http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324162304578305710253751052.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
Law schools are in trouble. Applications are down almost 50% to an estimated 54,000 this year from 100,000 in 2004. Little wonder. According to the National Association for Law Placement, barely 65% of 2011 graduates had landed law-related employment within nine months of graduation, the lowest rate since NALP began reporting in 1985. Even the 65% number is suspect, given the powerful, rankings-driven incentives schools have to cook the figures. Meanwhile, many of the unemployed graduates have law-school debt exceeding $100,000.
It is a true crisis, and law schools are scrambling to figure out how to manage with fewer tuition-paying students. Law-school budgets have soared for several decades as faculties multiplied, salaries rose and facilities became ever grander. With annual tuition approaching or even exceeding $40,000 at most schools, even a dozen fewer students a year blows a $500,000 hole in the budget.
Riding to the rescue is the American Bar Association’s Task Force on the Future of Legal Education. The task force’s assignment is to study and make recommendations addressing the economics, delivery and regulation of legal education.