Organ: The Declining 2022 Law School Transfer Market

This blog posting updates my blog postings over the last several years regarding what we know about the transfer market, for example 2021 and 2020. With the ABA’s posting of the 2022 Standard 509 Reports, we now have several years of more detailed transfer data from which to glean insights about the transfer market among law schools.

Numbers of Transfers and Percentage of Transfers Continue to Decline to the Lowest Levels in the Last Decade

As shown in Table 1 below, the number of transfer students received by law schools in 2022 decreased to 1231, the smallest number of transfers in the last decade.  For the last several years, the transfer market has been shrinking, having declined from 5.5% in 2014, to 4.7% in 2016, to 4.0% in 2018, and now 3.0% in 2022.  Aside from a slight bump in 2017, and another bump in 2020, this drop reflects a continuation of a gradual decline in transfers over the last several years — from more than 2100 to less than 1300 (down nearly 40%) and from 5.5% of first-years in the previous fall to 3.0% (down nearly 50%).

Table 1 — Number of Transfers and Percentage of Transfers from 2014-2022

	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Number of Transfers	2187	1979	1749	1797	1494	1294	1612	1375	1231
Previous Year First Year Enrollment	39,800	38,000	37,100	37,100	37,300	38400	38500	38200	41700
%   of Previous First-Year Total	5.5%	5.2%	4.7%	4.8%	4.0%	3.4%	4.2%	3.6%	3.0%

After an increase in transfers in 2020, we have seen declines in 2021 to 1375 and 3.6% and 2022 to 1231 and 3.0% — the lowest number and percentage in a decade. This may partly be attributable to the larger enrollment among first-years in fall 2021, which enabled some law schools both to grow the size of their first-year class while simultaneously increasing their median LSAT.  With this larger group of first-year students in fall 2021, some schools may have dialed back their transfer classes a little bit in the summer of 2022 due to limited capacity. 

SOME LAW SCHOOLS CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE TRANSFER MARKET

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Organ: A Data-Based Counternarrative To 'The Big Lie'

Prologue
Twelve months ago, on December 29, 2020, I posted a blog analyzing voting patterns in Congressional Districts in five of the six swing states that former President Trump lost.  The analysis demonstrated that Trump lost largely because significant numbers of voters who voted for Republican Congressional candidates in those five states did not vote for Trump.

I published that blog hoping to provide a data-based argument to put to rest some of the unfounded assertions about election fraud that have become known as “the big lie.”  Little did I think at the time, that “the big lie” would continue to be believed by a not insignificant percentage of our electorate a year later.  But several days after my blog posting, on January 6, 2021, then-President Trump, trumpeting “the big lie,” instigated some of his followers to storm the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to stop Congressional validation of the Electoral College tally affirming President Biden as the lawfully elected President of the United States.

The former President has spent the better part of the last year refusing to recognize the validity of the November 2020 presidential election and continuing to assert “the big lie” — that the only way he could have lost the election was if there was ballot-rigging or some type of election fraud in all six of the swing states that he lost to President Biden — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.  (But only ballot-rigging or election fraud with respect to the Presidential election.  No claims have ever been made that ballot-rigging or election fraud tarnished any of the other elections in the six swing states Trump lost on November 3, 2020.)

As indicated in my blog posting of December 29, 2020, an alternative explanation for Trump’s loss, an explanation that the former President does not or perhaps literally cannot acknowledge, is that large numbers of voters who voted for Republican Congressional candidates made a decision not to vote for him and instead to vote for President Biden or some other Presidential candidate.  Perhaps these Republican voters had finally found Trump's boorish behavior to be too much, or perhaps they were sufficiently concerned about his disregard for the rule of law, or perhaps they had concluded that he had grossly mismanaged the Covid-19 pandemic, or perhaps they had grown weary of his continuous efforts to polarize our society rather than work to bring people together, or perhaps some combination of these factors.

While I recognize that my effort to provide another data-based argument to put to rest “the big lie” is unlikely to be acknowledged by those who continue to believe “the big lie,” I feel compelled, as we recognize the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, to present once again a data-based counternarrative.

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Organ: Evaluating Fall 2021 First-Year Enrollment Through The Lens Of 2024 Employment Outcomes

With the ABA’s posting of the 2021 Standard 509 Reports, we have the ability to compare first-year enrollment for 2020 and 2021.  In compiling the information for this blog posting I used the data in the First-Year Class spreadsheets for 2020 and 2021.

First-year enrollment increased by 9.5% in 2021 from 2020, going from roughly 38,100 to roughly 41,700, an increase of roughly 3,600. (This calculation excludes Florida Coastal from the 2020 tally as Florida Coastal did not welcome a 2021 entering class.) As shown in Chart 1, this is the first significant increase in first-year enrollment since 2010 and represents the largest first-year class since the 2012-13 academic year (with 42,900 first-years). It also breaks an eight-year run in which first-year enrollment was under 40,000.

CHART 1 – APPLICANTS AND MATRICULANTS FROM 2010 to 2021

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Organ: The 2021 Law School Transfer Market

This blog posting updates my blog postings over the last several years regarding what we know about the transfer market (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020). With the ABA’s posting of the 2021 Standard 509 Reports, we now have several years of more detailed transfer data from which to glean insights about the transfer market among law schools.

Numbers of Transfers and Percentage of Transfers Decline

As shown in Table 1 below, the number of transfer students received by law schools in 2021 decreased to 1375 (3.6%).  For the last several years, the transfer market has been shrinking, having declined from 5.5% in 2014, to 4.7% in 2016, to 4.0% in 2018, and now 3.6% in 2021.  Aside from a slight bump in 2017, and another bump last year, this drop reflects a continuation of a gradual decline in transfers over the last several years – from more than 2100 to less than 1400 (down one-third) and from 5.5% to 3.6% (also down one-third).

Table 1 – Number of Transfers and Percentage of Transfers from 2014-2021

	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Number of Transfers	2187	1979	1749	1797	1494	1294	1612	1375
Previous Year First Year Enrollment	39,800	38,000	37,100	37,100	37,300	38,400	38,500	38,200
%   of Previous First-Year Total	5.5%	5.2%	4.7%	4.8%	4.0%	3.4%	4.2%	3.6%

After an increase in transfers in 2020, we see a decline again in 2021 to 1375 and 3.6% – slightly above where things were in the summer of 2019 but lower than any of the preceding five years.   This may partly be attributable to the larger and stronger first-year applicant pool for fall 2021, which may have enabled some law schools both to grow the size of their first-year class while simultaneously increasing their median LSAT.  With a larger group of first-year students anticipated to be joining the law school this fall, some schools may have dialed back their transfer classes a little bit.  On the other hand, Georgetown remains right where it has been historically in terms of the number of transfers, while Harvard showed its third increase in transfers in as many years, having gone from 32, to 43, to 65, to 71.  This growth may be a function of the smaller first year class Harvard took in 2020 (501 – down from a fairly consistent 560 in the preceding years).  Knowing that it would be welcoming a smaller class in 2020, I suspect Harvard made a conscious decision to welcome more transfers in 2020 and in 2021 to counterbalance the loss of revenue from a smaller first-year class. 

