According to data drawn from the Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools 2011, the distribution of the percent of graduates reported by law schools as employed varies from 66% to 100%: 

The comments reported by Jaschik are particularly critical of employment rates at lower-tier law schools.  As the following chart shows, the percent employed generally declines as a school’s LSAT median declines.  That said, there is still wide variation, in both the top- and the bottom half of law schools by median LSAT ( the median of median LSATs is 157).

     posted by Gary Rosin

The Standards Review Committee of the ABA Section on Legal Education invites comments on proposed revisions to Chapter 3 of the Standards for Approval of Law Schools dealing with student learning outcomes.  Comments are due July 1 to Charlotte (Becky) Stretch.

The above chart uses information drawn from the current (as of October 2, 2009)  LSAC Volume Summary (under the “Data” section).  For the Fall 2000 entering classes, 74,600 persons applied, of which 50,300 (67%) were admitted.  For Fall 2008, 83,400 persons applied, of which 55,300 (67%) were admitted.  From Fall 2000 through Fall 2004, the number of applicants increased to 100,600, of which 55,900 (56%) were admitted.  From Fall 2004 through Fall 2008, the number of applicants fell by 17,200 persons (17%), but the number of persons admitted fell by 400 (less than one percent).  During that same period, the number of law schools increased by 9%, from 183 to 199.

But compare that with the number of applicants for Fall 1991 through Fall 1995 (estimated by combining data from the applications per applicant chart in the LSAC report, National Applicant Trends–2008, with Table 1 in Charles Longley, Law School Admissions, 1985 to 1995, Assessing the Effect of Application Volume (1998) (LSAC Research Report Series, No. RR-97-02)).  The estimated number of ABA applicants to fell from a high of 86,700 for Fall 1992 (176 schools) to 72,800 for Fall 1995 (179 schools).  Thus, since 1992, the number of applicants has fallen, risen, and fallen again, for a net loss of 3,300 persons (almost 4%), while the number of ABA law schools has increased by 22 schools (over 12%). 

Because Longley focused on ABA applications and admissions, rather than persons admitted, I do no not have the numbers of the number of persons admitted.  As shown in the ABA’s table, Enrollment, and Degrees Awarded, first-year enrollments have  seen some dips since Fall 1991 (44,050), but have increased to 49,414 in Fall 2008 (an increase of  12%).  That tracks the JDs awarded by ABA law schools (see the chart in Do We Need More Law Schools?). 

So we have more law schools chasing the same number of applicants, but enrolling more students.  I don’t think the increased competition  has hurt the elite law schools.  That means that the rest the law schools, particular those in U.S. News Tier 4, have more competition for students, and will have to dip deeper into the applicant pool.  For a law school, lower academic credentials tend to translate into lower Bar passage rates, especially in high cut-score states, such as California.

So, if you concluded from my earlier post that, as a professor at a Tier 4 school, I must be in favor of more law schools, you were wrong.  Apparently, the numbers do not speak for themselves, so let me be clear:

Flat Demand + More Law Schools = Trouble

That said, since Fall 2003, law schools have held the number of admitted applicants relatively flat, and even cut the numbers somewhat.  Yet enrollments have still gone up.  That’s because more of the admitted applicants are choosing to go to law school.  For Fall 2003, 48,900 out of 56,800 admitted persons (86%) actually enrolled, while, for Fall 2008, 49,414 out of 55,500 (89%) enrolled (LSAC Volume Summary).

Gary Rosin

Where do the new Standards take us?  First, the ABA, fortunately in my view, is not taking an extreme position.  The proposed Standards would require that all schools do some assessment of certain required competencies, such as “legal analysis and reasoning, legal research, problem solving, written and oral communication in a legal context.”  Beyond that, each school is required to identify additional learning outcomes based upon its own mission.  So, the ABA appears to be seeking to preserve a good degree of law school autonomy.

The real sea change comes, however, from the requirement that each school must “employ a variety of valid and reliable measures systematically and sequentially throughout the course of the students’ studies.”  Thus, a school simply will not be able to use a single summative final examination in the future, at least not in all its courses.  This is no doubt a good thing, but it will involve a huge change in how we teach.

Jeff Rensberger

Jeff Rensberger

Long before the ABA’s interest in assessment, I wondered, like many doctrinal professors, what exactly is the reason I get away with giving only a single final exam for a course, with no quizzes and no mid-terms.  The answer I came up with, which I think is sound, is this:  Law schools and students strike a deal.  Students forego the more regularized feedback and  assessment present in most educational settings in exchange for getting a full professor and no teaching assistants.  One obvious way to make assessment work in a large doctrinal class is to farm it out to TAs.  But that breaks the bargain traditionally struck.  So, other than through TAs, how do we do assess in large classes?  If this is to occur, it is going to either change the historic bargain or involve the magic genies of technology.   And there are some cost and time-effective means of assessing through technology such as on-line quizzes and audience response software.  But nothing is free.  If there is a cheap way to assess, it is probably less effective as a means of assessment than a costly and time-consuming one.

Jeff Rensberger

• the new campus the University of Idaho plans to open in Boise (mentioned in the article), or
• the new public law school (approved earlier this year) the University of North Texas will open in Dallas in Fall 2010.

According to the ABA, there are now 199 provisionally or fully ABA-approved law schools offering JDs.  The following chart shows the growth in ABA-approved law schools since 1923, when the ABA began approving law schools.

Twenty years ago (1989), there were 174 ABA schools.  That’s 25 more law schools, or a growth of just over 14%.  Assuming that all 12 of the law-schools-in-formation make it to at least provisional ABA approval, the United States will have 211 law schools.

How much of this is demand driven?  According to the ABA, the number of JDs granted each year peaked in the 1996-1997 academic year, at 41,115, and then dropped for several years to a low of 37,910 (2000-2001).  The number of JDs did not recover to at least the 1996-1997 level until 2004-2005 (42, 672 JDs). During that period the number of law schools increased from 180 (1997) to 184 (2001) to 191 (2005).  That growth was not driven by demand .

 One of the new law schools mentioned in the article is Louisiana College, who cites unmet demand in Louisiana.  Here’s the most recent information from the Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools (2010 edition) on the 4 Louisian law schools, as well as Mississippi College (mentioned as the fall-back for would-be lawyers from Louisiana):

• LSU:  499 offers on 1299 applications (38%); medians of 156 (LSAT) & 3.51 (GPA)
• Loyola-NO:  799/1,611 (50%); 152 (LSAT) & 3.33 (GPA)
• Southern:  376/1,114 (34%); 145 (LSAT) & 2.83 (GPA)
• Tulane:  931/2,612 (36%); 162 (LSAT) * 3.59 (GPA)
• Mississippi College:  621/1166 (53%); 150 (LSAT) & 3.22 (GPA)

The Bar-passage data for Mississippi College shows that 13 persons took the Louisiana Bar exam, out of 157 total persons taking a Bar exam for the first time.  More Mississippi College graduates from Louisiana might have taken the Bar exam first in Mississippi, but still intend to return to Louisiana.

In the article, Bill Henderson (Indiana, Bloomington) wonders whether there will be enough high-paying jobs to let an ever-increasing number of graduates pay off their college–and law school!–loans. 

Gary Rosin

Jeff Rensberger