EMSI Updates Report + An Extrmely Rough Picture of How to Balance The Numbers

A few days ago, Economic Modeling Specialists posted a survey showing that there was an oversupply of new graduates in all but 3 places: Wisconsin, Nebraska, and D.C. The study had the obvious flaw of using bar exam passages, where people often waive into D.C. and Wisconsin law graduates do not generally have to take the bar.

EMSI has updated their numbers here.

The two states (plus D.C.) that originally looked to not be oversupplying the market — Wisconsin and Nebraska — are most likely producing too many after all.

There's still the thorny issue that some people take more than one bar exam, or, in the alternative, may not represent a uniform class (e.g., people who put off taking the bar).

This problem, I think, is handled by the "Completers" numbers. Nationally, it looks like there were 1.2 bar exam passers for every student who completed law school. In other words, unless almost half the graduating class of '09 put off the bar exam, we can safely assume there's an oversupply.

More to the point, the intrastate numbers clearly show an oversupply without even considering the number of "Completers." If I'm looking for a job in Minnesota, I don't care who's licensed in MN/WI or MN/ND. I care only about who's licensed in Minnesota, because that's who I'm competing with for jobs, that pool of 888 at a minimum. And with only 378 annual job openings, a pool that large is a problem, even if some of those people can get jobs in Wisconsin.

Note, also, that the numbers aren't recessionary, as the projections go to 2015.

To show how big the gap is, I'd like to show what might be done to solve this discrepancy, to illustrate how drastic the situation is. I'm not going to do the exact math right now, but if you did all of the following:

ALABAMA
Close Jones/Faulkner and the two state-accredited schools.

ARIZONA
Close Phoenix School of Law

ARKANSAS
Reduce Arkansas-Little Rock entering class size to 80 or so.

CALIFORNIA
Close Thomas Jefferson, Whittier, Golden Gate, UC-Irvine, and all 42 non-ABA-accredited schools.

CONNECTICUT
Close Quinnipiac

DELAWARE
Close Widener

DIST. OF COLUMBIA
Close U. of DC, cut enrollment at the remaining DC schools in half.

FLORIDA
Close Florida Coastal, Barry, Florida A&M, and Ave Maria, slash enrollment everywhere else except UF.

GEORGIA
Close JMLS-Atlanta, slash enrollment at Georgia State and Mercer

HAWAII
Cut U. of H enrollment to 80

IDAHO
Stop Concordia now.

ILLINOIS
Close JMLS-Chicago, NIU, SIU, slash enrollment at DePaul, Kent, and Loyola.

INDIANA
Stop Indiana Tech now, close Valparaiso.

KANSAS
Close Washburn.

KENTUCKY
Close Northern Kentucky or slash enrollment at all three by 1/3.

LOUISIANA
Close Loyola-NO, slash enrollment at remaining schools.

MARYLAND
Close Baltimore, slash enrollment at U. Maryland.

MASSACHUSETTS
Close Suffolk, New England, Western New England, Northeastern, and the two state-accredited schools.

MICHIGAN
Close Cooley

MINNESOTA
Close St. Thomas and Hamline, cut enrollment at William Mitchell

MISSISSIPPI
Cut enrollment at two schools by 50%

MISSOURI
Close St. Louis U., slash enrollment at Wash U. and UMKC.

NEBRAKSA
Close Creighton

NEVADA
Cut UNLV enrollment by 1/3.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Cut UNH enrollment to 80 per class.

NEW JERSEY
Close Rutgers-Camden and Seton Hall.

NEW YORK
Close Pace, Touro, Brooklyn, Hofstra, NYLS, St. John's, and CUNY; slash enrollment everywhere else by up to 1/3.

NORTH CAROLINA
Close Charlotte, Elon, and Campbell.

NORTH DAKOTA
Slash enrollment at UND to 40 or merge with U. South Dakota.

OHIO
Close Capital, Dayton, and Toledo.

OKLAHOMA
Cut Oklahoma City enrollment in half.

OREGON
Cut enrollment at all three law schools by half.

PENNSYLVANIA
Close Villanova and Duqusne, slash enrollment everywhere else.

RHODE ISLAND
Cut Roger Williams enrollment in half.

SOUTH CAROLINA
Close Charleston School of Law.

SOUTH DAKOTA
Cut U.S.D. enrollment to 40 per class or merge with U. North Dakota.

TENNESSEE
Close three non-ABA schools, slash enrollment at remaining three schools.

TEXAS
Close South Texas and Texas Wesleyan, slash enrollment at St. Mary's by half.

VIRGINIA
Close Liberty, Regent, and Appalachian.

WASHINGTON
Close Seattle U.

WEST VIRGINIA
Cut enrollment at WVU by 1/3.

WISCONSIN
Cut enrollment at Marquette and UW by 1/3 each.

WYOMING
Cut enrollment at U. Wyoming to 40 per class.

...you might be able to balance things out.

I am not advocating that we do this, nor am I under any delusion that anyone has the power to do this. But, under rough estimation, this is about what would have to happen for the numbers to balance in the next five years, assuming the projections are accurate. Maybe later I will do the precise math on this.

In theory, the market should have sorted this out by now, and many of those schools (especially the ones from the old-school industrial states, like New York or Ohio) would have closed. Instead, we had new schools scrambling to open and jump on the pile. Ask yourself how and why that happened. In my opinion, it's strong evidence that the schools as an industry were profiting from hiding product information from J.D. applicants.

Maybe closing 104 institutions and slashing enrollment almost everywhere else would be drastic, but what other solution is left? There's a massive market failure that goes well beyond the temporary effects of a recession, partly because of the law schools' incentive to keep customers to their profitable business in a dwindling field, and partly because the mostly-unsophisticated customers have the easiest access to credit in world economic history.

But that's how bad it's gotten, not unlike the proliferation of medical schools in the pre-Flexner days, although you'll never get administrators to see the similarities.