Why law school enrollment is way down
Law schools enrolled about 120,000 students in 2014, a decrease of almost 7 percent from last year. It was the smallest number admitted since 1987.
While law school was once seen as a golden ticket to a financially stable future, the profession is becoming less popular. New technology is helping lawyers work more efficiently, allowing them to handle a bigger workload. But it also cuts down on a firm’s need to hire more lawyers, which means fewer graduates nab full-time permanent jobs.
As recently as 2000, “almost every school was reporting employment outcomes with 90 percent or more of their graduates employed,” says Jerry Organ, who teaches at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota.
Back then, schools didn’t have to report what kinds of jobs their alumni were getting, but now they do, he says. Numbers over the last few years have reflected this reporting change, with only about half of students getting full-time, long-term jobs as lawyers.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
