The New Jersey Law Journal reports that an April report by the Law School Admission Council indicated a steep drop in applications. It follows a trend set by last year’s report and also in the number of law school admission tests taken, which has significantly declined.

Job uncertainty

The council confirmed that 60,693 applicants turned in 440,964 law school applications as of 30 March, compared with 2011 statistics showing 72,045 applicants with 510,650 applications and 2010 figures showing 78,342 applicants with 561,214 applications.
The 15.6 per cent drop in applicants this year has been mainly attributed to uncertainty over job prospects after finishing what is an expensive process.
The council’s spokeswoman, Wendy Margolis, also pointed out that not all schools have so far provided application data, although she doesn’t expect any new figures ‘substantially’ to change the results. She went on to tell the Journal: ‘We don’t know for sure [the reason for the decline in applications], but obviously there’s been an awful lot of media coverage of the job market for law graduates.’