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• Author: Stephanie Francis Ward
• Pages: 62-63

62 || ABA JOURNAL AUGUST 2018

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY; PESHKOVA/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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EDITED BY LEE RAWLES

LEE.RAWLES@AMERICANBAR.ORG

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More people are applying to law schools, but does

the jobs data support increasing class sizes?

By Stephanie Francis Ward

Douglas Sylvester, dean of the

Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law

at Arizona State University, is confi -

dent that the members of the school’s

class of 2020 will be able to fi nd

jobs when they

graduate.

He’s so con-

fi dent that he

plans to admit

more 1Ls for

this fall than

he has in previ-

ous years. And

he expects the

class of 2021 to

increase to 300

people from the 280 he projects will

graduate in 2020.

Like other law school deans in the

United States, Sylvester has seen an

increase in applicants. According to

the Law School Admission Council,

by April there was an increase of

about 8 percent in law school appli-

cants nationwide, compared to 2017.

The council also reported a 21 per-

cent increase in LSAT scores of 160

or higher, near the top of the scale.

But others are not as sanguine,

fearing that rising enrollment at law

schools could hurt an already-fragile

job market for those who are recent

or soon-to-be law school graduates

—some of whom take on a huge

amount of student loan debt.

Sylvester points to promising

regional numbers. “Phoenix and

Maricopa County are some of the

fastest-growing areas; we’ve seen a

huge uptick in the number of oppor-

tunities for our students,” he says.

Of the 198 members of his law

school’s class of 2017, 74.24 percent

had full-time, long-term jobs that

require bar passage, and 14.6 percent

had JD-preferred positions that were

long term and full time. The Arizona

O ce of Economic Opportunity pre-

dicts that the number of individuals

performing lawyer services will grow

by 5.9 percent between 2017 and

2019, from 12,361 to 13,094.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Nationally, there was a 3.72 percent

increase in employment for new law

grads from 2016 to 2017; 75.3 percent

of 2017 grads found work. But that

increase was coupled with a 6 percent

decrease in the size of the graduating

class, according to employment data

released in April by the ABA Section

of Legal Education and Admissions to

the Bar.

The section also parsed job per-

centages by industry for 2017. The

numbers show that there was an 18

percent decrease in academic jobs, a

5.7 percent decrease in government

positions, and a 2.3 percent decrease

at law fi rms. Data from the National

Association for Law Placement shows

that in 2013, 37,730 jobs for new law-

yers were reported. That decreased to

36,530 in 2014, 33,469 in 2015 and

31,354 in 2016.

James G. Leipold, executive

director of NALP, says he’s not

convinced that the job market will

support a larger graduating class.

“I am hopeful that law schools

will use this jump in the quality and

quantity of law school applicants

to shore up the credentials of their

incoming class, rather than grow

their enrollment,” he says.

Some law school deans and

professors have said the job market

for new lawyers might pick up as

baby boomers retire. Others argue

that there aren’t enough attorneys

available for consumers who need

them, and new lawyers could help

fi ll the access-to-justice gap.

Neither of those arguments for

attending law school are persuasive,

says Bernard Burk, a former assistant

professor at the University of North

Carolina School of Law. In April, he

spoke about the job market for new

law school graduates at a summit on

the future of legal education spon-

sored by the Florida International

University College of Law.

“The baby boomers are going

to retire, but nobody really knows

when, and so far what they’ve proved

is that they continue to work long

after previous generations retire,”

he says, adding that when older

lawyers retire, it’s unlikely that

new attorneys could fi ll in where

they left o because they haven’t

had the same training.

Burk acknowledges that the

access-to-justice gap is a signifi cant

problem. “But throwing lawyers at it

won’t solve the problem. The reason

is that people who need lawyers

don’t have the money to pay for

them,” he says, adding that legal

services funding on the state and

federal levels continues to be cut.

The number of entry-level law jobs

will continue to grow roughly propor-

tionate to the gross domestic product,

Douglas Sylvester