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Which law school will it be?
With applicants up 0.7 percent since last year and more students taking the LSAT than in recent years, there seems to be a faint glimmer of hope on the horizon for law schools, many of which have suffered greatly since enrollment’s obliteration — likely caused by the legal media’s exposure of scores of miserable, heavily indebted, unemployed graduates — occurred after the recession.
But is there a light at the end of the tunnel of despair for all law schools?
David Barnhizer, a professor emeritus at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, believes that law schools in the Great Lakes and Midwest area are still in trouble. In a new paper, Barnhizer outlines what he thinks may lead to the demise of several Midwestern law schools, writing, “The picture is not pretty in the ‘Rust Belt’ region.”
According to Barnhizer, there are six “critical factors” affecting Rust Belt law schools:
1. The Great Lakes/Midwest region is economically depressed and while it may experience a partial recovery it nonetheless will fall short of recreating the base of manufacturing activity that produced a strong upwardly mobile middle class of the kind that sustains high-level educational activity.
2. The region’s populations are static, aging or declining with the result that the applicant pool for law schools in the geographic area is falling,
3. The region’s lawyer job markets are saturated to the point that there are not a significant number of new jobs being created and the replacement market that depends on the deaths or retirement of lawyers currently in practice is slow moving.
4. Public budgets for local and state governments in the Great Lakes/Midwest region are under significant stress with the result that those institutions represent a largely static or declining employment market for lawyers.
5. A significant number of the region’s “top” law jobs will be “cherry-picked” by graduates of law schools such as Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Ohio State and a few others.
6. The systemic pressures on law schools trying to survive in the depressed applicant market and convince those to whom they extend offers to attend the law school will create a sort of financial “death spiral” in which law schools rely on greatly expanded financial aid packages in an effort to “buy” students, along with staff and faculty reductions since few law schools have a significant endowment “cushion” to buffer the declining financial situation. This creates an incentive to admit marginal students at the lower end of the scale who pay full tuition in order to fund the subsidies and scholarships given to more highly qualified applicants.
Barnhizer continues his assault on law schools in this region of the country, noting that “many of the ‘lesser’ law schools in the Great Lakes/Midwest region are largely left ‘out in the cold’ in relation to being able to attract significant cohorts of well-qualified applicants and students.” With suffering regional schools like Cooley and Valparaiso to choose from, with recent entering first-year student LSAT profiles like 138/141/147 (Cooley) and 142/145/148 (Valpo), Barnhizer’s point here is well taken.
“Several law schools are likely to simply wither away,” writes Barnhizer, but which ones? Professor Dorothy Brown has nominated Minnesota Law — a top 30 law school, but one that has been experiencing a slew of financial troubles thanks to its enrollment issues.
Which law school do you think is most likely to “wither away”? If you have inside information to share, please email us or text us (646-820-8477).
Competitive Data Trends for Great Lakes and Midwest Law Schools 2012-2015 [SSRN]
The Rust Belt Law School Crisis [WSJ Law Blog]
Law schools in Rust Belt are in a ‘survival of the fittest’ mode, law prof asserts [ABA Journal]
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Can I suggest Birmingham School of Law, or are we limiting this to actual law schools?
Don’t forget Massachusetts School of Law in Andover, MA, another unaccredited hotspot.
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A significant number of the region’s “top” law jobs will be “cherry-picked” by graduates of law schools such as Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Ohio State and a few others.
AHAHAHHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Never have I laughed so hard.
Yale.
Please.
Srsly tho.
Yale (1)
Harvard (2)
Michigan (T-8)
Ohio State (T-30)
One of these things is not like the others! One of these things is… a Buckeye.
Which law school do you think is most likely to “wither away”? If you have inside information to share, please email us or text us (646-820-8477).
You want inside information on my thoughts?
I heard that Columbia Law and NYU Law are going to commit ritual suicide together over the JoePa/Alex situation.
“many of the ‘lesser’ law schools in the Great Lakes/Midwest region are largely left ‘out in the cold’…”
General numbers (slight upticks in applicants/LSAT takers) tell you very little. Like most markets, the law school market has various segments that behave quite differently. The T14-esque bunch remain plenty healthy. There is effectively limitless demand for their top-end product.
The middle class schools, maybe T-100, T-75 (T-50 seems a bit low)-aka the good regional schools where you have a good chance to pass the bar and get a law-job, assuming you have some measure of focus/chops-are where the real work should be focused and the real analysis done.
And then there are the dregs (sub-100/150). Those schools should almost all shutter or consolidate into a very select few.
I’m not sure the “dregs” are necessarily the most at risk, though. Many of those schools are stand-alone law schools whose non-existent reputation isn’t really hurt by continually lowering standards. A school like Minnesota, on the other hand, can’t lower standards too much without hurting the reputation of the university as a whole. Further, Minnesota could close the law school and continue as a university in many other areas. A stand-alone school would have to close entirely. In addition, a public school has to justify its cost to taxpayers and the public at large in ways that private schools don’t.
A struggling public law school that is part of a larger university could close in circumstances when a stand-alone private school would simply lower standards further.
Is there a real place called “Coconut Island”?
I think it’s part of the same chain as Pen Island.
where in the heck is that
As old lady lawyer would say, “Google it.”
. . . preferably on a work computer.
its doing someting to my browsers content filter
Is that near whore island?
Many of the ‘lesser’ law schools in the Great Lakes/Midwest region are largely left ‘out in the cold’ in relation to being able to attract significant cohorts of well-qualified applicants and students.”
There’s the fundamental problem, no? Assuming that the inability to attract “Good” students/candidates is a problem? Until sub-standard bar passage rates actually come back to haunt a school or until student loans are no longer blindly subsidized when repayment prospects are questionable, these diploma mills have no problem opening the flood gates to – and taking money from – the truly stupid optimists of the world.
You would think the market correction should reach this point someday, but as yet, increasingly stupid applicants continue to press in at the law school gates.
Thomas Jefferson, of course. And don’t forget Phoenix… er Summit (of the trash heap). When you can’t even find a job in the same state as your school, you know you have serious problems.
The Law School Formerly Known as George Mason – because no one will want to be an ASSoL.
Things are indeed pretty bad out there. Is it possible that even a school like Northwestern would be in trouble?