LSAC Data and Predicting Number of Applicants for Fall 2015, Part 19

Credit is due to the marketing efforts of the law schools. Despite all of the negative publicity and increasing numbers of unhappy grads spreading the word, applications are barely down at all this year. Way to go admissions staff!

There has been a late surge in applicants. I suspect that this does not bode well for student quality, but a paying customer is a painful customer.

Total decline in applicants is no longer really an issue. The real issue is decline in applicant profiles, which was enormous again this year. For any school that is attempting to maintain high academic standards, the applicant pool will be down significantly again this year. That goes for probably the top 50 schools. The lower ranked schools will face a different set of problems even if they can maintain enrollment, such as lower bar passage rates and market loss of confidence in its graduates.

JM,

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not an issue. Maybe not the most important issue, but certainly an issue. And it's not independent of the decline in applicant profiles. As the entire pool gets smaller, there are fewer middling students who provide the cross-subsdization needed to attract higher quality students.

I wonder what the long term effect of a weaker applicant pool will mean for schools. There's been plenty of talk about what it might mean for the profession, but I'm wondering how it will impact the schools themselves years from now.

Most professors (with a some notable exceptions) want to teach the best and the brightest. Having a vigorous intellectual discussion is generally more enjoyable and rewarding than slogging through the basics. But, if the best and the brightest simply aren't going to law school any more, the profession will lose some of its appeal. On top of that, if the best and brightest aren't going to law school, then there will be a weaker pool of junior professors in a few years.

Next year is really going to be interesting and we'll see if we have truly hit the bottom in terms of law school applicants. Law schools have really upped the efforts at recruitment with increased advertising, discount tuition, virtually open admissions (at lower ranked schools), and a never ending admission cycle where applicants are accepted through the first few weeks of the semester. I think it's just a matter of how the efforts to enroll students fare against a still declining legal job market, excessive student debt, and the continued negative coverage of these factors in the media and blogs. There are still a lot of lawyers graduating from top schools that don't have jobs and this may continue to drive the narrative that law school is a losing proposition for many students. Then again, nobody ever went bankrupt from suckering 22 year olds out of 150k in non-dischargeable federal loans.

JM: '…such as lower bar passage rates and market loss of confidence in its graduates..

And that market confidence has historically been 'we don't want to hire most of them'.

This is probably good news for grads of schools ranked #15-50; the lower-ranked schools will be putting out a higher percentage of absolutely unqualified grads.

Barry: "This is probably good news for grads of schools ranked #15-50; the lower-ranked schools will be putting out a higher percentage of absolutely unqualified grads."

Yes, and schools ranked 15-50 should seize on this. They should point out the higher quality of their graduates publicly and privately to employers. They should also openly criticize lower ranked schools for accepting legions of unqualified graduates. Yet, for some unfathomable reason, the T50 schools feel more allegiance to the other 150+ law schools than they do to a) their own grads, b) the legal profession and c) the public consumers of legal services.

I have to wonder what this will mean for the professor market a few years down the line. As the top intellectual talent flees law school, there will be fewer people available to fill the junior professor ranks. (Of course, if schools shrink their class sizes and reduce faculty headcount to match, this won't be as much of an issue.)

What's more, professors generally prefer to teach the best and the brightest. If fewer law students fall into that category the academy will offer much less appeal. It will probably be quite similar to how many people are turning away from law because the legal profession has lost much of its prestige.

There's no doubt that much top intellectual talent has fled law schools. Where is it going?

"Yes, and schools ranked 15-50 should seize on this. They should point out the higher quality of their graduates publicly and privately to employers. They should also openly criticize lower ranked schools for accepting legions of unqualified graduates. Yet, for some unfathomable reason, the T50 schools feel more allegiance to the other 150+ law schools than they do to a) their own grads, b) the legal profession and c) the public consumers of legal services."

Part of is probably what is considered decorous, whether that is the same as loyalty of not.

