Who’s Going to Law School? Trends in Law School Enrollment Since the Great Recession Miranda Li, Phillip Yao, and Goodwin Liu* This study provides a comprehensive analysis of recent U.S. law school enrollment trends. With two sets of JD (Juris Doctor) enrollment data from 1999 to 2019, we discuss how the demographic composition of law students has changed since the Great Recession. We examine enrollment data by gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality, with particular attention to Asian * Copyright © 2020 Miranda Li, Phillip Yao & Goodwin Liu. Miranda Li is a 2019 graduate of Yale Law School, Phillip Yao is a 2019 graduate of Yale Law School, and Goodwin Liu is an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. This Article is an outgrowth of earlier work that provided a systematic account of the experiences of Asian Americans in the legal profession. See ERIC CHUNG, SAMUEL DONG, XIAONAN APRIL HU, CHRISTINE KWON & GOODWIN LIU, YALE LAW SCHOOL & NAT’L ASIAN PAC. AM. LAW ASS’N, A PORTRAIT OF ASIAN AMERICANS IN THE LAW 2-3 (2017) [hereinafter PORTRAIT PROJECT]. Our study is part of ongoing research in collaboration with the American Bar Foundation on diversity in the legal profession. For valuable input and support, we are grateful to the members of our research team: Ajay Mehrotra, Shih-Chun Chien, George Wang, Meghan Dawe, and Ellis Liang. For their generosity in sharing data and constructive insights, we are indebted to Barry Currier and Bill McAdams at the American Bar Association; Kellye Testy, Ann Gallagher, Kimberly Dustman, and Greg Camilli at the Law School Admission Council; and Judy Areen and Jeff Allum at the American Association of Law Schools. For helpful comments on earlier drafts, we thank Erwin Chemerinsky, Eric Chung, Tino Cuéllar, Noor-ul-ain Hasan, Dan Ho, Christine Kwon, Derek Muller, and David Wilkins. 613 614 University of California, Davis [Vol. 54:613 Americans, who too often remain an invisible minority in contemporary discourse on diversity. We also undertake a novel analysis of enrollment demographics by law school ranking. Our findings include the following: • Total enrollment has declined almost 25% since the recession and, despite a recent increase, seems unlikely to rebound to pre-recession levels, especially given the economic uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic. • Women have outnumbered men in law school since 2016; the recent uptick in total enrollment is entirely attributable to more women pursuing law. • Since the recession, Asian Americans and Whites have comprised a smaller share of enrollment; African Americans and Hispanics have comprised a larger share. • Women, African American students, and Hispanic students are disproportionately enrolled in lower-ranked schools with lower rates of bar passage and post-graduation employment. It is thus unclear to what extent the changing diversity of law students will translate into greater diversity in the legal profession. • Asian American enrollment has declined more steeply than any other group since the recession. As a result, the number of Asian American lawyers, after rising for four decades, will begin to stagnate in the year 2030. • The number and percentage of JD students who are foreign nationals or who identify as members of two or more racial groups are growing. These trends have particular salience for Asians and Asian Americans, and they present increasingly serious challenges for collecting and reporting demographic data. As a whole, our study provides a fresh and comprehensive empirical foundation for current discussions of diversity in law school and the legal profession. 2020] Who’s Going to Law School? 615 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 615 I. DATA AND TERMINOLOGY ......................................................... 618 A. American Bar Association .................................................. 619 B. Law School Admission Council .......................................... 620 II. ENROLLMENT TRENDS BY GENDER, RACE, AND ETHNICITY ....... 622 III. ENROLLMENT TRENDS BY LAW SCHOOL RANKINGS ................... 627 IV. ASIAN AMERICAN LAW STUDENTS AND LAWYERS ...................... 635 A. Asian American Enrollment Trends ................................... 635 B. Projected Estimates of Asian American Lawyers ................ 639 C. Why Is Asian American Law School Enrollment Declining? ......................................................................... 641 V. RISING NUMBERS OF FOREIGN JD STUDENTS............................. 648 VI. RISING NUMBERS OF MULTIRACIAL STUDENTS .......................... 651 VII. DISCUSSION .............................................................................. 653 CONCLUSION....................................................................................... 