Top Law Schools

Any guesses on how next cycle will go? Will the number of people applying to law school continue to drop, or will the trend reverse? It seems like a lot of top schools have had their median lsat drop a point or two, will this continue?

I was wondering this myself. The number of test takers in Feb. increased slightly.

Just a guess, but as long as prices of law school keep going up I think that number of applicants will decline. Law school has already increased somewhere around $12k/year since I was a 1L, and I just graduated.

The leading indicator has always been the number of LSAT takers. While a couple hundred more people took it in February 2014 vs. February 2013, the trend is still way down.

The other thing to note is that employment stats trail reality by at least a year or two. Between the economic improvement and the 25% decline in enrollment, law students looking for jobs right now are having an easier time than their counterparts from a few years ago. But the only real job stats we have are for the class of 2013, the biggest in history. This should keep people from thinking things are better for a while.

Tiago Splitter wrote:The leading indicator has always been the number of LSAT takers. While a couple hundred more people took it in February 2014 vs. February 2013, the trend is still way down.

The other thing to note is that employment stats trail reality by at least a year or two. Between the economic improvement and the 25% decline in enrollment, law students looking for jobs right now are having an easier time than their counterparts from a few years ago. But the only real job stats we have are for the class of 2013, the biggest in history. This should keep people from thinking things are better for a while.

tiago, how much do you think the decline in enrollment is going to help job stats going forward? do you think that firms might go deeper into classes, since the absolute number is smaller, or do you think that they may broaden what schools they pull from? (I realize that the answer is some combination thereof, or some other thing I'm not thinking of, but I would like to hear a real lawyer opinion)

anyriotgirl wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:The leading indicator has always been the number of LSAT takers. While a couple hundred more people took it in February 2014 vs. February 2013, the trend is still way down.

The other thing to note is that employment stats trail reality by at least a year or two. Between the economic improvement and the 25% decline in enrollment, law students looking for jobs right now are having an easier time than their counterparts from a few years ago. But the only real job stats we have are for the class of 2013, the biggest in history. This should keep people from thinking things are better for a while.

tiago, how much do you think the decline in enrollment is going to help job stats going forward? do you think that firms might go deeper into classes, since the absolute number is smaller, or do you think that they may broaden what schools they pull from? (I realize that the answer is some combination thereof, or some other thing I'm not thinking of, but I would like to hear a real lawyer opinion)

I don't think they'll start hiring from schools they've never hired from in the past.

The truth is the real enrollment declines are mostly happening outside the traditional biglaw powerhouses. For people looking for biglaw things aren't likely to change much. But for people who just want to be a lawyer things are definitely getting easier. That said, there will still be like 35k grads for 25k total positions, only about 15k of which are either cool or pay well. But it's better than 50k grads.

Unlike in prior cycles, people that take the LSAT may decide not to go to law school at all. There was always this margin between the number of people taking the LSAT and the number of enrollees at the end of the cycle, but I think that number will widen. Cost of attendance for a couple schools has reached 300k, and that's a pretty scary number.

When was the first time it began to appear that the number of apps started dropping?

snooze wrote:When was the first time it began to appear that the number of apps started dropping?

http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/ ... me-summary

Tiago Splitter wrote:

snooze wrote:When was the first time it began to appear that the number of apps started dropping?

http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/ ... me-summary

Wow, thanks. Can you perhaps direct me to other useful threads discussing these trends? Sorry, I'm a noob.

twenty wrote:Unlike in prior cycles, people that take the LSAT may decide not to go to law school at all. There was always this margin between the number of people taking the LSAT and the number of enrollees at the end of the cycle, but I think that number will widen. Cost of attendance for a couple schools has reached 300k, and that's a pretty scary number.

But is this information widespread?

Looks like at least for this fall the trend is continuing

http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/ ... ear-volume

This might help deter would be applicants, http://www.takepart.com/ivorytower?cmpi ... fgodxBkAGw .

numbers for june LSAT takers should come out pretty soon since the exam was today.

would TLS experts please care to pick up from where we left here?

tag

Literature is definitely starting to emerge (Forbes and the two Slate Articles) that the market, if not beginning to improve, is becoming significantly better in terms of total law grads relative to jobs available. You will see this begin to be reflected in the number of LSAT takers relatively soon, probably not more than a year or two from now. I would predict that this cycle, next cycle, and maybe even the 2016 cycle after will be in a good position regarding applicants relative to total jobs. However, I do not think that the world of those contemplating a legal education has changed substantially enough to make the claim that the number of LSAT takers will not begin to increase relatively soon. Take this with a grain of salt or don't, I'm sure there are different opinions out there.

TL;DR - Applicants will be in a little bit of a sweet spot for the next few years, then things will normalize to a rate somewhere between where we are now and the 2010 cycle. I could probably delete this post because there isn't a real claim.

Tiago Splitter wrote: The truth is the real enrollment declines are mostly happening outside the traditional biglaw powerhouses. For people looking for biglaw things aren't likely to change much. But for people who just want to be a lawyer things are definitely getting easier. That said, there will still be like 35k grads for 25k total positions, only about 15k of which are either cool or pay well. But it's better than 50k grads.

This is probably pretty accurate, but also kind of sad that 35k grads for 15k decent positions is what a "good" hiring market looks like for lawyers. But it re-emphasizes that fact that even during the mid-2000's "boom" in legal hiring, things were still pretty bad. They've just gone from bad to monumentally worse. And graduates will have more debt in the future.

The other thing is that this doesn't account for the high Biglaw dropout rate. You can't just write off everyone that gets Biglaw as "fine," because many will either drop out or be forced out before they can pay back their loans. I know people that haven't even been working there a year and are pretty much begging for something else (no matter what the debt)--but if they leave before a year, they have to pay back their bar stipend, etc.

There's too many ex-Biglaw dropouts doing DUI defense, doc review, etc. for me to believe that there's enough decent exit options for all these people. Midlaw firms that hire laterals want you to have a book of business.

John Everyman wrote:Literature is definitely starting to emerge (Forbes and the two Slate Articles) that the market, if not beginning to improve, is becoming significantly better in terms of total law grads relative to jobs available. You will see this begin to be reflected in the number of LSAT takers relatively soon, probably not more than a year or two from now. I would predict that this cycle, next cycle, and maybe even the 2016 cycle after will be in a good position regarding applicants relative to total jobs. However, I do not think that the world of those contemplating a legal education has changed substantially enough to make the claim that the number of LSAT takers will not begin to increase relatively soon. Take this with a grain of salt or don't, I'm sure there are different opinions out there.

TL;DR - Applicants will be in a little bit of a sweet spot for the next few years, then things will normalize to a rate somewhere between where we are now and the 2010 cycle. I could probably delete this post because there isn't a real claim.

But for the Fall 2015 cycle? Will it be an increase or decrease over the Fall 2014 cycle?

The reason you're not going to see as big of a realignment with the market as you might think is because while the top end of biglaw salaries have not budged (and a lot of secondary markets have just straight up decided to not compete at all with NYC salaries), tuition has skyrocketed. Even in 2007-2008, tuition was like a median of 32k a year or so at private schools (and a lot more of those schools were placing kids in legal jobs) to where T14s are north of 46k/year.

I think TLSers are very fortunate to have a decent number of abrasively obnoxious (though accurate) biglaw graduates that are happy to inform potential students that biglaw is not the field of daisies they think it will be as 0Ls.