Across the country, law schools have been facing a serious decline in enrollment over the last few years. In fact, applications across the country have sunk to their lowest figures in 30 years. The combination of rising tuition and student debt with diminishing job prospects has steered students into other fields.
Oregon has not bucked the trend either. Information provided to by the Office of Institutional Research at the UO shows that fall 2013 had the lowest enrollment since at least 2001. Other schools at the University of Oregon see their enrollment fluctuate throughout the years, but for a school as small as the law school, with under 600 total students enrolled, losing 100 students between years can have a big impact.
While fall 2009 was the highest year for enrollment, with nearly 600 students seeking their juris doctorates or their master’s of law degrees, fall 2013 shows a marked drop-off of 20 percent. The raw numbers provided by the Office of Institutional Research show that there were 558 students enrolled for their JD and 40 students enrolled for their LLM in fall 2009. Just four years later, those numbers were at 443 and 55 respectively.
Though there has been a rise in students attending the University of Oregon School of Law for their master’s degrees, universities depend on law enrollment for a sizeable chunk of their financing.
Meanwhile, almost every other college has grown with the student population. The College of Arts and Sciences has upwards of 1,100 more students since fall 2009. The School of Journalism has grown by 43 percent, with more than 2,000 students at present.
Another telling sign, according to Inside Higher Ed, is that the number of prospective students taking the LSAT has dropped 45 percent from the same time frame. Meanwhile, costs have not decreased in any notable way and it’s estimated that somewhere between 80 to 85 percent of law schools are losing money.
This puts UO law in a precarious position. Erica Daley, the law school’s associate dean for finance and operations, says that the lower enrollment has been inevitable. She says they’re focusing on what they can control, which is the job prospects for their currently enrolled students.
“There’s two things, there are fewer students to cater to, and making sure you have the best programs available for them,” Daley said. “The other thing is giving them experiential learning along the way, so that when they get out they have a better chance of getting those jobs. The legal education a law student gets, the education, the critical thinking skill — is very applicable across many many careers.”
Still, the UO boasts one of the strongest environmental law programs in the country and announced a Portland-based program in February. The initiative was proposed to take advantage of Portland’s grander opportunities for externships and extracurriculars.
“I would say that being in the industry and dealing with this, the story now is what are law schools are doing and how are they kind of re-tooling to address a broader employment opportunity for lawyers for the long term and enhancing,” said Daley, who was a practicing lawyer before coming to the UO.
Another way the law school has responded to the enrollment struggles is the pilot run of the summer Sports Law Institute. The UO’s affair with sports has been common knowledge for decade, but only this past summer has the law school really attempted to embrace it from a law standpoint.
Nearly two dozen students are enrolled in the program, from Arizona State to Notre Dame, to listen to lecturers with intimate knowledge of some of the most intricate issues facing sports today. One lecturer, for example, was Brian Halloran, a former member of the NCAA committee on infractions. The summer program gave students a glimpse into a highly specialized field of law and was a unique way to draw interest to the university.
The decrease in enrollment doesn’t have to doom the law school. Though every other program has either grown or remained steady, the law school looks at the situation as a chance to refocus.