so that prospective law students can answer the questions that actually matter to their decision:
Can I get in?, admissions distributions (LSAT/uGPA 25/50/75), acceptance rates, reach/target/safety bucketing.
What will it cost?, sticker tuition, scholarship distribution, net cost, 3-year totals.
Will I get a job?, bar passage, employment outcomes, firm-size breakdown, top destination states.
How does it compare?, pin up to four schools side-by-side and see best-in-row.
Is this school improving?, 15-year trend lines on every key metric (2011–2025).
What the data is
Every figure on the site originates from a public source:
Admissions, cost, scholarships, outcomes
ABA Standard 509 disclosures (2011–2025)
State attorney wages
U.S. BLS OEWS (2024)
Cost-of-living adjustment
U.S. BEA RPP (2024)
State fair-market rent
U.S. HUD SAFMR (2025)
The 509 data is the same data the ABA itself publishes at abarequireddisclosures.org, we just re-organize it so 15 years of disclosures across 208 schools is visible at a glance instead of one PDF at a time.
⚠ Exhibit is an independent concept project. It is not affiliated with, associated with, or endorsed by the American Bar Association or any law school. Data may contain errors, verify all figures against the original 509 disclosure before relying on them for a decision.
Why we built it
The official ABA disclosure portal publishes the right data, but it's distributed across hundreds of one-school-one-year PDFs. Comparing five schools across the metrics that actually matter takes hours. We made the comparison easy, and we made the 15-year history visible, because trajectory is information, a school whose bar pass dropped 10 points over five years is telling you something the current-cycle number alone hides.
It's also free, and free is the point. The applicants who most need this information are the applicants who can least afford a paid analytics service.
Who built it
509α, a small independent project run by Blake Vrechek. The community lives at skool.com/509alpha. The full historical dataset, the spreadsheet behind this site, and ongoing discussion all live there.
If you find a number that looks wrong, tell us, the feedback form in the footer goes straight to the maintainer. Data errors get fixed.
Why you can trust it, and how it stays free
The honest version: the data is free, and it stays free. Exhibit 509 takes no money from rankings, sponsored placement, ads, or selling your data, and it sets no tracking cookies of its own (the privacy policy lists every third-party asset it loads). It is built and run independently by Blake Vrechek, not by a school, a ranking, or a test-prep company. The optional 509α community on Skool and the email list are how the work is sustained and kept independent, and where the full historical dataset and ongoing discussion live, but nothing on this site is ever gated, scored, or held back to push you toward them. The public data is the whole product.
What we don't do
We don't sell rankings. No paid placement. No "sponsored" schools.
We don't sell your data. No tracking cookies of our own. Fonts are self-hosted. (Read the Privacy Policy for the third-party assets we load, Leaflet, OpenStreetMap.)
We don't gate the data. You don't need an account to see anything.
We don't give legal or admissions advice. We organize public data. You make the call.
How to use it
Map (default view): every accredited school as a pin. Color = first-time bar pass tier; ring style = same tier in a colorblind-safe encoding; size = total enrollment. Click any pin for the side panel.
Find My Schools: enter your LSAT/uGPA, get Safety/Target/Reach lists based on the 25th/75th percentile band of each school's class.
Compare: add 2–4 schools (+ Compare button on side panel or profile card) and open the side-by-side metric table.
School profiles view: every school as a card, sortable by LSAT, bar pass, employment, tuition, acceptance, or name. Click a card to open the full detail page in a new tab.
Schools by State: state-grouped browsing with BLS attorney wage overlay.
Transfers: which schools have the largest 1L transfer cohorts going out and coming in (≥ 6 to appear; ≥ 12 surfaces the median incoming GPA).