I wouldn't call it good news/bad news. It's more apt to describe it as "rational"/ totally "out-of-whack-with reality" developments. I'm talking about how some law schools are adjusting to the economic realities of the day.
First, the "rational" developments: George Washington University Law School, which is ranked 20th in this year's U.S. News & World Report, is reducing its enrollment in response to the declining numbers of law school applications. GW's dean, Paul Schiff Berman, told The National Law Journal that that he "hopes to move enrollment below 450 and continue to reduce the number of new students in subsequent years. In fall 2011, the school enrolled 474 J.D. students."
GW's decision is noteworthy because it joins another top 50 law school—44th-ranked University of California Hastings College of the Law—in reducing enrollment. This spring, Hastings's dean, Frank Wu, announced plans to cut enrollment by a whopping 20 percent over three years. (The other law schools that have announced plans to cut incoming classes are Albany Law School, Creighton University School of Law, and Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center.)
If even top 50 law schools like GW and Hastings are decreasing their enrollment in response to the shrunken legal market, shouldn't lower-ranking schools at least consider doing the same thing? One would think so.
But here's the irrational, wacky news: Bottom-ranked, much-maligned Cooley Law School is doing the exact opposite. Instead of shrinking enrollment, it is opening another branch of its franchise in Tampa.
And it gets even crazier: Even though law school applications are generally declining, law students are knocking down Cooley's doors to get in. In fact, Cooley-Florida opened its door to 104 students—almost twice the number the school initially expected to enroll, reports the NLJ.
"Cooley's Tampa Bay campus enrollment exceeded our expectations," associate dean Jeff Martlew told the NLJ.
But according to critics, Florida already has 11 ABA–accredited law schools that graduate more J.D.s than what the job market can handle. With almost 4,000 students spread throughout Michigan (in Lansing, Grand Rapids, Auburn Hills, Ann Arbor) and now in sunny Florida, "Cooley is easily the largest law school in the country."
Ironically, Cooley decided to open in Florida because the weak economy in Michigan was jeopardizing the school's enrollment numbers, reports NLJ.
So let me see if I got this straight: Because Cooley grads can't find jobs in Michigan, the law school is worried—not about what will happen to its grads—but about its revenue stream. So the solution is to go somewhere far for fresh victims.
Hey, you can't say Cooley doesn't have a business plan.
Get the latest from The Careerist—free! Sign up today--see box on upper right corner.
Do you have topics you'd like to discuss or tips to share? E-mail The Careerist's chief blogger, Vivia Chen, at VChen@alm.com.
Somebody who plans to be an attorney should be capable of doing their due diligence when researching potential law schools. I happen to disagree with the Stetson assessment below. Stetson is a respected regional school and can be a very rational school choice with the right financial aid package if you don't plan on leaving the area. That being said, I don't know if the Tampa market can absorb another regional school. It is up to the individual applicant to do their own work to figure out if going to a particular law school is a good investment. The information is out there and law school is a big decision, especially now.
Posted by: Wade Coye | May 22, 2012 at 09:57 AM
Great post, Darryll. I've been saying for some time now that all that will happen as a result of the smarter students making a decision not to go to law school is that more unqualified candidates will now be able to get into law school. As a result, the quality of legal services to the public will decline. Law schools won't stop admitting law students, and prospective law students will continue to ignore reality. Every prospective law school student I try to warn about the realities of legal practice brushs me off as an outlier. After all, what could I know. I've only been practicing law for over 20 years. Law practice is about one thing and one thing only: sales.
Posted by: Law Broad | May 18, 2012 at 12:05 PM
There is a glut of lawyers and these students applying for law schools are doing it because of cultural misconceptions of the legal industry thinking they will be driving a Mercedes and being Perry Mason. I graduated Cooley years ago and gave up looking for a legal job in my community after realizing it was hopeless. From reading Third-Tier-Reality recently, I was shocked how widespread the dilemma of jobless JD's has become. Besides the financial toll this will have on graduates, the emotional toll will be enormous. It will even strain family relationships when your family does not understand the situation and wonders why you do not practice law. Also, once there is a gap in your legal resume, most likely you never will land a law job.
Posted by: SchoolHardKnocksGrad | May 18, 2012 at 02:52 AM
Somebody, somewhere, has figured out that the applicant pool can probably shrink by at least 50% and still even those schools at the bottom of the meaningless rankings can turn a nice tidy profit. You should have mentioned that Stetson University College of Law -- formerly second tier, now third and soon to fall into the dreaded fourth tier -- has a campus in St. Petersburg, Florida only about twenty miles from Tampa, as well as a branch campus in Tampa a stone's throw from Cooley's new money maker. Both schools charge upwards of $30,000 plus for tuition per year and yet they still have applicants aplenty. Anybody who can sign a promissory note, I bet, can get in. Everybody keeps talking about the terrible legal job market and yet schools keep popping up even in saturated markets. Indiana Tech just opened a law school. And not only that, they have more applicants than seats! To make this profession (law teaching) worth it in the face of such irrational exuberance, one should either find a school that really effects positive societal change. If you think about it, those schools are either at the very top (because their graduates will be afforded the opportunity such as have been afforded to both Romney and Obama) or the very bottom (because those schools will typically articulate and strive to achieve a noble-sounding mission relating to increasing access to justice). I won't mention my own school but consider Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Va. Those schools in the middle will suffer to the extent they adhere to an overpriced Langdellian method of legal education. I have been chastised enough already for posting comments longer than the blog post itself so I can't explain it. But since I will never teach at Harvard or Yale, I am happy to be teaching at an inexpensive fourth tier. Yep, still being defensive as you can see. Students who spend money at very expensive fourth tier schools probably prove by their first ever legal decision (i.e., where to attend law school) that they may not have the analytical skills to make good lawyers. They can only be in it for the money and they will soon suffer the disappointment so many others before them have already suffered.
Posted by: Darryll | May 17, 2012 at 07:35 PM