LSAC Data and Predicting Number of Applicants for Fall 2014, part 2

How many people took the December 2013 LSAT? That will indicate whether or not the 51,392 forecast is too high or not.

I suspect that re-applicants tend to send their forms in early as they've already got their materials in order from last year. A significant decline in December 2013 LSAT takers, however, may presage a sub-50,000 applicant year.

I don't know the answer to your question, FLRE. I agree that would be helpful to know.

Just to be clear, I was basing the estimate of applicants (not applications) on the number of applicants as of January 3, 2014 and that at this time last year we had 38% of the final applicant count.

I think it is fair to say we are now paying for two up turns as there was a significant leap up in first years in the wake of the dot com crash (7% in 2002-03) as well as in the wake of the credit crisis. And only now are numbers falling far enough to unwind those upticks. Of course, just as the up ticks were overly optimistic these numbers are likely overly pessimistic. The structuralist and the cyclists (I remain with Gary Becker and Michael Simkovic in the latter camp) will have to wait and see.

I think the academy has a couple things wrong when the expect a rebound in applicants any time soon.

(1) It doesn't make sense to borrow 250k for even a 100% chance at a job paying 50k.

(2) Strong employment numbers won't happen even with a smaller amount of law school graduates given how bad the market is. It will take a while the the market to absorb all the people that graduated in recent years.

Ah, Steve Diamond.

What you don't get is that things have fundamentally changed in the last few years.

Yes, in a sense the academy may be 'paying for' previous upticks in enrollment, but the other thing which has led to some of the decrease in applicants, and will continue to decrease applications even more, is a degree of transparency in outcomes, which did not previously exist.

The knowledge that comes from the increased transparency is only going to continue to percolate out into the cultural consciousness, and will have a much greater impact on application numbers than a simple scaling back of applications following economic disturbances.

Here is a job for a new law grad / attorney just North of Mr. Diamond's neck of the woods:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/lgl/4276839181.html

2-3 months. $15/hr. No benefits.

The future of the profession is bright, indeed.

Too many lives have been destroyed by law school debt. These people have friends, family, and acquaintances whom they have told why law school ruined their lives. When more than a quarter of graduates (and that's being VERY conservative) have to go on IBR and live with their parents in their late 20s and early 30s, there's a problem. Most law school graduates were regarded as bright by their social circle and peers. When these people see that the law school graduate has had their life ruined by law school due to scarce jobs (most of which are low paying and many of which are miserable) and huge debt, word begins to get out. Law school is a terrible investment.

Word is getting out that Law School is a Scam. Statistics can even be used to show that barely 50% of all the JDs produced over the past 40 years actually work in the legal profession (and many of those job may be low income, low-job-quality types). It also is not inconceivable that fewer than 30% of all new grads find legitimate entry level jobs in the field, if that. See:

http://flustercucked.blogspot.com/2010/07/40-years-of-lawyer-overproduction-data.html

http://flustercucked.blogspot.com/2010/07/statistics-suggest-that-only-538-of-all.html

http://flustercucked.blogspot.com/2010/07/statistics-may-suggest-less-than-30-of.html

I would be more likely to side with the cyclists (a) if tuition hadn't sky rocketed from the $20k/yr range to the $45k/yr range over the last decade and (b) if prospective students hadn't gained access to more meaningful employment data.

Its worth noting that unlike previous drops in applications, which occurred during good economic times, the current drop in applications is occurring in the midst of a depressed labor market. If you can't count on a depressed economy to push young people into law school, what can you count on?

I don't think we are in a depression. I think in fact the economy has stabilized. And of course in certain parts, like here in the Valley, is actually booming. And that is likely contributing to the downturn, as has happened in the past. BA holders now have the chance to get work out of college whereas in 09-10 they had little chance.

The reversion to the mean will set in soon although, of course, it will not hit the recent peaks, nor should it, as that was likely a once in a generation event.

