Over the summer, I had a few conversations with the friends and family members of people who are considering going to law school and who wanted my opinion about the quality of various law schools and, also, whether now was a good time to go to law school in general. These kinds of conversations happen fairly often in my life, and they always present a kind of ‘moment of truth’ when you are forced to encapsulate everything you know about the law (school) market right now in two or three pithy sentences. Because there is so much to know that cannot be summarized so quickly, however, I always end up qualifying my advice with: “But your [niece/friend/grandson/partner] really needs to think about their own goals and really drill down into the particulars of any law school that they are seriously considering. Make the law school answer your detailed questions. Talk to recent graduates.”

I’m not really sure how much good my advice does at the end of the day for at least a couple of reasons. First, most (prospective) students don’t realize—and can’t contemplate—that many law schools (and their mother universities) are run like for-profit entities these days. This is not to say that they are run well, but it is to say that, increasingly, administrative decisions about admissions, curricular offerings, library opening hours, and a million other things are made on the basis of $$$ considerations. The $$$ calculation may be questionable, bogus, or corrupt, but it’s there. Nonetheless, (prospective) students don’t really want to believe this and thus don’t bring the healthy skepticism that they should bring into any transaction in our capitalist educational system.
Second, most statistics about an educational institutional—including law schools—can be massaged. So, for example, a law school may brag about their incredibly low student/faculty ratio, but the ‘behind the scenes’ story about this ratio may be the complete collapse in student enrollment at that law school, with all the attendant financial and political problems that come with that enrollment collapse. These financial and political problems are often very serious, indeed debilitating.
In many ways then, a ‘dying’ law school can give off any number of perversely alluring statistics. I’m sure there are more statistical signs of death than I can think of presently, but here’s my top 3 and also my explanation of how prospective students can research each:
1) A rapidly decreasing student/faculty ratio
This set of numbers can be found by subscribing to the electronic version of U.S. News & World Report, or by physically perusing back issues in the library. Remember: there’s a numerator as well as a denominator here. Is the law school you’re considering rapidly hiring faculty (unlikely) or is the school rapidly losing students? Do your homework and find out what this ratio has been in years past and not just where it is now.
2) An increasing admissions yield rate
This number is not available via looking at U.S. News & World Report, but can be calculated by perusing public information on a law school’s website (or just by asking the admissions office). An increasing yield rate may mean that a law school is genuinely improving in attractiveness to prospective students. But it can also mean that only those students who already know—and have known since junior high—that they want to go to a particular law school are now applying in the first place. Take a look as well at the historical patterns of where students are coming from in the nation; data on the # of states represented at a law school can also be found on law schools’ websites. Is the law school you’re considering losing its allure for anyone ‘on the fence’ and out of state?
3) Proliferation of titles
This is super hard to measure, but take a look at the various titles that faculty possess. Is everyone mostly an assistant/associate/full professor, or is there a proliferation of qualifiers and adjectives attached to faculty titles? If there are more ‘kinds’ of professors represented at a law school, this can mean close administrative attention to filling teaching & research niches occasionally not covered by the traditional faculty titles and roles. But it can also mean administrative chaos and ad hoc hiring resulting from the law school’s financial and political instability. There’s not a good way of knowing which situation is closer to the truth at the law school you are considering, but do some Google searches and ask to speak to some tenured professors about what’s going on here if you have no idea what various titles mean.
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