Are law schools prepared for a multi-year cycle of substantial declines in 1L enrollment?

While 1L JD enrollment hit a nine-year high this year, Dean Paul Caron has been tracking the declining figures for the upcoming year. Maybe that’s not too bad for law schools, given that they’ve seen this growth and are, perhaps, a bit more able to insulate it against it next year. Applicants might end up looking more like 2020 levels rather than 2021 levels.

But another thing to watch? Test-takers are cratering. LSAT test-takers could be applying in this cycle or for a future cycle, of course. But first-time LSAT LSAT test-takers for August 2021 dropped from 17,113 in August 2022 to 15,888. Again, many of these are likely applying for the Fall 2022 admissions class. October 2020 first-time test-takers were 11,868; that fell to 10,813 in October 2021.

It’s been getting worse. November saw a drop from 12,504 in 2020 to 10,010 in 2021. And January went from 11,313 first-time test-takers in 2021 to just 7244 in 2022.

The later in the cycle it gets, the more these tests are likely to portend figures for the next cycle. And they suggest a fairly significant decline for the Fall 2023 cycle.