In the meantime changes in the law school model will continue paralleling changes in the university model. The risk though is that we end up with a dumbed down two tier legal academy and that has negative implications for the role and impact of lawyers.

Of course since much of the attack on law schools is actually veiled (and not so veiled) hostility to lawyers generally that may be the intent of the reform movement.

The incessant drumbeat of disdain directed at the legal academy needs to end. They are all making tremendous sacrifices to teach at law schools that they did not attend. It is merely semantics and a coincidence that they are graduates from places like Yale, Stanford, and Harvard. There is hardly a significant discrepancy in the employment outcomes and options between the schools where law professors graduated from and where they teach. They would be the first to tell you, after seeing their graduates take the legal profession by the horns just as their elite law school classmates did!

In fact, I would wager a lot of money that if the law faculty at places like Santa Clara, Case Western, Drexel and St. Louis could do it all over again, they would not enroll at their alma maters. I may even double down on that and wager that they'd encourage their children to not make the same mistakes they did and to reject UCLA for Pepperdine or Southwestern, right??

"The incessant drumbeat of disdain directed at the legal academy needs to end."
————————–

Frankly, I think it needs to get a lot worse. With the crashing enrollment numbers we can reasonably expect that 25% to 50% of the current legal academy needs to plan on a new career path as faculties shrink and some law school close down for good. The sooner the better…

Porno video gratuit cul black et video XXX cul black cul black

"The incessant drumbeat of disdain directed at the legal academy needs to end."
————————–

Frankly, I think it needs to get a lot worse. With the crashing enrollment numbers we can reasonably expect that 25% to 50% of the current legal academy needs to plan on a new career path as faculties shrink and some law school close down for good. The sooner the better…

"Of course since much of the attack on law schools is actually veiled (and not so veiled) hostility to lawyers generally that may be the intent of the reform movement."

That's it Steve. A bunch of people that are going to spend decades in a profession that is being hobbled by the greed of law schools are the ones who are hostile to lawyers. Not the people who, through their insistence on squeezing every last cent out of young people (let them eat PAYE!) have ensured that anyone who can possibly do anything else with their life is doing that instead of going into the profession.

You are absolutely making so much sense right now.

Steve,

Your comments do not make any sense. It's rough out there economically, and especially in the law field.

Look at the evidence as it is all around you. In this very thread, you claim that things are booming in the Bay Area, and then you ignore the SF craigslist post for 15/hour document review. My goodness! I suspect that there are options for smart BA holders. These likely pay better than 15/hr with no benefits in the second most expensive metro area. I can't see how anyone but the most biased of viewers can look at this and conclude a cyclical temporary change.

As a frame of reference, minimum wage in SF is $10.74, so in that respect Mr. Diamond is indeed correct, JD holders are doing nearly 40% better than non-JD holders.

Google just answered my question. Only 28,363 people took the December 2013 LSAT.

http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/lsats-administered

The number of LSATS administered in December is also down another 6.2% from last year.

Also remember that # of LSATs administered =/= the # individual LSAT takers. Unfortunately the only data on "repeaters" is from 2010-2011, which reported that only about a third of applicants take the test more than once. I'd suspect that the number of people willing to retake until they get a certain score has increased given the information that is out there about how much money schools will pay for a few extra points and the advice from current law students.

Like all bursting bubbles, the decline of applications to law schools will continue and accelerate until actual graduation rates are lower than market demand. That decline has a ways to go…

That said, I do not expect that "soaking up" graduates, especially graduates with no-experience from the "bust years" will be a significant factor. It is a depressing point, but somewhere between 1½ years and 2 years post graduation (unless the graduate has been clerking), a law graduate is very unlikely to be employed as a lawyer if they have not had experience already. Those that graduated between 2008 and 2012, and have not since then had legal employment are pretty well out of the running for most legal jobs.

