Considering law school? Want to be a lawyer? Consider this: Which schools charge the most and the least

Columbia University’s law school had the highest annual tuition among 99 private law schools ranked by U.S. News & World Report.

The law school charged $62,700, according to U.S. News & World Report. The lowest-cost of the 99 private law schools, on the other hand, was Brigham Young University’s Clark Law School, which charged only $23,940. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints got an even bigger break; they were charged only $11,970.

Article here (via ABA Journal). 

Also consider: Before law school.  To enter law school, one has to take the LSAT, a test that's given a few times a year, and get a score that's considered acceptable. You will also have to finish undergrad studies with a fairly decent GPA (although some schools accept "provisional students" who do not have an undergrad degree. Those schools put provisional students on probation until their GPAs show that they can cut the mustard in law school).

Some schools also offer partial tuition scholarships based on the score from your LSAT, and your undergrad GPA.

Graduating from law school. Next, you will have to get through the school's required courses, usually consisting of subjects like Torts, Contracts, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Taxation, Research and Writing, Advanced Writing, etc. etc. (My school required Taxation, and Secured Transactions, often these are not required at other schools). There is usually some level of performance-type classes, like Trial Skills, or Pre-Trial, too. There are other "exciting" elective courses as well, like Moot Court, Family Law, No-Fault Law (have I scared you yet?), Insurance law, and so on. Your school will have a minimum number of required classes, and after that you are free to gambol on the fruited plains to choose your electives. Beware: electives tend to influence you one way or another toward what fields of law you end up practicing.

Applying for the Bar Exam At some point while you are getting your last few semesters finished, you will need to decide where you'd like to practice, and begin applying to those state bars. Several states (Florida, New York, California, for example) have quite strict admissions requirements, and need longer times to begin the process of applying, so don't wait too long.

Applying means telling that state bar  two things: 1. "I want to take your bar exam on ___ date," and 2. "I haven't done anything to disqualify myself from practicing in your state." The second one is also referred to as Character and Fitness (C &F).

Getting through C&F is no joke: It's like the longest and most detailed job application you have ever done. You have to disclose to that state bar any criminal activity on your record, what happened in undergrad and law school for discipline (if anything). It may also include disclosing your job history, your addresses since you were 16, and any number of things. My advice is to always disclose - with explanations. I know people who are now practicing who had criminal convictions before law school, but they disclosed, and explained how things happened, and why this didn't disqualify them from practicing.

Bar Prep. Then you prepare for the exam, and hope that the C&F application is approved. Some takers will use a bar prep course, others will not. I know people who have passed on the first try without a bar prep class (though they are rare). Bar prep is offered by companies like BarBri, Themis, at a cost to each student (scholarships may exist). I used BarBri, and thought it was overpriced, and offered very little "hand-holding" as I prepared. But I did pass my first time.

The exam will consist of every subject you ever took in law school, or almost.  There's a multiple choice portion, the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), and an essay portion (except in Wisconsin). Michigan's exam, for example, tests the MBE (which used to be 6 subjects but is now increased to 8), and the essays (which can be on 23 possible subjects, but only tests 15 subjects). Depending on your state's bar, there may also be a portion of "performance" on the exam (MPT). Most states have a 2 day exam, others have 3 days.

Then you wait to see if you have passed, once you pass you can be sworn in, and get your license! Congrats you have made it!!

Law school enrollment continues to fall, despite hopes

 Law schools have been having a rough time of things lately. Takers of the LSAT have slumped over the last 5 years, and the numbers - despite what hopes had been - continue to slump.

 The hope was that the slump would be followed by an influx of new students.

But it isn’t happening. The law school, which Parrish leads, saw the number of first-year law students decline 10 percent this school year on top of the nearly 25-percent decline in first-year enrollment it suffered from 2010 to 2013.

A similar story is playing out at most law schools in Indiana and the nation. Enrollment has fallen at the IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law at IUPUI and Valparaiso University Law School in northwest Indiana.

