Law Firms' White-Shoe Blues

Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

The number of people with law licenses grew from 212,600 in 1950 to 1,225,000 in 2011—a sharp change from a ratio of one attorney for every 709 Americans to one for every 257. Forty-five thousand newly minted attorneys become available every year in a field with only 25,000 job openings. Law firms of all sizes laid off attorneys during the lean years of 2008 and 2009, and hiring has not fully rebounded.

Anyone thinking of going to law school should read this one. This is today's higher education bubble update, as Professor Glenn Reynolds would say.