As far as lower tier law schools like say Santa Clara and Drexel are concerned – they have limited choices – cut enrolment and/or cut tuition so that the cost of attendance makes sense in terms of the employment prospects of their graduates. Again – we return to the simple equation – cut output to about 20-24,000 JD p.a. and halve costs (i.e., double productivity.) My own assessment – the law schools complex will undershoot – less graduates than demand and lower costs than necessary, before it is all over. When, that is a more interesting question – but all sorts of businessmen and philanthropists are having their names scrubbed off law schools right now….

Abe, Re-read my comment carefully. The point is that when the economy turns up BA's have alternatives to hiding out in law school. And it has turned up generally and sharply here. That is exacerbating the downturn.

Steve Diamond
You believe that the economy is "booming" in the "Valley." Do you claim the "booming" stock market and Wall Street wealth are also relevant here?
Your point, in this context, is that attractive opportunities available as an alternative for "BA's [are] exacerbating the downturn" in law school applications.
See, e.g., here, http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/03/11/silicon-valley-poverty-economic-recovery/
where it is noted among other things:
"But many residents, even those with college educations, are finding it tougher than ever to make it in the Silicon Valley."
But then again, Silicon Valley, you say, is "booming."
In the course of defending a system faulted for the sort of sheltered and oblivious nature of those defending it, your comments are significant indeed.

MacK — When you say "all sorts of businessmen and philanthropists are having their names scrubbed off law schools right now"; Did you mean this has happened at any school other than Drexel? Or were you just making that up?

Anon, the evidence of recovery is undeniable as the BLS reports here: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

Only Mitt Romney thinks there is no recovery underway.

Of course, capitalism is a volatile system that generates massive wealth and poverty simultaneously so it is not a surprise nor inconsistent to say that the Valley is booming while there is poverty all around. The latest demonstration of this phenomenon is the tension being generated in the Mission District in San Francisco where techies and hipsters are clashing with the shrinking hispanic population.

I am not a convinced "cyclist." It's much too early to see how the legal market is going to shape out.

What role information technology and the Brazilification of the US will have on the recovery of demand for lawyers (after the economic dive and the bursting of the BigLaw bubble that was decades in the making) remains to be seen. And that will in turn shape the demand for law school.

If BigLaw drives the lower demand for law school grads, then one wouldn't one expect to see the biggest decreases in enrollment and post-law school employment outcomes in those law schools that feed BigLaw? Is that what the data show? Take a look at employment outcomes for grads from law schools that don't place a significant number of grads in BigLaw. Any change, or have these schools placement outcomes always been so poor?
If IT drives the lower demand for law school, then one wonders: to what recent major improvements in the software that law firms use do you refer? Or, do you believe improvments in processing speed, storage, and portable devices are responsible for declining law school enrollment?
"Brazilification" … wow. That's a fancy word. Coupland, Douglas. Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. New York: St. Martins's Press, 1991. See also, Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, 1991. What on earth does that word mean in this context?

A booming Valley existing siumltaneously with poverty is not a contradiction, it is a natural concomitant of capitalism.

Steve:
You insist on attacking straw men.
Someone refers to a "depressed economy" and you say "there is no depression."
Someone cites evidence that BAs are not finding the opportunities you claim are accounting for decreased numbers of law school applicants, and you say "there is always rich and poor" (thereby totaling refuting your own claim that the number of law school applications is somehow related to an improving economy).
Someone asks whether an improving stock market and riches for a few in Silcon Valley has any real bearing on the prospects for lawyers, and you quote Mitt Romney.
Needless to say, perhaps, your arguments, as noted by others above, are all over the place and illogical.

Try to listen or at least read: the improving economy gives BAs alternatives in the short run that help weaken demand for law school. It's about not becoming a lawyer. I think this is crystal clear to anyone who wants to be objective. In the near term this means a weaker demand for JDs. As has happened several times in the past 20 years. When the lawyer shortage emerges the cycle will turn back.

Steve – as I'm sure you're well aware if you wouldn't insist on trotting out your fatuous analyses, the health of the economy is not the only variable controlling the number of applicants to law school.