Article here (via taxprof blog). 

More ways to cut costs for law schools with declining enrollment

It's been five years since the beginning of the decline in law school enrollment. Law schools have predictably already cut a lot of things out of their programs. But many schools are still looking to cut more costs!

This article has a brief list of what to cut:

• Voluntary Retirements/Voluntary Pay Cuts 
• Cuts to Faculty Research Support
• Cut/Consolidate Administrative Positions
• Reduce the Number of Course Offerings/Mandate More Courses
• Law Library
• International Programs
• Overhead

Number of people taking LSAT drops further

The number of people taking the Law School Admission Test dropped 8.1 percent for the test this fall, compared to the fall test last year, after declining 9.2 percent for the June test.

Those latest figures from the Law School Admission Council indicate a downward trend over the last five years, report TaxProf Blog and the Excess of Democracy Blog. The total number of LSATs administered in June and September/October is 52,745, a drop of 40 percent from the totals for the same test period in 2009.

Article here. (ABA Journal). 

Law schools have smallest incoming classes since the 1970s; top schools and scorers buck trend.

Law schools admitted 39,675 first-year students last year, the smallest incoming class since the 1970s.

Article here. 

Bucking the trend are Harvard Law School and students who score high on the Law School Admission Test. More high-scoring students are applying to law school, and applications to Harvard’s law school are up significantly this year, according to the story.

Why the decline in recent LSAT applicants?

Recent years have shown a downward trend to the amount of people applying to law schools and taking the LSAT (law school aptitude test). Why? It's because the recent law grads -- those just out, looking for work, and finding little to no help from their law schools-- feel disaffected and left out. Their advice to others inquiring about a decision to go to law school has been "don't go."

At least that's the theory in this article from Above the Law. 

(hat tip, taxprofblog).

For the first time since 2010, number of LSAT takers has risen

Has the law-school crisis turned a corner? That’s one way of looking at the latest LSAT data.
The number of law school admission tests administered in February was up 1.1% from the previous year, according to new figures released by the Law School Admission Council.
That may not sound like a significant change, but it’s the first time since June 2010 that the number of people who took the standardized exam increased as compared to the year before.

article here. 

Jail time for submitting misleading or false law school rankings?

A most unlikely collection of suspects - law schools, their deans, U.S. News & World Report and its employees - may have committed felonies by publishing false information as part of U.S. News' ranking of law schools. The possible federal felonies include mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, and making false statements. Employees of law schools and U.S. News who committed these crimes can be punished as individuals, and under federal law the schools and U.S. News would likely be criminally liable for their agents' crimes.


Article here.

Good news for prospective law students

Deciding whether or not to enroll in law school is a big decision, with the potential for a lot of debt (and a degree) at the end. (Related: So you think you want to become a lawyer?) So prospective law students often ask: Is it going to be worth it?

In this article, The Economic Value of a Law Degree,

[t]he authors conclude that ”a law degree is associated with a 60 percent median increase in monthly earnings and 50 percent increase in median hourly wages…[and] estimate the mean pre-tax lifetime value of a law degree as approximately $1,000,000.”

See more here. 

WSJ: Is now a good time to apply to law school?

As law school class sizes shrink and the legal job market shows signs of life, some industry observers are wondering whether it’s a smart time to apply to law school. It’s a debate that pits optimists against pessimists, both of whom make good points.

Article here. 

Declining LSAT participation numbers - again.

The number of people taking the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) continues to decline. Article here.

Does lower law school enrollment mean lower-quality law students?

At many law schools, enrollment has been trending downward in recent years. What does this mean? One article suggests that

Graduates of elite colleges and universities are opting not to apply to law school at a greater rate than graduates of less elite colleges and universities. One might suppose that this translates to a greater decline in the number of applicants and matriculants with really high LSATs (165 or above) as compared to those with relatively low LSATs (149 and below).