The Red Velvet Lawyer

Professor Brian Leiter  Takes on the Scambloggers Professor Brian Leiter, a well-known blogger , is now writing for the Huffington Post . In American Law Schools: The New Reality , he describes the many factors that have contributed to the down turn in applicants to law school including: Competition among law school for US News rankings, which forced them to compete based on expensive services instead of affordable tuition; Rising student debt; Poorer employment outcomes for graduates in a recessionary economy; Congressional overhaul of bankruptcy laws as they relate to student loans; and Lax oversight by the ABA regulators. I've blogged about all these topics this past year.  And, it is nice to have this summary for easy reference. In his second article, American Law Schools and the Psychology of Cyber-Hysteria , Professor Leiter looks at the "toxic" environment law schools face while trying to respond to the market downturn in responsible...

Big Drop in Law School  Enrollees So the big story this week is the significant drop in enrollees in law school. In other postings here and here , I've tracked the drop in applicants and applications. The ABA has finally released a report showing the drop in the number of applicants who actually enrolled in law school for the year beginning in Fall 2013.  The ABA explains that:  "The last time enrollment was so low was in 1975, when 39,038 students were enrolled. And, at the time, there were only 163 ABA-accredited schools." By one blogger's calculation , enrollment (average per law school) has not been this low since the late 1960s. And, with applications to law school expected to drop this year compared to last, we could expect further erosion of the number of law school enrollees for Fall 2014. This new data allows us to better predict job equilibrium, which I have discussed here , here , and here .  It is good news for graduates and s...

LSAC Applicant/Applications Data by Geographic Region --Fall 2012 to Fall 2013 -- As I mentioned in my last posting, Joan Van Tol, General Counsel for the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), gave a presentation at the conference of the Midwest Association of Pre-law Advisors (MAPLA) about trends in law school applications.  I described the LSAC data on the historic cycles in applications here . I discussed the conference generally here . Today, I'll describe the LSAC data presented on two maps of the U.S. divided into ten regions: Where are ABA Law School Applicants Coming From?  YTD Change Fall 2012 to Fall 2013; and, Where are ABA Law School Applications Going To?  Percent Change Fall 2012 to Fall 2013. LSAC Geographic Regions for Reporting: The ten LSAC regions are: New England (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island); Northeast (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania); ...

LSAC Data on Trends in  LSAT Tests Administered,  ABA Applicants, and  First-Year Law School Matriculants  -- 1968 to 2013 --  At the conference of the Midwest Association of Pre-Law Advisors (MAPLA), which I first discussed  here , LSAC General Counsel, Joan Van Tol, presented new data on applications to law school through August 2013. I emailed her this morning asking her to provide a link to her slides, if possible.  She advises that they have not been posted, but should eventually appear on the PLANC website. I plan to continue to blog on the extremely helpful data provided at this conference by several speakers. Van Tol began with a slide showing a graph with three trend lines for the period of 1968 through the admissions year 2012-2013: for LSAT tests administered;  for ABA applicants; and  for first-year law students.    Most strikingly, the graph shows that legal education has seen three l...