LSAC and Predicting Applications for 2016-17, Part 26

The LSAC is now reporting that "As of 06/03/16, there are 338,649 applications submitted by 53,167 applicants for the 2016–2017 academic year. Applicants are up 1.4% and applications are up 1.9% from 2015–2016.  Last year at this time, we had 94% of the preliminary final applicant count."  The last post in this series is here.  The next post in this series is here.

Comments

[anon]

Law firm salaries are up and applications are too. Things may be getting back to normal, but hopefully law schools continue to stick with the reforms they've been working on the past few years.

[Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King]

In the last post on this subject, I had a huge lapse in judgment. In suggesting that Law Deans offer an Amway gift card for every new PAID enrollment, I inadvertently brought disrepute to Amway.

[Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King]

anon at 12:26

I won't pretend to understand the economics and marketing of Big Law firms. However, I can speak to my end of the law with some authority: Solos and micro-firms, which is 50 percent of the legal profession. We are in a death struggle for a shirking pie of clients, fees and work. As the middle class shrinks, so goes my client base and their ability to pay something. In the mean time, "Rank Not Published" schools keep multiplying the numbers of law grads. A very tiny percentage of new attorneys earn that 180K. To say things are "normal" is a slap to my face from somebody who has not ever seen the inside of a courtroom or practiced a day in their lives.

[twbb]

What reforms? Seriously, I do not understand the constant reference to vague, undefined reforms that anonymous commenters keep referencing on TFL posts. Law school is still too expensive and graduates too many students. The law firm salaries going up absorb a tiny, tiny fraction of the graduating class and are statistically meaningless, particularly for the worst offender schools jobwise.

[anon]

twbb

THis particular anon often posts the first comment on the LSAC status reports. The comment is usually something to the effect that all is well, and that law schools have done a magnificent job addressing the concerns of critics.

The word "troll" is usually thrown around on internet threads and misused in the process. It means to post a comment, not necessarily reflecting the commenter's views, but simply designed to provoke others. It is the equivalent of "your mother" or something like that.

THis anon is a troll. He (it is likely a he) wants to set off a barrage of complaints from law school critics, to prove the point often made by defenders of the status quo that all such critics are all "miscreants" and "lunatics."

[Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King]

Actually,

Deans and Prawfs resort to attacking practitioners, who report the facts on the ground as they see them, as WHINERS. We know the status of the legal profession first hand. It would be interesting if Prawfs and Deans bring down their compensation to the level of a typical Sole practitioner, which comprises fifty percent of the profession. Instead, these guys believe that if I worked HARDER and stopped WHINING, I would be raking in six figures...