SOME LAW SCHOOLS CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE TRANSFER MARKET

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Organ: Comparing Congressional Election Results With Presidential Election Results In Key Swing States

In trying to understand how statistics might inform one’s understanding of claims of electoral fraud and inform our understanding of how President Trump lost the election in key swing states, I have looked at the comparisons of voting within Congressional districts.  Congressional districts provide an interesting framework because each Congressional district conceptually represents a comparable population of people, although both voter registration and voter turnout will vary across Congressional districts.

The Congressional results are from the CNN webpage.

The Presidential results are from the Daily KOS webpage.

This analysis proceeds in two parts.  First, it looks at the overall distribution of votes across Congressional districts in key swing states to see if there are aberrational patterns worth noting.  None were found. Second, it looks at results on a state-by-state basis to see what the state results can tell us about why President Trump lost and President-Elect Biden won in these states.  There appears to be one key lesson from these state-by-state analyses.  To the extent that there is a common theme across states, the theme appears to be that President Trump lost because he did not perform as well as Republican Congressional candidates in districts in which Republican Congressional candidates won in these states.  Phrased differently, people who voted for Republican Congressional candidates failed to vote for President Trump in the same numbers as they voted for Republican Congressional candidates – resulting in President Trump’s loss to President-Elect Biden in at least three of these swing states. 

Please note that because this blog post includes detailed analysis of the comparison of Congressional and Presidential results in five of the swing states -- Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin -- it is a fairly long post.

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Organ: Attrition Analysis For 2018, 2019, 2020 — With A Focus On Ethnicity

My last blog posting on attrition trends was in January 2018 covering attrition data through the 2016-17 academic year (data reported in December 2017).  I am writing now to summarize recent trends covering the 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 academic years.

This blog posting focuses on the 193 fully-accredited ABA law schools outside of Puerto Rico that had first-year attrition data for all three academic years.

I have calculated average attrition rates for the class as a whole and then broken out average attrition rates by law schools in different median LSAT categories — 160+, 155-159, 150-154 and <150. Because attrition data was reported with ethnicity information starting in 2017, this blog also looks at the intersection of ethnicity and attrition for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 and 2019-20 academic years.

In calculating attrition rates, I wanted to capture those students who are no longer in law school anywhere. Thus, for these purposes, “attrition” is the sum of “academic attrition” and “other attrition.”  It excludes transfer attrition.  “Academic attrition” occurs when a law school asks someone to leave because of inadequate academic performance.  “Other attrition” occurs when someone leaves law school for non-academic reasons (and has not transferred to another law school).

1. Overall First-Year Attrition has Declined for Three Years

My January 2018 blog noted that overall first-year attrition (“academic attrition” combined with “other attrition”) increased each year from 2010-11 through the 2015-16 academic year, going from 5.81% to 7.33%, before sliding back to 6.46% in 2016-17.  (In this analysis, with a few schools in the process of closing or discontinuing ABA accreditation removed from the database, the overall attrition for 2016-17 decreased to 6.21%.)  That downward trend in overall attrition has continued with overall attrition dropping to 6.11% in the 2017-2018 academic year and then to 5.77% in the 2018-19 academic year and finally to 3.41 in the 2019-20 academic year.

Table 1 — Overall First-Year Attrition for Classes Entering in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019

	Beg. Enrollment	Academic Attrition	% Academic	Other Attrition	% Other	Total Attrition	% Attrition
2016-17	35,439					2199	6.21%
2017-18	36,288	1277	3.52	941	2.59	2218	6.11%
2018-19	37,570	1171	3.12	998	2.66	2169	5.77%
2019-20	37,500	550	1.47	729	1.94	1279	3.41%

The simplest explanation for the increase in overall attrition rates over the period from 2010-11 to 2015-16 and then the decrease in overall attrition rates in 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 is the LSAT composition of the entering class.  As the percentage of students in the entering class with a high LSAT score of less than 150 increased, the attrition rates increased.  Once the percentage of students in the entering class with a high LSAT score of less than 150 began to decrease, the attrition rates decreased.  This is explained more clearly in the following discussion.

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Organ: 2020 Legal Ed Data Show Rebound In Transfer Market

This blog posting updates my blog postings over the last several years — 2015, 2016, 2017,  2018, 2019,  regarding what we know about the transfer market. With the ABA’s posting of the 2020 Standard 509 Reports, we now have seven years (2014-2020) of more detailed transfer data from which to glean insights about the transfer market among law schools.

NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES OF TRANSFERS REBOUND IN 2020

As shown in Table 1 below, the number of transfers in 2020 increased to 1612 (4.2%).  For the last several years, the transfer market had been shrinking, having declined from 5.5% in 2014, to 4.7% in 2016, to 4.0% in 2018, and down to 3.4% in 2019.  Aside from a slight bump in 2017, this is the first meaningful increase in transfers in many years, although the level is still less than in 2015-2017 when there were more than 1700 transfers.

Table 1 – Number of Transfers and Percentage of Transfers from 2014-2020

	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
Number of Transfers	2187	1979	1749	1797	1494	1294	1612
Previous Year First Year Enrollment	39,800	38,000	37,100	37,100	37,300	38,400	38,500
%   of Previous First-Year Total	5.5%	5.2%	4.7%	4.8%	4.0%	3.4%	4.2%

Some of this increase is attributable to the students transferring from Concordia to Idaho.  Idaho doesn't normally show up on the transfer list, but this year it has 105 transfers as a result of Concordia announcing its closure.  But that only explains part of the increase of more than 300 transfers between 2019 and 2020.  I believe the most likely additional explanation for this bump in transfers was the financial uncertainty for law schools associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly uncertainty regarding the number of first-year students who would show up at law schools that had announced during the summer a shift to online instruction for the fall semester.  With uncertainty regarding first-year enrollment and revenue, some law schools may have hedged by looking for more transfers.  For example, Harvard took 65 transfer students — the largest class of transfers it has taken in a number of years.  Its entering class this year was only 501 — when it has consistently welcomed 560 students almost every year for the last several years.  Knowing it might be welcoming a smaller entering class, I suspect Harvard made a conscious decision to welcome more transfers to counterbalance the loss of revenue from a smaller first-year class.  Other law schools on the list that showed an increase between 2019 and 2020 included George Washington (up 22), Berkeley (up 19) and Florida (up 11).  Relatedly, some students might have considered transferring because online learning might have made it possible for them to attend another law school without having to move, such that the transaction costs of transferring might have seemed smaller than in prior years.  And if students were going to be taking online courses anyway at the law school at which they started, why not transfer and take online courses at a law school that is more highly ranked.

