Washington, Jan 6 (Reuters) - The American Bar Association president's suggestion that unemployed law-school graduates have no one to blame for their predicament but themselves elicited a range of reactions from law professors and administrators at a major law-school conference, with many expressing dismay at what they called insensitive and misguided remarks.

In an interview with Reuters Wednesday, William Robinson, who became ABA president last August, said, "It's inconceivable to me that someone with a college education, or a graduate-level education, would not know before deciding to go to law school that the economy has declined over the last several years and that the job market out there is not as opportune as it might have been five, six, seven, eight years ago."

Some at the conference of the Association of American Law Schools -- the largest annual gathering of law professors -- called the comments tactless.

"A lack of concern for law graduates -- or anyone, for that matter -- looking for a job in this economy smacks of questionable character," said Robert Ashford, a professor at Syracuse University College of Law who founded the AALS's Section on Socio-Economics, which focuses on economic issues in the legal profession and in legal education.

Others said Robinson was unfairly picking on students.

"Robinson focuses on the individuals who incurred debt rather than the institutions that induced them to incur that debt," said Kathleen Clark, a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. "Individuals can be held responsible for their decisions, but we should also examine the responsibility of institutions that have benefited from those individuals' ill-advised decisions."

'OUT OF TOUCH'

Steven Hobbs, a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, was critical of Robinson's comment that he sold his car to help pay for law school at the University of Kentucky, from which he graduated in 1971.

"Students are actually doing these things now -- making the same sacrifices he made," Hobbs said. "Many of them don't have health insurance and are doing everything they can to attain their goals."

"[Robinson] is out of touch in the sense of understanding the current situation and how to address it," Hobbs said.

But not all disagreed with Robinson's remarks.

"I think [Robinson] is absolutely right," said Paul R. Baier, a law professor at Louisiana State University. "The dire economy is obvious. In law we have a doctrine: You are assumed to know the law. I'd add to that and say you must know the economy."

Robinson did not respond to email or phone messages left Friday afternoon. An ABA spokeswoman said he was not available for comment, but said, "We are very concerned about the way William Robinson's quotes were used out of context by Reuters."

Robinson's remarks come as the legal job market continues to sputter. In December, the legal-services industry lost about 1,800 jobs, even as the economy as a whole added 200,000 jobs, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday.

The law-school graduating class of 2010 had the lowest overall employment rate since 1996, according to the National Association for Law Placement. Nine months after graduation, 68 percent of 2010 graduates for whom employment status was reported had secured jobs requiring a law degree and admittance to the bar.

Cornell Law School dean Stuart Schwab said that his school's 2011 graduates were the hardest hit of Cornell classes in recent years. "As a citizen, I am personally concerned for all people who are unemployed," Schwab said. "That extends to those who graduate from my institution."

Schwab acknowledged that having a law degree may make a job search easier, "but having six-figure student loan debt changes the calculus," he said.

'NEED FOR MORE TRANSPARENCY'

Robinson's comments also touched on the ongoing debate over transparency in the reporting of data by law schools. Critics including three U.S. senators have asked whether the bar association does enough to police schools, a handful of which face allegations that they inflated statistics about post-graduation employment in order to attract more students. In 2011, the University of Illinois College of Law and Villanova University School of Law both admitted to reporting false admissions-related data.

In the interview with Reuters, Robinson said the number of schools in question is "no more than four" out of 200 with ABA accreditation, and that few lawmakers have expressed interest in the subject.

"It hasn't been a groundswell of comment from Congress," he said.

David Logan, dean of Roger Williams University School of Law, who did not attend the conference, said he agreed with Robinson that "law students are adults who should be expected to make reasonable decisions about their future." But, he said, there remains "a broad consensus about the need for more transparency about costs and outcomes than has been required by the ABA up to this point."

(Reporting by Moira Herbst; Additional reporting by David Ingram)

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(A previous version of this story stated that the University of Illinois College of Law and Villanova University School of Law both admitted to reporting false data in 2011. To clarify, the admissions were related to admissions statistics, not post-graduate employment.)