Other variables include skyrocketting tuition/debt, increasing knowledge of (poor) employment outcomes, etc.

Whatever one thinks of law school brochures there is nothing new about that. And yet the ups and downs of law school enrollment proceeded apace.

Is it, belch, your view that the spike up in LS enrollment at the point when unemployment peaked was a coincidence in the early 90s, the early 00s and in 09-10? and that enrollment sank when unemployment sank in the late 90s and the mid 00s?

Steve says: "It's about not becoming a lawyer. I think this is crystal clear to anyone who wants to be objective."
Well. Steve. There. You've said it.
Add to that, this, and one has a real classic:
"[W]eake[r] demand for law school. … means a weaker demand for JDs."
Wow. Not the other way around, of course.
Now, to this brilliance, mix in that classic snarl and throw in a sort of cliche nasty aside that truly borders on parody ("Try to listen")and you have the whole picture!
"Crystal clear" as Steve says.

Steve: If you would take some time to support your point that BAs are increasingly more valuable now than JDs, thereby accounting for a decline in law school applications, perhaps then folks would be able to compare your insights with those of others who defend the status quo. You seem very well qualified to invent this risible contention. So, it shouldn't be difficult at all to support it.

The December LSAT numbers are down, but that is not entirely accurate this year because there were a number of test centers that canceled the test due to weather that weekend. The February LSAT numbers may go up as those people make it up. Or some may not bother. We'll have to see.

Nonetheless, it does appear that there will be less students enrolling in 2014-2015 than this current academic year. There isn't one trend anywhere that indicates otherwise.

It's going to be tough for some schools to survive with continuing declining enrollment.

Steve,

Nobody is disputing that grad school and law school enrollment has historically increased with downturns in the overall employment market for college graduates. What I think you are choosing to ignore, is the impact that the increasing cost of law school and the growing realization among college graduates that law school is a terrible gamble, is currently having, and will continue to have, on law school enrollment. It was understandable, back in the early 90s, for college graduates to ride out a bad employment market in law school. It cost half as much, and there was a general belief that a JD would prove to be valuable. Due to greater transparency in employment outcomes, it is becoming clearer to prospective students that law school has been a bad deal to the majority of recent graduates. To look at historical enrollment trends, without realizing these important realities, is to miss the forest for the trees.

Steve, perhaps you can provide that evidence I asked you for many moons ago that the employment opportunities for recently graduated BA's have increased commensurate with the absolutely massive drop in applications.

In the meantime, the rest of us in the real world can check out these "rational actors": https://twitter.com/LawLemmings

Let's look at opportunities near Professor Diamond.

At Santa Clara, only 54% of 2012 graduates reported full time jobs requiring bar passage and only half of those people reported having a salary at all. That means a full 75% of Santa Clara's 2012 class was unable to report having a full time law job with a salary!

Looking further, only an astonishing 11 students (4%) were employed in other professional jobs, despite living in arguably the best economic geography in the US – they Bay Area.

http://law.scu.edu//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/Class-of-2012-NALP-Report.website.pdf

Its almost like JDs who choose to practice law have no legal future. And those that try to get out have have no advantage either, indeed perhaps they may be disadvantaged, despite living in a "booming" non-legal job market with both a BA and a JD.

I am genuinely curious if Professor Diamond can account for this phenomenon?

Unfortunately, Prof Diamond is not subject to teh rules of argument, as he lives, almost by his own admission, in a bubble – an insulated world where nonsense is seldom checked because those within it reinforce one another and condemn all without it who see the absence of clothes.
The frightening thing is that the situation will likely grow worse, because those within the bubble are in control, and very particular about who enters it. They decide on who enters based on things like "chemistry" and other attributes which are illegal to consider outside the bubble. This produces the self-perpetuating bubble that has led to the present unprecedented state of legal education (tuition increases beyond all sense of proportion while tangible value steadily declines; more and more law faculty completely incapable of legal practice and unaware of the mores of the profession they purport to teach while in fact hateful and spiteful toward it and those who do in fact possess the knowledge they lack).