But part of it is that higher ranked schools can't go out and brag about the LSAT and UGPA scores of their students, because then they would actually have to be more open about their transfer policies. The grads of those schools include students who were admitted to the bottom ranked schools and then admitted to the high ranked school on transfers, all so that the high ranked school can continue to "let people believe" that their published LSAT and UGPA numbers actually reflect the qualifications of their grads. Sure they could still claim they are better, but they'd have to explain a whole lot they'd rather not be dragged out into common knowledge. It's probably safer and easier for them to keep reporting the required numbers, using the transfer loophole to avoid reporting low LSATs and UGPAs, and letting people make the assumption that the entrance numbers are the numbers of their graduates (which they aren't).

Henry,

There has been an increase in students getting specialized graduate business degrees. Some of that will be people no longer getting traditional MBA, but I'd guess they pull some JDs away as well.

Undergrads have become increasingly focused on getting their careers started while still in college. There's more emphasis on having a marketable major, and students often have multiple internships during their undergrad years. So quite possibly that top intellectual talent is just going to work. There ought to be a lot fewer students who reach their senior year, haven't a clue what to do with their lives, and pick law school as a default option.

I think many students are pursing what I used to call allied medical fields, not medical school, but nurse practitioner, physician's assistant, D.Psy. Others are looking at graphic design, net design. These careers were not nearly as popular 10 years ago.

Oh, please, people. Maybe the teaching market will look beyond 2 schools to find people. And I say this having graduated from one of the two (Y) with a nice top tier chaired position. There are smart people in many environments that are not dominated by white legacy children.

As many have previously noted, let's hope this blood letting results in real and lasting changs to legal education, such as more transparency (and in some instances, honesty) in employment outcomes, tuition stabilization or reductions, and shifts in course offerings and facutly hiring so that law school becomes relevant to the practice of law.

I doubt you'll find a shortage of people applying to be a law professor. The perks are just too good to be true and as for the quality of students, many professors teach at bottom of the barrel law schools in the 3rd and 4th tier category.

@Tony Smith: Thank you. No other academic discipline has so constrained its intellectual marketplace out of religious fealty to two or three graduate departments. Because they're real disciplines.

Someone pulled my post out of the spam filter! Now I look mildly nutty(ier than before).

a,

You won't have a shortage of professors. What I was saying is there could be a significant decline in quality.

Derek, independent of quality, because of the realization that law school doesn't do a particularly good job of training lawyers, schools may start hiring professors with more connections and background outside of academia, which would be a good thing.

Anon,

That's a good point. I was thinking they'd be of lower quality, but that's lower only in terms of the current metrics. If those metrics are poor, a brain drain in the professor pool might cause schools to adopt different and better metrics. Reminds me of the boll weevil.

However, I think the practitioners with good connections aren't terribly likely to want to be professors. If you've been in practice 10-20 years, it's probably because you actually like it. These aren't junior and midlevel associates jumping ship once they've paid off their loans.

How are you defining "quality," Derek? Are you looking at credentials only? If so, some of the best credentialed profs I had in law school were among the worst teachers and also very elitist and arrogant when dealing with students whom they considered beneath them.

I think most law students would gladly exchange credential "quality" for competent and caring people who can really teach.

JS,

I was looking just in terms of whatever quality is reflected in a high LSAT score, since it's high LSAT students who are mostly avoiding law school. Of course, if high LSAT is inversely correlated with professor quality, then it could be a good thing.

Just saying, that's spot on. The law students I know would gladly trade credential quality for teaching quality. I also think many would trade academic credential quality for law professors with interesting backgrounds outside of academia, eg, government, law firm, solo practice, non profit, etc

I think most law students would gladly exchange credential "quality" or teaching "quality" for professors who are willing and able to help them land a decent job at graduation.

True but most professors don't have a lot of connections outside of academics and many really haven't practiced law.

Confused: You may be correct that students are only interested in landing a job, but it would be nice for their clients (and them, even if they don't realize it) if they actually learned something in law school. Your comment reminds me of a student many years ago who said that he was not in law school to get an education, he was there to get the degree.

That being said, I think Anon is correct, most profs, esp. those with top credentials, have very little contact/influence/experience with the practicing bar.

It is too bad that law schools have separate career services departments that operate largely independent of law professors. It would be very helpful if schools could get their professors that have connections to the private bar (even if just a few) involved in the job search and on-campus recruiting process.

JS: My experience is that it is the adjuncts who can be of help to students in landing jobs. Long term tenured professors are typically not much help.

