The Red Velvet Lawyer

And, a Decade of Added Capacity  No Longer Needed? Yesterday, I linked to the ABA report showing the drop in applicants who actually enrolled in law school in 2013. By one blogger's  calculation , enrollment (average per law school) has not been this low since the late 1960s. The ABA Journal  reported: Law school enrollments nationwide are down 11 percent this year from last year and 24 percent from 2010, new figures show.  The nation’s 202 ABA-accredited schools reported that 39,675 full- and part-time students were enrolled in a first-year J.D. program this fall, according to figures released Tuesday by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.  That’s a decrease of 4,806 students from the fall of 2012, when 44,481 students began their law school studies, and a decrease of 12,813 students from 2010, when an all-time high of 52,488 first-year students were enrolled in an ABA-accredited school. (Emphasis added.)  In a more recent article, t

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 student