A law degree isn’t the golden ticket to prosperity that it was in years past. Money has taken over much of the practice of law in the United States. According to the Huffington Post, the American Lawyer magazine ranks law firms by their revenues and profitability. According to the Fiscal Times, although lawyers earn a median pay of around $113,500, many carry high debt loads, averaging about $125,000. For a new graduate who earns about $60,000, that could put them in a financial bind.
Lauren Robel, of Indiana University Bloomington and AALS’s immediate past president, said at a news conference, “It’s important for us both to recognize that the legal profession has been soft for entry-level lawyers, but also to really affirm that law school is absolutely the right choice for the right student,” reported by the Wall Street Journal.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment of lawyers is expected to increase about 10 percent between 2012 and 2022. The agency has noted, there have been more students graduating with a law degrees than there are jobs available. The job market is leading to a decline in law school enrollment. Nationwide, applications to law school fell 17.9 percent from 2012 to 2013. The Fiscal Times reported that the National Law Journal showed that 132 of the 199 ABA-accredited law schools saw declines in the number of first-year students in 2013. According to published reports, the survival of some law schools is also in jeopardy.
To appeal to more applicants, some law schools have cut the price of tuition and added to the number of scholarships they are offering. In light of how low the school’s standards have gotten in terms of accepting students because of the decrease in enrollments, according to Above the law, they predict less than half of the current first year class to pass the bar upon graduation.
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