SOME LAW SCHOOLS CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE TRANSFER MARKET

Table 2 lists the top 15 law schools participating in the transfer market in descending order in Summer 2017 (fall 2016 entering class), Summer 2018 (fall 2017 entering class), Summer 2019 (fall 2018 entering class), and Summer 2020 (fall 2019 entering class).  The nine law schools on the list all four years include Cal. Berkeley, Columbia, Florida, Georgetown, George Washington, Harvard, Loyola Marymount, NYU, UCLA.  Arizona State and Northwestern have been on the list three of the four years.

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The Dramatic Increase In July 2020 MBE Scores

On September 1, the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) issued a press release with surprising news regarding the MBE mean scaled score for those taking the July 2020 bar exam.  The score increased by roughly five points from 141.1 for the July 2019 exam to 146.1 for the July 2020 exam – the largest year over year increase ever recorded. 

The NCBE rightly noted that the “sample” was much smaller than a typical July bar exam.  In 2019, there were 45,334 July bar exam takers across 54 jurisdictions, compared to just 5678 in July 2020, from only 23 jurisdictions. 

The NCBE also noted that focusing just on the 23 jurisdictions that offered the July 2020 exam, the increase in the MBE mean scaled score was only about 3.5 points.  This suggests that the 2019 MBE mean scaled score across these 23 jurisdictions was roughly 142.6.  Notably, even this 3.5 point increase – had it been the “national” increase – would have been an all-time record.

Although the NCBE press release did not provide the number of takers across this group of 23 jurisdictions in 2019, from the NCBE’s 2019 Statistics report, it appears that across these 23 jurisdictions, there were a total of 7680 July test takers.  This means, with 5678 test takers in July 2020, the number of July test takers in these 23 jurisdictions dropped by 2002, or over 26%. 

A few possible explanations have been offered for this unusual spike in the MBE mean scaled score in July 2020.  The NCBE press release noted that test takers included a larger percentage of first-time takers and a corresponding smaller percentage of repeat test takers, which likely contributed to some of the increase, given that first-time takers historically perform better on the MBE than repeat test takers.  In an article by Stephanie Francis Ward in the ABA Journal, Mike Sims, the President of BarBri, stated that graduates working with its online study program were more diligent in completing their bar prep work.  In the same article, Stephen Foster, the director of academic achievement at the Oklahoma City University School of Law, suggested that with the Covid-19 Pandemic and the civil unrest of the summer, graduates might have found comfort in being able to focus on studying for the bar exam.

Each of these factors may provide a partial explanation for some of the increase in the MBE mean scaled score.

I am writing to observe one thing that does not explain the greatly improved performance on the MBE in July 2020 compared to July 2019 and to suggest one possibility that may explain some of the improved performance (along with the explanations offered above). 

The one thing that does not explain the dramatic increase is the academic credentials of the cohort of 2020 graduates from law schools in these 23 jurisdictions compared to the cohort of 2019 graduates from these jurisdictions. 

Weighted Average 50th and 25th LSAT/GPA for First-Year Students
in 2016 and 2017 for the Law Schools in the 23 Jurisdictions
that Offered the July Bar Exam in 2020

	50th LSAT	25th LSAT	50th GPA	25th GPA
2016	154.25	150.42	3.41	3.11
2017	154.11	150.25	3.43	3.12

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Organ: Net Law School Tuition Trends Revisited

Over the last several years I have published two articles focused on net tuition trends across law schools in the period since the Great Recession.  Net tuition is an approximation of the tuition per student after accounting for scholarships.  The first article focused on the period through 2014-15; the second article focused on the period through 2016-17.  This blog posting carries forward the analysis of net tuition trends through the 2018-19 academic year, highlighting that law schools still have not regained much pricing power yet.  This blog also looks at likely trends carrying forward from the 2019-20 academic year.

What happened between 2010 and 2016?
The first article, Net Tuition Trends by LSAT Category from 2010 to 2014 with Thoughts on Variable Return on Investment, discussed here on TaxProf Blog, focused on net tuition trends among first-year students in different LSAT categories between 2010 and 2014.  It noted that while average net tuition had increased roughly 10% for first-year students with LSATs of 165 or higher and those with less than 145, net tuition had declined significantly (12% or more) for first-year students with LSATs of 155-159 and for those with LSATs 150-154, and had declined modestly for first-year students with LSATs of 160-164 and those with LSATs of 145-149 (roughly 5% and 3% respectively).

The second article, Competitive Coping Strategies in the American Legal Academy: An Empirical Study, discussed here on TaxProf Blog, focused, among other things, on net tuition trends across private law schools between 2010 and 2016, looking at private law schools in three broad categories based on reputation derived largely from entering class credentials.  While all three categories of private law schools saw declines in net tuition through 2016, law schools in the middle reputational category saw the largest net tuition decline (roughly 16% compared to roughly 5% for the reputationally strongest law schools and roughly 6% for reputationally weakest law schools). (This study used inflation-adjusted figures in making net tuition calculations.)

What is the simple story between 2010 and 2016?  In the face of a declining applicant pool, and an applicant pool that also weakened in terms of the LSAT composition of the applicant pool, law schools became much more competitive in trying to attract students, particularly students with stronger LSAT/GPA profiles, by greatly increasing their scholarship offers.  Between 2011 and 2016, the percentage of all law students on scholarship increased from slightly less than 50% to nearly 70%, while the average median grant went from slightly more than $13,000 to nearly $17,000.  As a result, as reflected in the two articles identified above, net tuition at the vast majority of law schools declined during this period.

What Happened in 2017-18 and 2018-19?
What has happened since the 2016-17 academic year?  Is the tuition discounting that law schools engaged in through 2016-17 sustainable?

The admissions cycle for the 2017-18 academic year did not see a meaningful increase in applicants to law schools (56,400 — roughly the same as in the two previous years).  The admissions cycle for the 2018-19 academic year, however, not only saw the first meaningful increase in applicants in several years (60,700 applicants up nearly 8%), it also saw an increase in the relative strength of the applicant pool.  (This trend continued into the 2019-20 admissions cycle (63,000 applicants up nearly 4%) with a further strengthening of the applicant pool.)

If one were of the view that the tuition discounting in which law schools have been engaged is “unsustainable,” one might expect that in the face of a growing applicant pool (and particularly an applicant pool that has grown stronger), law schools might take advantage of this increased “demand” to increase net tuition.  But the available data suggest that net tuition has increased only modestly across 2017-18 and 2018-19.  Somewhat surprisingly, most of that increase was in 2017-18 rather than 2018-19.

