Politics and the job market made law school a hot ticket in 2025

By Karen Sloan

Aug 28 (Reuters) - Thousands of first-year law students faced stiffer competition than usual to secure a place on campus this fall.

The number of U.S. law school applicants surged 18% last year, the highest year-over-year increase since 2002, according to data released by the Law School Admission Council. There were 76,599 applicants, an increase of 12,000 from the previous year when applicants were up 5%. American Bar Association-accredited law schools enrolled nearly 40,000 students in 2024.

“Last year caught us all by surprise,” said law school admissions consultant Mike Spivey.

The pool of applicants could be just as big or larger next year. Numbers of registrants and examinees for the Law School Admission Test in August, September, and October are all up by double digits from last year.

What's driving the surge is a matter of debate among admissions experts and legal educators, but most agree that it’s a combination of an anemic entry-level job market for recent college graduates and political events vaulting law to the forefront. Strong employment rates among new law school graduates over the past half decade, as well as changes to the LSAT are also contributing to the stampede of would-be lawyers, experts said.

"It's a bunch of things coming together," said University of Michigan senior assistant dean Sarah Zearfoss, whose school saw a 33% increase in applicants.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, said he believes Donald Trump’s second presidency is fueling much of the recent spike in law school applicants.

“I’m hearing much more from people who want to protect the environment. They want to protect civil liberties. They want to protect immigrants' rights,” he said. “Students who want to fight back are saying, ‘Law school is the way to do it.’”

Trump's opponent in the 2024 US presidential race Kamala Harris had highlighted her career as a prosecutor during the election, and conversations about law, policy and court took center stage, said Andy Cornblatt, admissions dean at Georgetown University Law Center. Interest in law intensified as courts emerged as primary battlegrounds over Trump’s agenda, while social media has made it easier for people to keep tabs on the legal drama, he said.

Cornblatt interviewed about 5,000 of Georgetown Law’s 14,000 applicants — up 24% from last year — and he said they were more fired up than their predecessors. Many wanted to feel empowered, Cornblatt noted, whether to fight the Trump agenda or defend it.

“Many more kids, particularly in their 20s, see the arena as law,” Cornblatt said. “My parents and maybe me, we saw the playing field as boardrooms. Now it’s courtrooms.”

WATCHING THE JOB MARKET

Spivey, however, said the political climate and public focus on law is likely a secondary contributor to the applicant surge, with economic conditions being the main driver.

Law school applications typically rise during recessions, and while the country isn’t in a recession right now, the outlook is rough for recent college graduates, he said.

Recent figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show that the 2025 average unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 5.3%, outpacing the 4% unemployment rate for the wider labor force. More than 41% of recent college graduates were underemployed, according to the report.

“If you can’t get a job, you’re throwing in applications to law school and other programs,” Spivey said.

A law degree looks particularly attractive right now because the vast majority of recent law schools graduates have quickly landed jobs, said Aaron Taylor, executive director of the AccessLex Center for Legal Education. Both the ABA and the National Association for Law Placement reported record-high employment rates among law classes of 2023 and 2024.

Among 2024 graduates with a Juris Doctor degree, 93.4% landed jobs within 10 months of graduation, NALP found.

“New law graduates have been employed in record proportions, with median salaries that have broken records as well,” Taylor said. “These numbers have affirmed the ‘investment’ value of legal education.”

Citing increase in number of LSAT takers, legal educators and admissions officials are predicting the national applicant pool will hold steady and possibly grow this cycle, which is just about kicking off.

“Looking at the early data, I think we’re going to have three straight years of increase,” Spivey said.

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