Looking at the Increase in the Number of Law Schools and Law Students, 1950-2010

There seems to be a consensus today that the United States has too many law schools and too many law students.

The table below looks at how we reached the current situation. It compares the increase in the number of law students and ABA accredited law schools to the general growth of the U.S. population on a decade by decade basis for the past 60 years.

Decade GeneralPopulation Increase Increase in Law School Combined Annual Enrollment Increase in Number of ABA Accredited Law Schools
1950-60 18.5% -16.9% 12.3% (114 to 130)
1960-70 13.3% 80.1% 10.8%  (130 to 144)
1970-80 11.5% 85.5% 17.4%  (144 to 169)
1980-90   9.8%   4.1%   3.6%  (169 to 175)
1990-00 13.2%   0.6%   4.0%  (175 to 182)
2000-10   9.7%  17.8%   5.4%  (182 to 200)

As the table indicates, there has never been a correlation between general population growth and increases in law schools and law students.

Although the decline in the number of law students in the 1950’s may be somewhat exaggerated by the fact that law school enrollment boomed in the late 1940’s because of the disruptive effects of the Second World War and the benefits provided by the GI Bill, the period was a remarkably stable era for legal education. Although the number of ABA-accredited law schools increased by 16 in the decade, there was no growth in the number of law students. Law schools remained essentially the same size across the decade or else reduced their enrollments.

In contrast, the decade of the 1960’s and 1970’s saw an enormous increase in the number of law students: a 234% increase over the 20 year period. (This figure compares the enrollment in the 1959-60 academic year with the enrollment in 1979-80.) This enormous growth occurred even though the number of law schools increased only by 30%, from 130 to 169. Obviously, lots of law schools got much larger in these two decades. Presumably, this increase was justified by an increase in the demand for legal services.

In contrast, the period between 1980 and 2000, was a period of remarkable stability for legal education. Total law school enrollment increased by less than 5% over the twenty year period, while the number of law schools increased by less than 8%.

Obviously, the stability of the final two decades of the 20th century ended in the first decade of the 21st. The current economic climate suggests that the nearly 18% increase in the number of law students was not economically warranted.

Why did this happen? What caused the controls exercised in the 1980’s and 1990’s to break down?

Knowledgeable observers are likely to cite the 1995 consent decree between the American Bar Association and the Clinton Justice Department in which the ABA agreed to relax the accreditation standards for new law schools. Moreover, in 2006, the Justice Department levied a fine on the ABA for violating the decree. Regardless of the degree to which the ABA lived up to its part of the agreement, it was clearly easier to establish a new ABA-accredited law school after 1995 than it was before.

However, the number of new ABA-accredited law schools in the first decade of the 21st century is not that out of line with the historical pattern. Between 1950 and 2000, the ABA accredited, on average, 13 or 14 new law schools per decade; between 2000 and 2010, the number was only 18.

While new law schools are responsible for part of the increase in the number of law students between 2000 and 2010, they do not explain the entire increase. Existing law schools also increased their size during the decade.

What the pattern will be in the 2010’s is not at all clear.

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Women Are Still Relatively New in the Legal Profession

Recent posts by Judi McMullen and Melissa Greipp have focused on issues confronted by women in the legal profession today, and the current issue of the National Law Journal reports that in large law firms, women still account for just of 15% of equity partners.

Although women currently (as of 2011) make up 31% of all lawyers in the United States and 47% of all students at ABA-accredited law schools, the presence of large number of women in the profession is still a relatively recent phenomenon.

There have been women in the American legal profession since the 1870’s, but their numbers were miniscule until after 1945.

In the fall of 1947, women accounted for only 3.3% of law students. (The number, not surprisingly had been higher during World War II, but that was because of the dramatic drop in the number of male law students during the war.) Although the percentage declined to 2.8% in 1948 and 1949, it began to grow after that and actually reached 4.1% (1362 of 31,197) in 1952, when 4.9% of all first year law students were women.

However, the number (not just the percentage) of woman attending law school began to decline again after 1952, as traditional notions of gender-appropriate occupations were reasserted during the Cold War Era. By 1956, the percentage of women dropped to a post-1950 low of 3.0%.

Although the number increased after that, the increase was extremely modest, and the 1952 figure of 4.9% of all law students was not reached again until 1968. Although the number of female law students increased from 1061 in 1956, to 2759 in 1967, the number of male students grew from 34,177 to 58,315 during the same period.

It was in the fall of 1968 that law school enrollments first reflected the impact of the Women’s Movement. For the 1968-69 academic year, the number of female first year law students jumped from 1179 to 1742, and the percentage of all law students who were female hopped up to 6.0%. Significantly, for the first time in the decade of the 1960’s, the number of males entering law school actually declined as an absolute number between 1967 and 1968.

The number of female students increased dramatically after that, passing the “10% of all law students” mark in 1972, the 20% barrier in 1974; and the 30% level in 1978. The largest single-year jump (in percentage terms) came between 1972 and 1973, when the number of first year female law students rose from 15.7% to 20.2% of the total, and the overall number of female law student rose from 12.1% to 16.0%. (Also, in 1972, the last all-male law school, Washington and Lee, first opened it doors to female students.)

The number of women in law school as a percentage of the whole continued to increase after 1978, although the rate of increase slowed. In 1985, women made up 40% of all law students for the first time; and in 1987, the percentage went permanently over that mark.

The percentage of women peaked at 49.0% in 2001 and 2002, and has declined slightly over the course of the past decade. During the 2011-12 academic year, women made up 46.7% of law students.

There were female students at the Milwaukee Law School in the 1890’s, and when Marquette took over the Milwaukee Law School in 1908, there were several women in the evening law program. Unfortunately, the law school does not have records of the number of female law students in its student body in individual years, but those figures could be reconstructed from the records of the University Registrar. However, the existing evidence suggests that Marquette’s pattern has generally tracked that of other ABA accredited law schools.

Note: All of the statements above that refer to “law schools,” refer actually refer only to ABA-accredited law schools. Outside of California, the vast majority of American law schools are ABA-accredited. In 1947, the number of ABA-accredited law schools was 111; by 2011, it was 201.

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Is Wisconsin Ready for Another Sentencing Commission?

Wisconsin has already had two sentencing commissions, now both defunct.  Is it time to think about a third?  Sentencing commissions have proven their worth over the long haul in a number of other states, including Minnesota, North Carolina, and Virginia.  A successful sentencing commission promulgates guidelines that channel judicial sentencing discretion and reduce sentencing disparities, collects and analyzes sentencing data in order to support evidence-based decision making, and provides information and recommendations to the legislature than can help to blunt some of the political system’s tendencies to excessive harshness.  Although it is certainly not cost-free, a good commission may ultimately save the state far more than is required to fund its operations.

With these considerations in mind, the latest edition of the Marquette University Law School Poll asked respondents their views of commissions and of judicial sentencing discretion.  (For my earlier posts on the Poll, see here and here.)  The results indicate that there is substantial support for a commission, but that Wisconsinites also appreciate what their locally elected judges bring to the table as sentencers.  

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