Charts 1 and 2 are drawn from the net tuition dataset compiled by Law School Transparency.  I downloaded all of the net tuition data for the 2012-13 to 2018-19 academic years to look at changes over time.  I focused only on private law schools (given the challenges of calculating net tuition for public law schools with resident and non-resident tuition and an unknown mix of resident students and non-resident students).

I broke the private law schools into four categories based on USNews rankings using the March 2013 published rankings.  I then integrated enrollment data to calculate weighted averages for net tuition and changes in net tuition over time across all the law schools in a given rankings category.  Note that the net tuition calculations are based on the entire student body, not just first-year students, as the ABA requires law schools to report scholarship and grant data across all JD students.

Chart 1 — Weighted Average Annual Percentage Changes in Net Tuition
Across 109 Private Law Schools in Four Rankings Categories
Between 2013-14 Through 2018-19 (Source: LST Net Tuition Tables)

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Organ: LSAT Profiles Of Matriculants And Law Schools, 2010-2019

The decade from 2010 to 2019 has been a challenging decade in terms of enrollment in law schools.  I have written previously here and here about the changing composition of the cohort of matriculants at ABA-accredited law schools.  This blog post updates the analysis of enrollment trends to look at how the composition of the entering class of matriculants based on LSAT scores evolved between 2010 and 2019.

Table 1 shows the trend lines for the applicant pool and matriculants from 2010 to 2019 based on data maintained by the ABA.  The applicant pool started at 87,900 for fall 2010 and bottomed with 54,500 for fall 2016.  Since then it has increased gradually to 63,000 in 2019.  The current cycle suggests another modest increase in applicants, perhaps close to 64,000.  The number of matriculants fell from a high of 52,000 in 2010 to a low of 37,100 in 2016 and 2017 and has increased modestly to 38,400 in 2019.  My best guess is that we will end up in about the same place this fall, somewhere between 38,000 and 38,500 in terms of the number of matriculants.

While the applicant pool and the cohort of matriculants shrank in size between 2010 and 2016, the applicant pool and cohort of matriculants also saw a general weakening in terms of LSAT profile from 2010 to 2016, but has since seen a strengthening over the last three years. Table 2 highlights the growth in the number of matriculants with a high LSAT below 150 (from 7,000 in 2010 to 8,620 in 2016), while the number of matriculants in all other LSAT categories fell from 2010 to 2015.  Indeed, among those with a high LSAT of 160 or higher, the number of matriculants fell from roughly 20,100 in 2010 to roughly 11,200 in 2015.  Starting with fall 2016 through fall 2019, all LSAT categories from 150 and above have seen increases in terms of the number of matriculants, while the number of matriculants with a high LSAT less than 150 has fallen from 8,620 in 2016 to less than 6,400 in 2019.

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Reflections On Class Of 2019 Employment Outcomes

With the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar's release of its spreadsheet of employment outcomes for the Class of 2019, I am writing to look at trends over the last several years for a couple of different categories of employment outcomes while also offering a brief thought on the possible irrelevance of these data in light of the economic disruption resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Total Number of Graduates in Full-time, Long-term Bar Passage Required or JD Advantage Positions Increased almost 4.5%

With respect to full-time, long-term, Bar Passage Required (BPR) and JD Advantage (JDA) positions, the Class of 2019 offers some good news, with an increase in the total number of these positions from 26,632 to 27,352 (an increase of more than 700 and slightly less than 3%).   This is the largest number of these positions since 2015 (28,078).

	FTLTBPR	FTLTJDA	TOTAL	Graduates	% of Grads in FTLTBPR/JDA
2014	24978	4762	29740	43132	68.95%
2015	23738	4340	28078	39983	70.22%
2016	22851	4000	26851	36786	72.99%
2017	23117	3185	26302	34923	75.31%
2018	23424	3208	26632	34283	77.68%
2019	24472	2880	27352	33954	80.55%

This is the third-year in a row in which full-time, long-term BPR positions increased — from 23,424 for the Class of 2018 to 24,472 – an increase of 1,048.  This is the first time since the Class of 2014, with 24,978 graduates in full-time, long-term BPR positions, that this number has been above 24,000.   This year also saw a continuation of the decline in the number of full-time, long-term JDA jobs that had paused briefly with the Class of 2018.  Full-time, long-term JDA jobs dropped from 3,209 for the Class of 2018 to 2,880 for the Class of 2019.  This is down nearly 40% from the 4,762 full-time, long-term JDA positions for the Class of 2014.  Indeed, the percentage of graduates in full-time, long-term JDA positions has fallen from 11% for the Class of 2014 to 8.5% for the Class of 2019.

Because the number of graduates has fallen from 43,132 for the Class of 2014 to 33,954 for the Class of 2019 (down over 21%), the percentage of graduates in full-time, long-term BPR or JDA positions has climbed for the fifth consecutive year, reaching 80.55%, up from 77.68% for the Class of 2018 (and up from 68.95% for the Class of 2014).

FTLTBPR as a Percentage of July First-Time Bar Passers from ABA-Accredited Law Schools nears 100%

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The Benefits Of Greater Transparency In Reporting Of Law Graduate Employment Outcomes

Ten years ago, there was no standardized reporting format law schools had to follow for reporting graduate employment outcomes.  As a result, it was very difficult to make comparisons across law schools because the data were presented by law schools in a way that did not facilitate apples to apples comparisons.  At that time, many law schools presented employment outcomes data in a manner that reflected as favorably as possible on the institution.

Following the Great Recession, the ABA mandated greater transparency in the way law schools report employment outcomes, requiring each law school to report disaggregated results for all law school graduates using a common template — the Employment Summary Report.  This mandated reporting format has fostered much greater transparency with respect to graduate employment outcomes by increasing both the amount and detail of employment outcomes data and by fostering comparisons across law schools due to a consistent reporting framework. 

Interestingly, however, throughout this period of time, there has been some variability in how entities compiling employment outcomes data report such data, particularly as it relates to the "top line" statistic — what proportion of each class of new law graduates is working nine (now ten) months after graduation — an interval long enough to take and get results on a bar exam.  While NALP has reported its results on a consistent basis throughout this period of time, US News and World Report has significantly changed its methodology for reporting employment outcomes, largely in response to the ABA’s requirement of increased transparency with respect to employment outcomes data.

To understand the extent to which the ABA’s mandate for increased transparency in reporting of employment outcomes data has mattered, one need only compare aggregated employment outcomes data as reported by NALP and USNews for the Class of 2004 and the Class of 2014 (five years before and five years after the Great Recession).  As shown below, the ABA’s requirement for greater transparency in reporting of employment outcomes data has resulted in public dissemination of much more realistic understandings of employment outcomes of law graduates. 

Table 1 shows the comparison of reported employment outcomes for the class of 2004 and for the class of 2014 as presented by NALP (reporting data on all graduates with reported employment outcomes) and by USNews (reporting the average of employment outcomes for the top 100 law schools in each year).

