Another Negative Story from the NY Times

This story mentions a study by Law School Transparency that shows that many law schools are admitting students who have little chance of passing the bar.

Excerpts:

"As law schools across the country try to keep their classrooms full, many are admitting students with lesser qualifications, including those with a lower admissions test score — considered an important predictor of whether a graduate will earn the credentials to practice law."

"About a third of the 204 accredited law schools had entering classes last year with at least 25 percent of the class consisting of “at risk” students, or those with law school admissions test scores of below 150, according to a new study by Law School Transparency, a nonprofit advocacy organization."

"'Too many law schools are filling their entering classes with people who face serious risk of not passing the bar exam,' said Kyle McEntee, executive director of Law School Transparency, which he helped to found six years ago to promote more open law school practices. He said that last year 45 schools, up from eight in 2010, admitted seriously at-risk students."

Law schools cannot keep ignoring this problem.  Just when law school applications have bottomed out, the new publicity may cause more potential students to go elsewhere.  While the article mentions a few law schools who have tried to deal with the problem (Southern Illinois, Denver), all law schools need to face reality.  Ignoring the problem is just making things worse.  For example, while there are many, many opportunities for top students in the legal profession, the number of top students going to law school has dropped off dramatically in the past few years because of the negative publicity.

The bad market has hurt law schools.  Law schools' reactions to the bad market have made this problem much, much worse.

(Scott Fruehwald)