Over at Above the Law, Elie Mystal asked: "Trendspotting: Will Law School Start Decreasing The Supply of Unemployable New Lawyers?" Mystal reports on a few law schools who have cut the size of the Fall 2011 entering classes.
As shown in the chart below, for the last ten entering classes, LSAC statistics show a generally steady rise in ABA matriculants despite a 17% fall in the number of ABA applicants from 2004 (100,600) to 2008 (83,400).
If entering law students go up while the number of applicants go down, then ABA law schools have to take a higher proportion of applicants. The distribution of LSAT scores is relatively constant from year-to-year (see, Figure 2, Smoothed-percentage frequency of LSAT scores from 2003–2004 through 2009–2010, in LSAT Performance with Regional, Gender, and Racial/Ethnic Breakdowns: 2003–2004 Through 2009–2010 Testing Years (LSAC TR 10-03). As a result, law schools must take students with lower LSAT scores than they might otherwise admit. The result should be that Bar scores, and thus Bar passage rates, should go fall.
From 2001 through 2003, the percentage of applicants admitted fell, and average MBE scores three years later (2004 through 2007) rose. Similarly, from 2005 through 2007, the percentage of applicants admitted rose, and average MBE scores three years later (2008 through 2010) fell.
The pattern does not hold true for testing years 2006 through 2008. The percentage of applicants admitted rose from 2003 through 2005), but average MBE scores rose over the period, and dramatically so in 2008. Also, the percentage of applicants admitted in 2001 and 2007 was about the same--55%--but the average MBE scores for 2010, 141.7, is higher than that for 2004, 139.6.
The problem with MBE scores is that the average also varies with the percentage of repeaters. For example, February MBE scores are lower than July scores, but February takers include a much larger percentage of repeaters.
Comments