More schools, fewer students

The laws of supply and demand may apply to legal education after all.

Eight years ago, over 100,000 students applied to law school nationally, but this year, in the face of relentlessly downbeat news about the employment prospects for lawyers, applications have cratered. Only about 67,000 applicants are expected—but the number of accredited law schools is higher than ever.

Admissions deans at both of South Carolina’s law schools confirmed that they’re seeing the same trend, but were optimistic about their own ability to compete in the new environment.

At the University of South Carolina, applications are down about 10 percent this year, and the yield—the number of accepted students who enroll—may be slightly lower than in previous years, said assistant dean of admissions Lewis Hutchinson. He said that the school had already chosen to reduce class size the previous year, and that was helping the school meet its targets.

Hutchinson felt USC was better positioned than some schools because it is only one of two law schools in the state, whereas some other states are pumping out law school graduates in unsustainable numbers.

“In anything, there’s always supply and demand. I do wonder, is there enough demand to justify such a great increase in supply? I ask myself that question any time I hear about another new law school or a law school that is increasing its enrollment. Even in a good economy, where do [the graduates] go?” he said.

At Charleston School of Law, associate dean for administration and alumni development John Benfield also said that applications were down about 10 percent and that the yield might be down slightly. He said the school has not begun to discuss whether it would consider reducing class size in response to the new environment.

“I think the job situation is having an impact on individual decisions about where to apply to law school,” Benfield said. “People are thinking a little more carefully about taking on the debt load to move out into a job market when salaries are not where they used to be.”

In North Carolina, self-reported results from law schools were more mixed. Two schools, Charlotte and North Carolina Central, would not even accommodate repeated requests to discuss the situations in their admissions offices.

Law school officials who spoke to Lawyers Weekly disagreed over whether the slump was a temporary blip or the “new normal.” But some experts think the situation may actually get worse before getting better.

“There’s no reason to believe that the decline in law school applications is at an end. I don’t see what will turn this around in the short term. If the decline continues, some schools will go out of business,” said Brian Tamahana, professor of law at Washington University of St. Louis and author of the upcoming book “Failing Law Schools.”

It is clear that the market correction is hitting law schools everywhere.

“When we’re talking about a national trend, almost every other school that I talk to is facing the exact same issues and challenges. We’re in this boat together,” Hutchinson said.

Nationally, the drop in applications has been even steeper among the students with the highest LSAT scores. Applications from students with scores below the median have barely dropped. Hutchinson confirmed that the national trend is holding true at USC, with higher credentialed students not applying nearly as much as in previous years. Benfield said that Charleston had not seen a disproportionate drop in any particular pocket of the applicant pool.

Both deans also said that students are being more aggressive in price-shopping different schools for the best scholarship offer, but Benfield warned that some schools employ a bait-and-switch, offering scholarships for the first year and taking them away for the final two.

The decline of applicants would seem to be a rational response to the fact that the number of new lawyers produced each year far outstrips the number of jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that there will be 212,000 job openings for lawyers between 2010 and 2020, with 73,600 new jobs created and 138,400 opening due to replacement. That’s slightly less than half the number of law school graduates projected during that period, based on current trends.

Tamahana says that some lower-tier schools will have to respond to the lack of strong candidates by watering down admissions standards to unprecedented levels.

“Over one-fourth of law schools nationwide accepted close to 50 percent, or more, of their applicants in 2009. This year, there will be many law schools that will accept two-thirds, or even 75 percent of their applicants. At some point, you’re basically de facto open admission,” he said. “If law schools are forced to open admission, it will force serious questions about the soundness of their operation.”

Many experts predict that some schools, especially the ones already at the bottom of the pecking order for applicants, will have to shutter their doors.

“My best guess, which is an educated guess, is that some of these lower tier schools are going to close. I don’t know whether it will be in the next year or anything, but I would be very surprised if there were as many ABA-accredited schools a decade from now as there are now,” said Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado and author of a popular blog about the challenges facing law schools.