Law School Enrollment Declined 25% Since 2010

Law Schools are Losing Smart Applicants is an interesting July 19, 2017 New York Law Journal article. In this brief article, the author explains that law school enrollments are down 25% since 2010 and this is largely because of the difficulty in finding lawyer employment:

Law school has lost its allure. Enrollment at American Bar Association-accredited law schools has plummeted 25 percent since 2010 and several law schools have or soon will close up shop for lack of demand.

Why? It’s a combination of factors including rising tuition, a stagnant job market and the perception that better options exist elsewhere.

So what’s it going to take to lure back would-be lawyers—especially those with the high Law School Admission Test scores that schools covet? (Applicants with LSAT scores of 160 or above are down a whopping 45 percent over the past six years.)

My own take on this is that the two primary factors are the cost of law school and the difficulty in obtaining lawyer jobs. With lower enrollment, it should become easier for new lawyers to find jobs. But something needs to be done drastically about the sky high tuition and expenses most law schools charge.

Most, if not all, law schools spend too much on faculty research. Tenure decisions are often based upon the number of law review articles and which journals those articles were published in. Today with the internet and computer assisted research, law review publication is much less important. Law schools would do themselves a favor if they put this money into teaching and into smaller classes.