As to law schools preparing lawyers better for practice that's all a diversion from the real issues in legal education. On some marginal level law school can create graduates who are a bit more prepared to perform a specific legal task or to work in specific practice areas by changing their programs to focus more time, money and energy on those specific tasks/practice areas. There are a host of negatives that go along with that which largely indicate such changes are a bad idea. However, that is the immediate future of legal education.

It used to be that law school was largely a place to learn how to think about legal issues and how to learn about the big picture regarding the law; the framework upon which each individual can build their own set of knowledge and skills to fit their specific needs and practice AFTER graduation. We are moving towards graduating students who have not been taught the how to think about the law or taught the framework but instead are learning to perform specific legal tasks. One of the reasons bar passage rates are going down is that many schools are moving away from teaching big picture learning of various basic and important legal topics. Increasingly students are graduating without this knowledge and it puts them at a big disadvantage on bar exams.

If some of these schools want to immerse their students on practice areas immediately useful to their graduates after graduation and make them "practice ready" then they should offer classes on doc review, low end insurance defense and perhaps making coffee.

Confused: I do not think that much will change with regard to the law school curriculum because the tenureds cannot teach practical stuff and the schools cannot afford to bring in adjuncts or clinicians to do so.

Legal education should have followed a medical school model with theory followed by a mandatory internship but that will never happen.

Just saying, don't you think that law schools have realized the importance of professors having the ability/willingness to teach practical stuff, so a curriculum shift (though pretty slow) may already be occurring?

Here's my concern about about the "practice ready" curriculum: Suppose the lower-tier law schools make a hard shift into teaching practical skills. Rather than Law and Literature and Nietzche and the Law, or even Bankruptcy or Secured Transactions, the law schools start offering lots of brass tacks courses on Divorce Law, DUI Law, Small Business Dispute Resolution, etc., complete with adjuncts working side-by-side with students and showing them exactly how to work cases in these areas. If tens and tens of thousands of students who currently can't get legal jobs flood into this type of work, won't that just destroy the market for these types of legal services?

The legal sector is not particularly robust with which to start. If the thousands of lower-tier graduates who currently can't get any legal job are instead shown exactly how to hang their own shingles, won't they just fail to find legal work after opening their practices rather than before?

That's a drastic example. The critical thing is to better align law school with the real world, and have the first complement the second, not to make them coextensive. It's as if people are oblivious to the fact that students come to law school to get jobs as lawyers, not to become scholars of law and literature.

Students should not be relying on faculty to get them jobs. It's not the comparative advantage of legal academics and viewed as a distraction by any serious faculty members.

Better that law schools beef up the professionalism of their career development offices by recruiting experienced legal placement personnel (and of course paying them for results).

Why would it be a "distraction" for faculty to assist students in getting jobs? Law schools exist for the benefit of students.

antiscammer

I think you've totally missed the point. Of course faculty are not the placement office!

And the point, taking a second look, is not to train folks to do evictions.

Geez. A tiny tick up in LSAT takers for ONE session, and all the status quo reactionaries come out in full force.

The belief that faculty get students jobs is misplaced. Just like the supposed "promises" that attending law school would guarantee a job. Students who come to school thinking they've been promised something, that the faculty or the placement office will get them a job are going to be disappointed. Students need to be proactive. Maybe a faculty member will recommend a student to people she knows. Maybe that will result in interviews. The onus is always on the student. The jobs go to people who are proactive, not passive. Employers can see that. That's who they want. Those are also the people clients want.

It is extremely rare for any law faculty to make a difference in the hiring process. So rare that it is silly to be pressing in this direction.

antiscammer

No one seriously contends that the majority – or even a significant number of – tenured faculty in the present environment have – or have ever had – any meaningful relationship to the practice of law.

You are completely missing the point.

"It is extremely rare for any law faculty to make a difference in the hiring process."

This is the precisely the problem, but need not be the case at all. Respectfully, you are truly missing the point.

Anon wrote: Just saying, don't you think that law schools have realized the importance of professors having the ability/willingness to teach practical stuff, so a curriculum shift (though pretty slow) may already be occurring?

Anon: Law schools may have realized it, but that does not mean that many/most current long-time tenured faculty have the ability or desire to do so. Are they going to be transformed overnight?? If they never practiced or have not practiced in decades the realization that they should teach practical stuff is not going to make they competent to do so.