TABLE 1 – Class of 2004 and Class of 2014 Employment Outcomes Percentages as Reported by NALP (All Graduates with Reported Employment Outcomes) and USNews (Avg. of Top-100 Law Schools)

	Class of 2004	Class of 2014	Change 2004 to 2014
NALP	88.9	86.7	-2.2
USNews (Avg. of Top-100 Law Schools)	95.8	74.7	-21.1
Difference	+6.9	-12

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2019 Transfer Data Show Continued Decline In Number And Percentage Of Transfers

This blog posting updates my blog postings of December 2014, December 2015, March 2017, December 2017 and December 2018 regarding what we know about the transfer market. With the ABA’s posting of the 2019 Standard 509 Reports, we now have six years (2014-2019) of more detailed transfer data from which to glean insights about the transfer market among law schools.

NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES OF TRANSFERS SHOW CONTINUING DECLINE SINCE 2013

As shown in Table 1 below, the number of transfers decreased to 1294 (3.3%), continuing a steady decline since a peak of 2,501 (5.8%) in 2013. It is also the lowest number and percentage of transfers we have seen since at least 2011.

For the last several years, the transfer market has been shrinking, having declined from 5.8% in 2013, to 5.2% in 2015, to 4.8% in 2017, to 4.0% in 2018, and now down to 3.4% in 2019.

Table 1 – Number of Transfers and Percentage of Transfers from 2011-2019

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Number of Transfers	2495	2438	2501	2187	1979	1749	1797	1494	1294
Previous Year First Year Enrollment	52,000	47,600	43,200	39,800	38,000	37,100	37,100	37,300	38,390
% of Previous First-Year Total	4.8%	5.1%	5.8%	5.5%	5.2%	4.7%	4.8%	4.0%	3.4%

While it is hard to know for sure what might be causing this decline in transfers over the last several years, I believe the most likely explanation for the continuing decline in transfers over the last several years is the corresponding decline in law schools with conditional scholarship programs.  As I noted in a blog posting on conditional scholarship programs in January 2018, the number of law schools with conditional scholarship programs declined from 140 to 89 between 2011-12 and 2016-17.  As of the 2017-2018 academic year, there were only 77 law schools with conditional scholarships that were reduced or eliminated.  This decline in the number of law schools with conditional scholarship programs likely has reduced the number of rising second-year law students considering transferring.  In past years, it is likely that a reduced or eliminated conditional scholarship was a catalyst for some law students to consider transferring.  If they were going to have to pay more to continue their legal education because of a reduced or eliminated scholarship, they might as well consider transferring to a more highly ranked law school.  With the reduction in the number of law schools with conditional scholarship programs, however, this financial incentive to consider transferring has been diminished.

SOME LAW SCHOOLS CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE TRANSFER MARKET

Table 2 lists the top 15 law schools participating in the transfer market in descending order in Summer 2016 (fall 2015 entering class), Summer 2017 (fall 2016 entering class), Summer 2018 (fall 2017 entering class), and Summer 2019 (fall 2018 entering class).

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Reflections On Legal Employment Outcomes Over The Past Five Years

With the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar’s reporting of employment outcomes for the Class of 2018, I thought it might make some sense to look at five-year trends for a couple of different categories of jobs data.

The Total Number of Graduates in Full-time, Long-term Bar Passage Required or JD Advantage Positions Increased Slightly for the Class of 2018

First, as shown in Table 1, with respect to full-time, long-term, Bar Passage Required (BPR) and JD Advantage (JDA) positions, the Class of 2018 offers some good news, with the first-increase in the total number of these positions in the last four years, increasing from 26,302 for the Class of 2017 to 26,632 for the Class of 2018 (although down from 29,740 for the Class of 2014).

Table 1 -- Full-time, Long-Term BPR and JDA for Class of 2014 to Class of 2018

	FTLTBPR	FTLTJDA	TOTAL	Graduates	% of Grads in FTLTBPR/JDA
2014	24978	4762	29740	43132	68.95%
2015	23738	4340	28078	39983	70.22%
2016	22851	4000	26851	36786	72.99%
2017	23117	3185	26302	34923	75.31%
2018	23424	3208	26632	34283	77.68%

This is the second year in a row in which full-time, long-term BPR positions increased (from 22,851 for the Class of 2016, to 23,117 for the Class of 2017, to 23,424 for the Class of 2018), although still down from 24,978 for the Class of 2014.  This year also saw a four-year decline in the number of full-time, long-term JDA jobs paused as the number of these positions grew from 3,185 for the Class of 2017 to 3,208 for the Class of 2018 (still down almost one-third from the 4,762 for the Class of 2014).

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Analyzing Enrollment And Profile Patterns Across Different Tiers Of Law Schools For Fall 2018

The ABA recently reported that law schools saw a 3% increase in first-year enrollment for Fall 2018.  A variety of people have unpacked some of this data in a variety of ways, with Karen Sloan highlighting the law schools with the largest increases in first-year enrollment and the largest decreases in first-year enrollment between 2017 and 2018 and Keith Lee and Mike Spivey also providing some analysis of the enrollment data. In this blog posting I want to take a closer look at some patterns across tiers of schools, focusing on both changes in enrollment and changes in entering class profile between 2017 and 2018.  There are three quick-takeaways from this analysis.

First, there was a linear relationship between tier of law school and growth in enrollment, with law schools with a 2017 median LSAT of 160 or higher seeing an increase of 6.4% and law schools with a 2017 median LSAT of 149 or lower seeing a decrease 5.9%.  All of the growth in enrollment functionally occurred among law schools with a median LSAT of 155 or higher in 2017.

Second, the vast majority of law schools, with a focus on improving entering class profile, chose to take fewer students then they might have.  Across 194 fully-accredited law schools that welcomed entering classes in both 2017 and 2018 (excluding the three law schools in Puerto Rico), there are 582 reported data points for LSAT and for UGPA.  For the LSAT, 332 of the 582 increased (57%); for UGPA 352 of the 582 increased (60.5%).  This is a remarkable change from    recent years.

Third, looking at the overall “strength” of the class from the standpoint of distribution of law schools based on median LSAT, this would appear to be the strongest entering class since 2012.

ENROLLMENT GAINS DECREASE WITH DECREASING MEDIAN LSAT

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2018 ABA Data Show Continued Decline In Number And Percentage Of Transfers

This blog posting updates my blog postings of December 2014, December 2015, March 2017, and December 2018 regarding what we know about the transfer market. With the release of the 2018 Standard 509 Reports, we know have five years of more detailed transfer data from which to glean insights about the transfer market among law schools.

NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES OF TRANSFERS: 2011-2018

The number of transfers decreased to 1494 (4%), continuing a steady decline since a peak of 2,501 (5.8%) in 2013. It is also the lowest number and percentage of transfers we have seen since at least 2011.

