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2 Legal Educ. Newsl. 1 (1971)

handle is hein.journals/syllabus2 and id is 1 raw text is: Volume 2, Number 1, February, 1971 Published by the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar American Bar Association (W SHORTAGE OF OPPORTUNITY FOR LEGAL EDUCATION The data collected each fall from the law schools reveals that a remarkable growth in law school enrollment has occurred in recent years and that the approved law schools have reached their capacity to admit any significant number of additional law students. Student Enrollment at ABA Approved Schools 1966-1970 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1st year 24,077 24,267 23,652 29,128 34,528 Women 2678 2906 3704 4715 6937 Total 62,566 64,406 62,779 68,386 82,041 These student enrollment figures for the ABA approved schools show that total enrollment has increased by 19,475 from 1966 to 1970; this growth represents an increase of 31.1%. Remarkably, two-thirds of this increase took place in 1970. When the figures for the first year enrollment for this same period are examined, it is revealed that a 43.5% increase in first year enrollment has occurred during these five years and that more than half of that increase of 10,451 occurred in 1970. Perhaps it should be added that the law school enrollment in approved law schools has more than doubled in the past decade, having grown from 40,381 in 1960 to 82,041 this past fall. The most remarkable figures may be those relating to women law students. From 1966 to 1970 the number of women students increased by 159%. Over one-half of that increase occurred in 1970. Professor Harry B. Reese of Northwestern, Chairman of the Law School Admission Test Council, reports that the number of women applicants to take the LSAT has quadrupled in the past four years. It appears that there will be a significant increase in the percentage of women applicants to the 1971 entering class. This past fall for the first time law schools were asked how many additional students they would have enrolled in their fall 1970 entering classes had more qualified students made timely application. 140 of the 146 ABA approved schools responded to this question. The surprising result is that only 16 of these 140 schools reported that they would have enrolled additional students. These 16 law schools could have enrolled an additional 353 day students and 306 evening students, or a total of 659 additional law students in their fall 1970 entering classes. This number of unfilled seats represents less than 2% of the fall 1970 first year enrollment. It is apparent that ABA approved schools are virtually filled to capacity. Another development this fall aggravates this problem. For reasons that are still not clear, the yield formulae that had worked to tell a law school how many to admit to enroll a class of the desired size did not work this fall in school after school. Many more students showed up to register than experience had lead the law school to expect. In other words, many law schools enrolled more students in their first year class than they expected and wished. Thus, it probably can be said that their capacity has been reached. Upon the basis of the first four of the five test administrations in the current test year, it now appears that there may be an increase of over 30% in the number of persons taking the Law School Admission Test this year. During the 1969-1970 test year there were 74,092 candidates, an increase of 22.5% over the previous year. The bulk of these persons probably sought admission to law school this past fall. Predictors that had worked reasonably well in the past suggested a candidate volume during the current year of 75,000. However, there has been a totally unexpected increase in candidates. Professor Reese reports that through the February 1971 test there have been 85,000 registrations and that the April registrations will probably bring the total to over 100,000 for the year. These data and the survey concerning unfilled seats suggest that there will be a very substantial number of (continued on page 3)

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