This may be worth reading to help you figure out the situation you are facing as young lawyers:

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2013/03/the-cost-of-apprenticeship.html

And this is why of course the Caro Institute is a welcome home to the anti-law school attack.

Eric Miller at LMU probably gets it right in explaining the problem in his "cist of apprenticeship" post here: http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2013/03/the-cost-of-apprenticeship.html

This may also explain the alliance between the anti-intellectualism of the crowd whi gather here and the reactionaries at Cato.

The problem of specious and costly efforts to internalize the apprenticeship period into a university setting was actually resisted by most academic law profs and in many places I suspect it still is.

Professor Diamond,
Do you take umbrage with the "anti-intellectualism" of law schools who are now accepting students with pathetically low LSAT scores? I'm sure you will remain silent when the ABA further perpetuates it by eliminating the LSAT as an admission requirement to keep the gravy train going. The dumbing down you posted about earlier is already under way.

Diamond's argument is that the many who contend that the number of JD applications is down not because of all the wonderful opportunties available to BAs, but rather because tuition has recently and sharply increased beyond all sense of proportion while the tangible value of a JD (measured by employment outcomes) has steadily declined, are engaged in "anti-intellectualism" and like the "reactionaries at Cato."
In support, Diamond cites, becoming even more unhinged, Eric Muller, on the topic of "efforts to internalize the apprenticeship period into a university setting"!
One can only marvel at this. Once again, the leadership of the law academy is responsible for its failures to pivot and recognize reality, and Prof Diamond is a wonderful exemplar of this problem. His posts are worthy of study and reflection.
How have things gone so wrong in the legal academy? What sort of culture produces this sort of defense?

Cent, I began my career teaching in adult education before I went to law school and think it is possible to create an effective intellectual culture in a classroom with people of a wide range of abilities and backgrounds. That said, it does seem the LSAT is a good predictor of success in law school and on the bar and therefore provides both prospective students and law schools useful information.

In any case anti-intellectualism is not about "dumbing down" if you meant that somehow getting rid of the LSAT would lead to less intelligent students.

The real danger is that we lose the original purpose of placing law schools in the university setting. See Mark Graber's post at Balkinization on Jan. 1 "legal education and the university." It's about independence from the commercial pressures of the profession that allows more objective examination of important issues and gives students the time to absorb important concepts and principles before they too face those pressures.

I recognize and I think most law profs do also that this is a challenging exercise even under the best of economic conditions and even at the highest ranking schools. And the high cost of legal education exacerbates the problem.

It's about independence from the commercial pressures of the profession that allows more objective examination of important issues and gives students the time to absorb important concepts and principles …" unsullied by concerns about “commercial pressures.”
Here again, Diamond exposes a "bubble" of self-reinforcing thought that includes a deeply-held bias against the practice of law and thereby implicitly demeans lawyering and lawyers.
Practice is the context in which vaguely stated "concepts and principles" are actually tested, honed and refined. Most of law school, especially the all-important first year, involves almost nothing BUT studying the work product of lawyers and courts. Law practice is the goal of the vast majority of law students. Acquiring the training that will make one an attractive hire after law school is a “commercial pressure” for almost all of those students, especially those who become deeply indebted to attend law school. Most law students wish to learn how to become lawyers in law school.
But, this is a “problem” for Diamond. These students should, instead, be absorbing the “important concepts and principles” he believes can be determined by and then imparted by the law academy! (How’s that been working out?)
Again, law schools are floundering because tuition has escalated so dramatically, while the value of a law degree (measured by employment outcomes) has been declining. In the face of this, Diamond, after explaining that this problem is attributable to better opportunities for BAs in a “booming” economy, now appears to be doubling down on the “see no evil” tack to say that law schools should continue to cater to the often naïve sensibilities of an all too often incredibly inexperienced clique of persons with no meaningful backgrounds in the practice of law and no managerial or business sense whatsoever. He vaguely assumes the presumed ability of the law academy to discern the “concepts and principles” that are more “important” than external “commercial pressures” – by which he seemingly dismisses actual lawyering.
One can only wonder what “concepts and principles” that are divorced from “commercial pressures” Diamond believes are the most “important concepts and principles” to be taught in a law school. These "concepts and principles" certainly do not, it seems, include becoming trained and then employed in a profession that requires that training. These concepts and principles certainly do not, it seems, being permitted to acquire that training from those who possess it themselves and who believe that the goals and aspirations of the vast majority of their students are worthwhile.
The plain fact is that the notion of “concepts and principles” is valid, but Diamond fails in any way to demonstrate: 1.) in what respect law schools are presently failing to identify and impart “concepts and principles” and 2.) how the “concepts and principles” that are imparted in law school are affecting the practice of law (e.g., whether faculty hiring focused on employing inexperienced persons unfamiliar with the practice of law has contributed to the widely perceived inability of law school graduates to add value to the actual practice of law, leading to a glut of new lawyers incapable of meaningful contributions without significant legal training, and thus exacerbating the “commercial pressures” on law schools to do better to which Diamond refers).
Again, Diamond's posts are valuable and worth consideration. He exemplifies a mind set that requires study and, perhaps, critique.