657 APPENDIX A ........................................................................................ 658 INTRODUCTION Since the economic downturn and financial crisis of the late 2000s, total enrollment in U.S. law schools has declined steadily year by year until a slight uptick in 2018 and 2019. There are roughly one quarter fewer JD students today than a decade ago. Commentators have suggested various explanations for this decline, including worsening job prospects in the legal profession and more lucrative options in fields such as technology.1 Enrollment trends over the past decade have not been uniform across demographic groups. A 2017 study that one of us co-authored, A Portrait of Asian Americans in the Law, reported that over the past decade, the enrollment of Asian Americans in law school has declined more than the enrollment of any other racial or ethnic group, whereas Black enrollment has declined modestly and Hispanic enrollment has increased.2 In addition, women have outnumbered men in law school 1 See, e.g., Max Nisen, The US Lawyer Bubble Has Conclusively Popped, QUARTZ (May 7, 2014), https://qz.com/206705/the-us-lawyer-bubble-has-conclusively-popped/ [https://perma.cc/YNH3-JDVK]; Greg Toppo, Why You Might Want to Think Twice Before Going to Law School, USA TODAY (June 28, 2017), https://www.usatoday. com/story/news/2017/06/28/law-schools-hunkering-down-enrollment-slips/430213001/ [https://perma.cc/XHD8-8KZG]. 2 PORTRAIT PROJECT, supra introductory author footnote, at 9; see also Aaron N. Taylor, Diversity as a Law School Survival Strategy, 59 ST. LOUIS U. L.J. 321, 336-45 (2015) (comparing 2010 and 2013 student cohorts). 616 University of California, Davis [Vol. 54:613 since 2016.3 Yet women continue to face barriers to employment and advancement in the profession.4 Here we further describe and analyze these trends with data extending through 2019. We examine enrollment data by gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality, with particular attention to Asian Americans, who too often remain an invisible minority in contemporary discourse on diversity.5 We also undertake a novel analysis of enrollment demographics by law school ranking. As a whole, our study provides a fresh and comprehensive empirical foundation for current discussions of diversity in law school and the legal profession. We expect the trends identified here to be of considerable interest to law faculty, administrators, attorneys, and judges, who will teach, hire, and work with the next generation of law students. Two recent studies have contributed to our understanding of recent enrollment trends. First, the American Association of Law Schools (“AALS”), in collaboration with Gallup, gathered data from 22,189 undergraduates and 2,727 first-year law students in 2017 to illuminate student views on attending graduate or professional school. The AALS findings are summarized in two 2018 reports: Before the JD: Undergraduate Views on Law School and Beyond the Bachelor’s: Undergraduate Perspectives on Graduate and Professional Degrees.6 3 See Elizabeth Olson, Women Make Up Majority of U.S. Law Students for First Time, N.Y. TIMES (Dec. 16, 2016), https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/business/dealbook/ women-majority-of-us-law-students-first-time.html [https://perma.cc/4K9H-TEN2]; Staci Zaretsky, The Law Schools Where the Most Women Enrolled as Students (2019), ABOVE THE LAW (Feb. 5, 2019), https://abovethelaw.com/2019/02/law-school-most- women/ [https://perma.cc/YZP8-4NU9]. 4 See DEBORAH JONES MERRITT & KYLE MCENTEE, THE LEAKY PIPELINE FOR WOMEN ENTERING THE LEGAL PROFESSION 3 (2016), https://www.lstradio.com/women/ documents/MerrittAndMcEnteeResearchSummary_Nov-2016.pdf [https://perma.cc/ H27C-TGCG]. 5 See Esther Yoon-Ji Kang, The Fight for Asian American Political Power, WBEZ CHI. (May 30, 2019), https://www.npr.org/local/309/2019/05/30/728115121/the-fight-for- asian-american-political-power [https://perma.cc/X2C6-SEHU]; Chris Lu, What We Miss When We Ignore Asian Americans, TIME (Oct. 20, 2017), https://time.com/4992021/asian-americans-pacific-islanders-representation/ [https://perma. cc/S5XN-2PEY]; Alex Wagner, Why Are Asian Americans Politically Invisible?, ATLANTIC (Sept. 12, 2016), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/why-dont- asians-count/498893/ [https://perma.cc/WF89-ZL4Z]; George Yancy & David Haekwon Kim, The Invisible Asian, N.Y. TIMES (Oct. 8, 2015), https://opinionator.blogs. nytimes.com/2015/10/08/the-invisible-asian/ [https://perma.cc/DK5J-AZCK]. 6 ASS’N OF AM. LAW SCH., BEFORE THE JD: UNDERGRADUATE VIEWS ON LAW SCHOOL (2018) [hereinafter BEFORE THE JD]; ASS’N OF AM. L. SCH., BEYOND THE BACHELOR’S: UNDERGRADUATE PERSPECTIVES ON GRADUATE