US law school enrolment rises, but minority groups stall
Law school enrolment in the US rose 2% in 2019, but the percentage of minority students enrolling has fallen slightly, according to statistics from the American Bar Association (ABA).
American law schools must make information about admissions and other matters publicly available under ABA standard 509.
Barry Currier, managing director for ABA accreditation and legal education, said: “The aggregate first-year enrollment in ABA-approved law schools remains basically level with last year and close to the enrollment that we have seen for the past few years.”
He added that the job market for law school graduates has stabilised, and even improved in some areas.
“Together, these two facts show that legal education continues to adjust to market conditions, as it strives to serve students, the legal profession and the public,” said Currier.
Overall, 112,882 enrolled in a juris doctor (JD), an increase of 1.2%, whereas nearly 19,819 enrolled in a non-JD course, a 7% increase from the year before.
On diversity, Currier noted that the gender mix in the first-year class is 54% women and 46% men. With more than 38,000 enrolling for their first year of law school in autumn 2019, nearly 17,500 were men; 20,700 were women and 134 were classed as other.
In 2018, women represented 53%, with men representing 47% of enrollment.
Minority enrolment represented 30% of the total, down 1% to 11,871 from 11,981.
“Both of these data points are worth mentioning as we continue to work to have a legal profession that is diverse and reflects the clients and communities that it serves,” Currier added.
Diversity gap
The statistics come as the legal sector is being put under pressure to boost its diversity efforts.
Last week, WIPR reported that only one in five equity partners in US law firms are women and less than 8% are people of colour.
According to a report from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), women, people of colour, and women of colour all made small improvements in representation at the partner level in 2019.
James Leipold, NALP executive director, said: “The overall arc of the storyline for large law firm diversity remains the same—it is one of slow incremental gains for women and people of colour in both the associate and partnership ranks, interrupted by some recession-era setbacks, but at a rate so slow as to almost seem imperceptible at times.”
In November, the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) Bar Association urged law firms to include more women on PTAB trial teams in a report which found that, of the top 500 firms appearing in most proceedings before the PTAB, women make up half of the total attorney appearances at just 17 firms.
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