For the last five years, the transfer market has not been growing, it has been shrinking, having declined from 5.8% in 2013, to 5.2% in 2015, to 4.8% in 2017, to 4.0% in 2018.

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Number of Transfers	2495	2438	2501	2187	1979	1749	1797	1494
Previous Year First Year Enrollment	52,000	47,600	43,200	39,800	38,000	37,100	37,100	37,300
%   of Previous First-Year Total	4.8%	5.1%	5.8%	5.5%	5.2%	4.7%	4.8%	4.0%

SOME LAW SCHOOLS CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE TRANSFER MARKET

The following two charts list the top 15 law schools participating in the transfer market in descending order in Summer 2015 (fall 2014 entering class), Summer 2016 (fall 2015 entering class), Summer 2017 (fall 2016 entering class), and Summer 2018 (fall 2017 entering class). One chart is based on “numbers” of transfers and the other chart is based on the number of transfer students as a percentage of the prior year’s first year class.

Note that in these two charts, the “repeat players” are bolded – those schools in the top 15 for all four years are in black, those schools in the top 15 for three of the four years are in blue.  Nine of the top 15 have been on the list for the largest number of transfers all four years.  Even though George Washington remains one of these nine law schools, the number of transfers it has accepted has declined from over 100 in 2015 and 2016, to 67 in 2017, to 31 in 2018.

Largest Law Schools by Number of Transfers from 2015-2017

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Observations On Enrollment Patterns For The Fall 2018 Entering Class Based On Preliminary Data

In a blog posting in August relating to projections for the fall 2018 entering class, I suggested that with applicants up over 60,000 (up over 8% from 2017) the fall 2018 entering class might be over 40,000 (up roughly 8%). I made this prediction based on the strength of the applicant pool and the perception that given the opportunity, law schools would seek to regain revenue lost over the last few years. I also suggested that the distribution might be “lumpy” with some of the increase concentrated in highly-ranked schools (given the growth among applicants with high LSATs of 165 or higher).

We will know more one month from now when the ABA releases data from the Standard 509 reports for all ABA-accredited law schools, but based on preliminary reports from 142 law schools (nearly 72% of the 199 law schools in the 48 contiguous state and Hawai’i), I appear to have over-estimated the growth in matriculants, while correctly predicting significant “lumpiness” in enrollment growth skewed toward law schools with higher median LSATs.

FALL 2018 ENTERING CLASS CLOSER to 38,500

The first-year class across the 199 ABA-accredited law schools in the 48 contiguous states and Hawai’i in 2017 totaled roughly 36,900 students. Across the 142 law schools on which I have available data for 2018, the 2017 first-year enrollment totaled 28,352, or roughly 76.8% of the total across all 199 law schools in the sample. First-year enrollment at these 142 law schools in 2018 increased by 1,231 to 29,583, an increase of 4.3%. If the remaining 57 law schools see a comparable increase in enrollment of 4.3%, the 2018 first-year class across these 199 law schools would be roughly 38,500. In all likelihood, however, it will be even smaller than that. As shown in Table 1 below, the 57 law schools for which data is not presently available are disproportionately law schools that had median LSATs of less than 155 in 2017, across which the smallest average gains in enrollment have been seen for the fall 2018 entering class.

My prediction that the first-year class might be over 40,000 appears to have been erroneous for three reasons. First, I failed to account for two law schools that ended up not enrolling classes for fall 2018 (Arizona Summit and Valparaiso).  Second, I failed to account for the impact of ABA regulatory efforts on law schools with lower median LSATs, a number of which significantly reduced enrollment to improve the LSAT profile of their entering classes. Third, and perhaps most significantly, however, I believed higher-ranked law schools would take advantage of a larger applicant pool with stronger credentials to welcome more students to enhance revenue. In doing so, I failed to heed one of the key points highlighted in research I have been working on with Bernie Burk and Emma Rasiel -- that law schools tend to favor profile over revenue. Thus, a number of law schools that could have enrolled more first-years without impacting their first-year class profile chose instead to increase their class profile rather than increasing enrollment as much as they might have.

ENROLLMENT PATTERNS BY LSAT RANGES

The information in Table 1 highlights the enrollment patterns for fall 2018 across the 142 law schools with available data, highlighting the number and percentage of law schools with first-year enrollment increases or decreases of 5% or more overall between 2017 and 2018, and also showing the number and percentage of first-year enrollment increases or decreases across law schools within different LSAT categories based on median LSAT for the 2017 entering class.

There are a couple of things worth noting in Table 1. First, data are available on a much larger percentage of law schools with median LSATs of 155 or higher than law schools with median LSATs of 154 or lower. Second, as I predicted in August, more law schools with median LSATs of 155 or higher showed increases in first-year enrollment of 5% or more compared to law schools with median LSATs of 154 or lower.

Table 1 - Increases or Decreases in First-Year Enrollment of 5% or More

Median LSAT	Up		Down		Flat		Total	Overall Total	% Reporting
Total	57	40%	26	18%	59	42%	142	199	71%
160+	22	45%	8	16%	19	39%	49	51	96%
155-159	17	45%	6	16%	15	39%	38	46	83%
150-154	14	36%	6	15%	19	49%	39	60	65%
<150	4	25%	6	38%	6	38%	16	42	38%

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Update On 2018 Applicant Pool: Growth In Matriculants Likely Will Be Unbalanced Across Law Schools

Applicant Pool Appears to be Roughly 60,500-61,000  

In December 2017 and in February 2018, I posted blogs with projections for the 2018 application cycle based on the initial Current Volume Reports from the LSAC from early December and early February.  At that point I estimated an applicant pool of roughly 61,000.  I am writing now to update the applicant pool data and provide some further analysis regarding the composition of the applicant pool.

As of August 6, 2018, LSAC was reporting 60,679 applicants, up from 56,131 at this time last year – an increase of 4,548 or roughly 8.1%. This is the largest applicant volume since the 2011-2012 admissions cycle, which saw a total applicant pool of roughly 67,900.  Given that the final applicant count for 2017 ended at 56,400, one might expect the final applicant count for 2018 to edge up closer to 61,000. 

Fall 2018 First-Year Class May Be 40,000-41,000

If the number of applicants ends up at 60,800 and the percentage of applicants who become matriculants remains around 66% to 67% for the current admissions cycle (roughly the average over the last several years as shown in Table 1, below), the entering class in fall 2018 would be between 40,100 first-year students and 40,700 first-year students (up perhaps more than 8% from the 37,400 in fall 2017).  Given the strength of the applicant pool (discussed below) I think there is reason to believe the entering class will be closer to the high end of that range than the low end of that range.