I worked at a law school where, before the LRW movement many years ago, the tenureds taught that subject and got paid extra $$ for doing so. Virtually all did a horrible job. They did not want to teach it and only did it for the money and put little time or effort into it. This pattern could likely follow if tenureds are told they must teach more "practical stuff."

Remember, these are the same people who have fought the teaching of practice-oriented skills in favor or more and more Law and…. courses and more courses focused on their often personal research interests.

In terms of faculty involved in getting students jobs… WHY? Why is a job better if a prof helped a student get it or a career services professional did so? What is so special/important about faculty involved in the job search??

just saying

I was in total and enthusiastic agreement, until the last paragraph!

It is a faculty that has meaningful experience in practice and affinity with the legal community that will, in the aggregate, respond to changing market conditions and truly prepare the student body to take their places in the profession for which they paid so dearly to train.

It is just over simplifying to keep arguing that "professors will get students jobs" as if the profs are expected to place students in firms.

That isn't the point.

Profs are, predominantly, there to teach and do research. On rare occasions they can reach out to a particular judge or law school classmate and nudge the decision making process but generally speaking hiring organizations are far better at hiring their own people than outsiders. And GPA and class rank does the rest.

Pressuring faculty to move into career placement is a waste of time and only weakens the focus that faculty should maintain on curriculum development/innovation/implementation and research/publishing/public policy impact. If faculty are successful in the latter it does FAR MORE for the careers of their students because of the improved reputation of the school than placement.

Where I would agree somewhat is that faculty who do have knowledge of particular agencies, firms, practice areas can certainly help orient students to what to expect in that environment. Hopefully most faculty weave that knowledge and experience into their teaching and office hour conversations with students already.

And I think that IS the point.

I think some people have missed my point. There is only so much money being spent on legal services in our economy in a given year. Whether practical training is provided in law school or after being hired by firms, the basic issue is that law schools are graduating more mouths than the legal services sector can feed.

antiscammer

That poor horse has had enough.

And, btw, the "teach and do research" mantra is a bit tired.

Actually, professors in law schools are primarily there to prepare aspirants to become attorneys.

LEGAL research should be supported, but only to the extent it benefits the legal profession. Dilettantes and wanna bes should pay their dues and join other departments.

If law profs only understood this, much of the "decline" of which we've been speaking would not have occurred. It isn't just a function of the economy!

Students of course recognize the truth of the obvious proposition that professors in law schools are (or should be there) primary to prepare attorneys, rather than doing research on esoteric issues, but it falls on deaf ears.

"Actually, professors in law schools are primarily there to prepare aspirants to become attorneys."

This is not technically true or even realistic and not even socially desirable. Law schools train future lawyers but they also are set up inside universities so that they can take an arms length view at law, lawyers and the status of the rule of law. Students for the most part do not seem to be aware of this dual role and of the impact of this organizational situation. I would agree that law professors are not very good at explaining this but harping on the downside danger of such autonomy (arguing that all law scholarship is worthless) does not help.

antiscammer

I suppose it is useful to hear this pov. It is telling.

Do you literally believe that studying the legal systems of the US and the "rule of law" is incompatible with preparing lawyers?

NO ONE argued that LEGAL scholarship is worthless. How about reading before you get up in umbrage about social utility?

You seem not to be reading, unfortunately, but reacting rather to what you thought you read.

For example, you have repeatedly responded to comments stating agreement that law profs shouldn't act as placement officers by writing long comments, couched as rebuttals, about the reasons that law profs shouldn't act as placement officers.

Now, you "rebut" a comment acknowledging the valid and indeed critical role of legal scholarship by refuting the supposed claim that "all law scholarship is worthless" – a claim that you have literally made up out of whole cloth. This is a sort of juvenile way to debate.

There is thus no point in arguing further, because your response to this comment is likely to be a fierce disagreement, based on your view that law profs aren't placement officers and based on your "socially desirable" rebuttal to the comment you read that stated that "all legal scholarship is worthless."

Antiscammer–students don't care about this duality you reference. They come to law
school to become lawyers, not to support others' interest in taking an arm's length view of the law.