A grand total of 21,802 people took the LSAT this past June.  This is the lowest level in 14 years.  After seeing a 1% rise in the number of test-takers in February from the previous year, law schools were hopeful that the law school crisis had turned a corner, and that maybe the numbers would continue to rise from their previous state of decline.  Much to the chagrin of law schools, this turned out not to be the case.                                                                                             

The LSAT (Law School Admission Test) is a half-day exam given four times a year in annual cycles starting in June. A total of 105,532 people took the test during the 2013-2014 cycle falling 6.2% from the year before.

What is to blame for the record low number of people seeking to enroll in law school? Poor job prospects could be a factor. Once, attending law school meant you had a reasonable probability of finding long-term legal employment after graduation. That is no longer the case.  Last year, 11.2 percent of law school graduates were still unemployed nine months after graduation, and only 61.6 percent had a job that required bar passage.  Contrast that to the national unemployment rate for recent college graduates of only 10.9 percent, showing that law graduates were worse off than other recent students.  The debt load could be another factor.  The average debt for three years of law school is $122,158 for private school graduates and $84,600 for public school graduates. With poor job prospects, that is a lot of debt for someone to take on.

With less competition for jobs, next year’s incoming class of law students should have an easier time finding a job once they graduate.  But the situation will still not be great. Has the amount of LSAT test-takers leveled off? Will it continue to decline? Or will it bounce back to its previous level? Unless prospective students see a change in the job market, they are not likely to seek out a legal education in the same numbers that they once did.

Read Wall Street Journal article here: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/07/11/number-of-lsat-test-takers-in-june-falls-to-14-year-low/