Improvement in Strength of Applicant Pool

As I noted in my earlier posts, the most significant aspect of the applicant pool in this cycle is the tremendous increase in applicants with a high LSAT of 165 or higher.  From 2010 to 2017, while the overall applicant volume declined from roughly 87,900 to roughly 56,000, the “composition” of the entering class profile also shifted.  During this period, the percentage of applicants and matriculants with a high LSAT of 165 or higher declined, with the percentage of such applicants dropping from roughly 14% to less than 12%, and the percentage of matriculants dropping from just over 18% to just over 15%.

TABLE 1 -- Percentage of Applicants and Matriculants with a High

LSAT Score of 165 or Higher from 2010-2017 Based on National Decision Profile Data

Admis. Cycle	Total Apps.	Apps. at 165 and Higher	% of Apps. at 165 or Higher	Total Matrics	Matrics as % of Apps.	Matrics at 165 and Higher	Matrics at 165 or Higher as % of Apps. at 165 or Higher	% of Matrics at 165 or Higher
2009-10	87900	12177	13.9%	52500	59.7%	9477	77.8%	18.1%
2010-11	78500	11190	14.3%	48700	62%	8952	80%	18.4%
2011-12	67900	9226	13.6%	44500	65.5%	7571	82%	17%
2012-13	59400	7532	12.7%	39700	66.8%	6054	80.4%	15.2%
2013-14	55700	7577	13.6%	37900	68%	6189	81.7%	16.3%
2014-15	54500	6667	12.2%	37100	68.1%	5505	82.6%	14.8%
2015-16*	56500	7240	12.8%	37100	65.7%	5780	79.8%	15.5%
2016-17	56200	6546	11.6%	37400	66.5%	5688	86.9%	15.2%

*Please note that starting with the 2015-16 Admissions Cycle, LSAC started reporting full-year applicant volume and corresponding statistics rather than reporting merely fall applicant volume and corresponding statistics. (H/T Paul Campos)

The Current Volume Summary for this cycle continues to show a significant increase in the number of applicants with a high LSAT of 165 or higher compared to the five most recent admission cycles with 8,194 applicants with a high LSAT of 165 or higher (1,648 more this year compared to the 2016-17 admissions cycle (an increase of roughly 25%)).

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2018 Applicant Pool Projection Update: Good News For Highly-Ranked Law Schools

Applicant Pool Projection Remains at 61,000 to 63,000

Two months ago, I posted a blog with projections for the 2018 application cycle based on the initial Current Volume Report from the LSAC. I am writing now to update the applicant pool projection and provide some further analysis regarding the composition of the applicant pool.

The applicant pool remains up nearly 10% over last year as of late January. As of January 19, there were 29,287 applicants at a point in time when 48% of the final applicant count had been received last year. That extrapolates to approximately 61,000 applicants. As of February 3, there were 35,974 applicants at a point in time when 58% of the final applicant count had been received last year. That extrapolates to approximately 62,000 applicants. So, at the moment, we probably still can anticipate a total applicant pool for the year in a range from 61,000 to perhaps 63,000, depending upon exactly how things unfold over the coming months.

A total applicant pool of 61,000-63,000 would be the largest applicant volume since the 2011-2012 admissions cycle, which saw a total applicant pool of roughly 67,900. For the last four years, the applicant pool has hovered around 55,000-56,000. (Note that due to changes in LSAC reporting on total applicant pool starting in 2016, the comparisons with prior years are not exactly apples to apples.)

Fall 2018 First-Year Class May Be 40,000-41,000

If the percentage of applicants who become matriculants remains around 66% for the current admissions cycle (roughly the average over the last several years as show in Table 1), the entering class in fall 2018 would be between 40,000 and 41,000 first-year students (up roughly 10%).

Improvement in Strength of Applicant Pool (and Matriculants)

While the increasing size of the applicant pool is certainly good news for law schools, for highly-ranked law schools there is some even better news buried in the details of the Current Volume Report. From 2010 to 2017, while the overall applicant volume declined from roughly 87,900 to roughly 56,000, the “composition” of the entering class profile also shifted. During this period, the percentage of applicants and matriculants with a high LSAT of 165 or higher declined, with the percentage of applicants dropping from over 14% to less than 12%, and the percentage of matriculants dropping from just over 18% to just over 15%.

TABLE 1 -- Percentage of Applicants and Matriculants with a High LSAT Score of 165 or Higher from 2010-2017 Based on National Decision Profile Data

Admis. Cycle	Total Apps.	Apps. at 165 and Higher	% of Apps. at 165 or Higher	Total Matrics	Matrics as % of Apps.	Matrics at 165 and Higher	Matrics at 165 or Higher as % of Apps. at 165 or Higher	% of Matrics at 165 or Higher
2009-10	87900	12177	13.9%	52500	59.7%	9477	77.8%	18.1%
2010-11	78500	11190	14.3%	48700	62%	8952	80%	18.4%
2011-12	67900	9226	13.6%	44500	65.5%	7571	82%	17%
2012-13	59400	7532	12.7%	39700	66.8%	6054	80.4%	15.2%
2013-14	55700	7577	13.6%	37900	68%	6189	81.7%	16.3%
2014-15	54500	6667	12.2%	37100	68.1%	5505	82.6%	14.8%
2015-16	56500	7240	12.8%	37100	65.7%	5780	79.8%	15.5%
2016-17	56200	6546	11.6%	37400	66.5%	5688	86.9%	15.2%

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Updated Analysis Of Law School Attrition Data — 2018

In October 2015 and February 2016, I posted blogs discussing attrition rates between 2010 and 2014, and 2010 and 2015, respectively. With the release of the 2017 Standard 509 reports in December, I now have compiled attrition data from all of the fully-accredited ABA law schools outside of Puerto Rico for the last seven years, through 2016-17. I have calculated average attrition rates for the class as a whole and then broken out average attrition rates by law schools in different median LSAT categories – 160+, 155-159, 150-154 and <150. (Earlier this month, Brian Tamanaha noted that there are 14 law schools that have non-transfer attrition rates in the 2016-17 academic year in excess of 20%, the threshold set forth in Interpretation 501-3 which the Council for the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar adopted early in 2017.)

This blog reports that overall first-year non-transfer attrition increased each year until the 2016-17 academic year, going from 5.81% to 7.33% through 2015-16, before dropping back to 6.46% in 2016-17. This overall increase, however, results largely from increases in non-transfer attrition among schools with a median LSAT less than 150, as the non-transfer attrition rates for law schools with a median LSAT of 150 or greater have generally been in a downward trend over this period. Interestingly, one point reflected in this data is the inverse relationship between median LSAT category and attrition rates. “Academic attrition” rates increase significantly as median LSAT of law schools decreases; for four of the last five years, “other attrition” rates also increase as median LSAT decreases. 

