Getting Into Law School is Easier Than it Used to Be, and That's Not Good

Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

Getting into law school with low test scores is easier than it used to be.

Low scores on the Law School Admissions Test have dipped at most law schools in recent years, a new report shows. A paper released last month by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the nonprofit that creates part of the bar exam, shows that since 2010, 95 percent of the 196 U.S. law schools at least partially accredited by the American Bar Association for which the NCBE had data lowered their standards for students near the bottom of the pack. The NCBE compiled data from the American Bar Association and the Law School Admission Council, the group that administers the LSAT, to illustrate the decline in LSAT scores for students at the 25th percentile -- meaning, the students who were at the very top of the bottom quartile of students.

Standards aren't just falling at lower-tier schools -- Emory University, ranked among the top 20 U.S. law schools by the U.S. News and World Report, had the single largest drop in LSAT scores for this group, enrolling bottom-tier students who'd scored nine points worse than three years earlier -- a 5 percent drop. In fact, 20 of the 22 U.S. News top-20 schools -- there was a three-way tie for 20th place -- were enrolling students with lower test scores. Across all schools, LSAT scores for the 25th percentile dropped an average of 3 points.

The demand for lawyers is going down.