US job market, politics fuel 8% surge in law school enrollment

By Karen Sloan

Dec 15 (Reuters) - U.S. students are flocking to law school as legal issues dominate the headlines and new college grads face an uncertain job market.

First-year law school enrollment hit a 13-year high this fall, with 42,817 new law students showing up on campus — up 8% from last year.

The rising enrollment, reported Monday by the American Bar Association, comes after an 18% boom in law school applicants this year and a nearly 5% increase in new law students in 2024, pointing to a robust appetite for legal careers. More people are taking the Law School Admission Test this year, suggesting that 2026 will also see a larger national pool of aspiring attorneys.

Experts have attributed law school’s heightened popularity to a confluence of factors, including an anemic job market for newly-minted college graduates and the prominence of lawyers and legal issues amid U.S. President Donald Trump's second term. Strong employment rates among new law school graduates over the past half decade, as well as changes to the LSAT are also contributing factors, they said.

Law school hopefuls cited altruistic reasons for pursuing a law degree, according to a survey of 15,000 LSAT takers conducted by the Law School Admission Council. Their most commonly cited motivation was to “help others”—up 20% from the previous year. The second was to “advocate for social justice,” which was up 30% from a year earlier.

At least a dozen law schools this fall brought in their largest first-year classes of the past decade, with some recording all-time highs. Harvard Law School’s entering class of 579 is about 3% more than the typical class of 560 and the biggest since at least 2011, according to ABA data.

Higher enrollment raises questions about how the current crop of new law students will fare on the job market when they graduate in 2028, with more grads vying for jobs. New law school enrollment jumped 12% in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the graduating class of 2024 defied expectations by posting a record-high employment rate of more than 93%.

But the steady adoption of artificial intelligence in the legal industry is expected to reduce demand for entry-level lawyers by 2028 — at least among the highly-sought after large firms that pay $225,000 starting associate salaries, said Nikia Gray, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement. Other segments of the legal industry, including government and public interest, aren’t in a position to absorb more new law graduates if entry-level law firm hiring slows as predicted, she added.

“Right now, I'm really concerned because we don’t think the market can continue to sustain large classes,” Gray said.

Read more:

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

Applicant boom drives record first-year law school classes