The decline in non-transfer attrition in 2016-17 is noteworthy given that it is the first decline in non-transfer attrition in the last several years.  Notably, one significant contributor to the decline in non-transfer attrition in 2016-17 was the exclusion of Charlotte from the calculations given its closure.  (For example, had Charlotte not been included in the 2015-16 non-transfer attrition calculations, the overall non-transfer attrition rate for 2015-16 would have been 6.96% rather than 7.33%.)  That said, even taking into account the "Charlotte" factor, 2016-17 still shows the first decline in overall non-transfer attrition in the last several years.

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Far Fewer Law School Conditional Scholarship Programs In 2016-17 Than In 2011-12

This blog posting highlights the much smaller number of law schools with conditional scholarship programs in 2016-17 compared to 2010-11.  It also looks at the smaller number and smaller percentage of first-year students with conditional scholarships in 2016-17 compared with 2011-12, and the extent to which the number and percentage of rising second-year students whose scholarships were reduced or eliminated has changed since 2011-12.  Next, it analyzes both the prevalence of conditional scholarship programs among law schools across different rankings categories and the extent to which scholarship retention rates differ among law schools across different rankings categories.  In this regard, it notes both that there are almost no conditional scholarship programs among top-50 law schools as of 2016-17, and that the concentration of conditional scholarship programs in law schools ranked 101 and lower probably means a disproportionate number of women students and minority students are dealing with conditional scholarships. Finally, it looks at how the distribution of retention rates by decile has changed since 2011-12.

1. Introduction

Several years ago, the Council for the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar approved revisions to Standard 509, requiring that law schools post a chart identifying the number of conditional scholarships given to incoming first years and the number of those scholarship recipients whose scholarships were reduced or eliminated at the end of the first year.  As a result, there is now a much greater universe of publicly available information about law school scholarship programs. In the summer of 2013, I posted to SSRN an article entitled Better Understanding the Scope of Conditional Scholarship Programs among American Law Schools, summarizing the first year of available data on conditional scholarship programs, covering the 2011-12 academic year.  Law schools have now published this data for six years, with data covering the 2016-17 academic year having just been released as of December 15.

2. Number of Law Schools with Conditional Scholarship Programs Declines by 36.4%

As shown in Chart 1 below, excluding the three law schools in Puerto Rico, there were 140 fully-accredited ABA law schools with conditional scholarship programs in 2011-12. For the 2016-17 academic year, however, the number of fully-accredited ABA law schools with conditional scholarship programs had dropped to 89, a decline of over 36%.

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The 2017 Law School Transfer Market

This blog posting updates my blog postings of December 2014, December 2015, and March 2017 regarding what we know about the transfer market. With the release of the 2017 Standard 509 Reports, we know have four years of more detailed transfer data from which to glean insights about the transfer market among law schools.

NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES OF TRANSFERS: 2011-2017

The number of transfers increased slightly to 1797 in 2017 from 1749 in 2016, still down from 1,979 in 2015, and from 2,187 in 2014 and 2,501 in 2013. The percentage of the previous fall’s entering class that engaged in the transfer market also increased only slightly to 4.8%, on the low end of where it has been since 2011.

In other words, there is no reason to believe the transfer market is “growing” as a general matter. It has been fairly consistently in the 4.7% to 5.8% range for the last six years. In fact, there might be a reason to believe the general transfer market is declining, given that roughly 200 of the transfers this year, more than 10% of all transfers, are from Charlotte, Whittier and Indiana Tech.   Excluding the transfers out from Charlotte, Whittier and Indiana Tech, the number of transfers likely would be below 1600, which would be less than 4.5%, the lowest level in the last several years.

	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Number of Transfers	2438	2501	2187	1979	1749	1797
Previous Year First Year Enrollment	47,600	43,200	39,800	38,000	37,100	37,100
%   of Previous First-Year Total	5.1%	5.8%	5.5%	5.2%	4.7%	4.8%

SOME LAW SCHOOLS CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE TRANSFER MARKET

The following two charts list the top 15 law schools participating in the transfer market in descending order in Summer 2015 (fall 2014 entering class), and Summer 2016 (fall 2015 entering class), and Summer 2017 (fall 2016 entering class). One chart is based on “numbers” of transfers and the other chart is based on the number of transfer students as a percentage of the prior year’s first year class.

Note that in these two charts, the “repeat players” are bolded – those schools in the top 15 for all three years are in black, those schools in the top 15 for two of the three years are in blue.   Ten of the top 15 have been on the list for the largest number of transfers all three years.  All of the top six law schools in 2016 for transfers in welcomed a smaller numbers of transfers in 2017, although George Washington saw the largest drop in its transfer class between 2016 and 2017, with a decline of roughly 40 from where it had been the two previous years. Two of the three law schools that are new to the list, Charleston and Lincoln Memorial, took significant numbers of transfers from Charlotte.

Largest Law Schools by Number of Transfers from 2015-2017

School	Number in 2015		Number in 2016		Number in 2017
Georgetown	110	Georgetown	111	Georgetown	105
George Wash.	109	George Wash	106	George Wash	67
Arizona St.	65	Arizona St.	66	Charleston	61
Harvard	55	Columbia	50	NYU	58
Emory	51	Emory	49	Arizona St.	56
NYU	51	UCLA	43	Columbia	46
Cal. Berkeley	49	Loyola Marymount	43	SMU	42
Rutgers	45	NYU	43	Emory	41
Columbia	44	Florida	36	Loyola Marymount	41
Miami	44	Houston	36	Harvard	40
UCLA	43	Harvard	35	UCLA	36
Texas	37	Cal. Berkeley	33	Cal. Berkeley	33
American	33	Miami	31	Lincoln Memorial	33
Florida St.	32	American	30	Miami	33
Minnesota	31	Florida St.	30	Florida	31
	799		741		723
	0.404		0.423		0.402

In terms of law schools with the highest percentage of transfers in as a percentage of their previous year's first-year class,  only four law schools have been on the list each of the last three years – Arizona State, Emory, Georgetown and George Washington.

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Initial Fall 2018 Enrollment Projections Reflect Increases In Applicant Volume And Strength

Applicant Pool Projection – 61,000 to 63,000

With the first release of this admission cycle’s Current Volume Summary from the LSAC, we have the opportunity to compare the current applicant cycle data with that in prior years.

The good news reported by LSAC and posted here on TaxProf Blog by Paul Caron yesterday is that applicant volume is 15,083, up over 14% compared to this point in the cycle last year. The Current Volume Summary states that at this point in the cycle last year, applicants represented roughly 24% of the final applicant pool. (In past years, the applicant volume in the first Current Volume Summary has averaged roughly one-quarter of the total applicant volume for the given admissions cycle.) This means that, at the moment, as shown in the chart below, we can anticipate a total applicant pool for the year in a range from 61,000 to perhaps 63,000, depending upon exactly how things unfold over the coming months. Given that this is only the first of several data points, there remains a large margin of error. By mid-January, after a few more current volume reports, and with a larger percentage of the applicants accounted for, one can have a little more confidence in the estimate for total applicant volume.

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