To borrow from Deming: In God we trust, all others must use data. Not sure where you have been, Anon, but the debate about the value of the JD is settled – with data. See Simkovic and McIntyre: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2250585

Of course reversion to the mean will take time and will be painful. The upturn was very sharp (far too sharp to be explained by law school brochures as judges across the country have recognized by throwing out the fraud lawsuits) and the downturn will be sharp. The upturn overshot demand and so the downturn will overshot the lack of demand.

Steve, speaking of data, look at your own institution. According to the data on the SCU website, 75% of the 2012 class was unable to report working in a full time legal job with any salary at all, much less a million dollars!

"Not sure where you have been, Anon, but the debate about the value of the JD is settled – with data."
Steve, Steve, Steve. You ask where I've been, but you cite a study that disproves one of your main contentions. Simkovic and McIntyre, hardly a study that "settles" anything, purport to demonstrate that over the long term, a JD adds a relative earning advantage. You argue that folks are satisfied with BAs because these prove to be more valuable now than JDs, and that that circumstance will not change until there is a "shortage" of lawyers. Your argument isn't supported by the S and M study; your argument doesn't come even close to making the same point they did.
"(judges across the country have recognized (that alleged misreps about employment outcomes did not account for an "upturn" in demand for JDs) by throwing out the fraud lawsuits)."
OK, Steve, once again, let's change the subject. Your comments are such a wonderful mish mash of vague but pointed barbs!
In this comment, you now appear to wish to move to ground you seem to believe more comfortable, to refute the "lawscam" movement (once again) insofar as some in that "movement" contend that law schools misrepresented employment outcomes (a point raised by none of the comments above). You use the dismissal of some fraud suits as proof of … exactly … what?
The majority of the judges who dismissed these suits (all suits have not been dismissed, btw) did not find that there were no misreps; they ruled on lack of reliance. So, is your point that you agree that no one paid any attention to the statements of law schools about employment outcomes? If you agree with the courts, that must be your point.
How does that point support your views, as expressed in this thread, Steve?
Finally, when you speak of "demand" Steve, you appear to vary between demand for a JD by applicants (where this all started) and demand for law school grads.

Why won't reality conform to my data!!

Steve Diamond:

"Of course, just as the up ticks were overly optimistic these numbers are likely overly pessimistic. The structuralist and the cyclists (I remain with Gary Becker and Michael Simkovic in the latter camp) will have to wait and see."

I have not seen *any* 'cyclist' even try to make the case that we've seen a similar situations before. Note that I mean honestly, because that would have to include the grads:jobs ratio[1] and the salaries:tuition ratio[1].

[1] In both cases, the real ratios, which include those who don't get JD jobs, and those who are unemployed.