Applications at both of Colorado’s law schools have jumped by double-digit percentages this year in line with a deluge of law school applications flooding institutions across the country.
It’s hard to pin down why exactly law schools are seeing a notable uptick in applications, admissions officials and law experts say, but they predict a mix of factors has motivated more students to consider a future in law, including economic uncertainty and high-profile legal issues climbing up through the courts.
The University of Colorado Law School, in Boulder, has counted 3,482 applications this year, a 20.5% increase from last year’s application cycle, according to Alan Schieve, director of admissions for the school. Meanwhile, the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver has drawn 2,231 applications — up 18% from last year, according to Iain Davis, assistant dean of admissions and financial management in the law school.
Nationally, the numbers of law school applicants and applications have hit a record high over the past decade, according to the nonprofit Law School Admission Council, which reported individual applicants up more than 19.5% over last year and applications up nearly 23%.
Despite the spike in applications, both CU and DU have seen a higher volume in past years. CU, for instance, peaked in 2021 with 3,762 law school applications, followed by 3,586 applications in 2018. In 2020, DU’s law school applications tallied about 2,500.
Still, Schieve said this year’s increase of applications at CU has been noticeable.
The current pool of applications at schools across the U.S. marks a significant moment for the legal field — one defined largely by law school candidates who want to be on the front lines of public service and have a more direct tie to the issues that matter most to them, said Susan Krinsky, the council’s interim president and CEO.
“I think it’s that the issues that some people are upset about and other people think are wonderful are compelling issues that a law degree and a legal education can help you to understand, to help you get involved, can help you to advocate for one side or another,” Krinsky told The Colorado Sun.
She cited landmark cases like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization from 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and did away with the constitutional right to abortion, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2023 to end affirmative action and outlaw race-conscious admission programs across higher education institutions.
Schieve said he has sensed that same driver among CU applicants.
The hike in law school applications has partially stemmed from “a lot of national attention around significant cases making their way up to the Supreme Court and people paying a lot more attention to what happens in the legal field,” he said, adding that CU has also taken its own measures that may have given its application numbers a bump. That includes hosting a “mini law school” that educated prospective students about what a legal education requires, alternative legal degrees and the variety of ways graduates can do with a law degree.
Sturm College of Law officials at DU anticipated attracting more applicants this cycle since higher numbers of applications tend to pour in during election years, Davis said, but they were still surprised at how sharply the number of applications rose.
“We were expecting to see an increase because it was an election year, maybe slightly higher than a less controversial election year, but not the volume we’ve experienced,” Davis said. “I don’t think this is purely down to it being an election year or a controversial election year.”
He said another dynamic is at play, what he calls “the unknown.”
Davis noted that the Sturm College of Law has begun receiving more inquiries from federal workers now out of a job after mass layoffs by the Trump administration, though with those layoffs occurring closer to the end of the application cycle, he predicts law schools will see greater numbers of former federal employees applying next year.
Might other candidates pursue law school this year after the Trump administration targeted law firms taking on cases that conflict with his stance on issues or involved in investigating Trump himself?
It’s hard to say, law school officials say, since those attacks started in February — late in the application cycle.
“The impacts of newer developments remain to be seen,” Schieve said.
Meanwhile, law experts have been closely following the relationship between the economy and applications. Historically, law school application numbers swell when the economy takes a dive, with continued drops in subsequent years before a rebound in applications as the economy improves, said Austen Parrish, president of The Association of American Law Schools and dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
As people grow more uncertain about the economy and wonder whether they’ll be able to secure a job after graduating college, law school becomes a more enticing option, Parrish told The Sun.
The perception of the direction the economy is headed in, not necessarily the actual state of the economy, influences decisions to apply to law school, he said.
“It could be that over the last year people were more nervous or there was greater volatility and that might have incentivized people to say, this is a good time for me to do my graduate education rather than waiting,” Parrish said.
Another potential force behind the flurry of applications this year: a more intentional industry focus on recruitment stretching back a decade, when law schools began a big push to pique the interest of future law students while they were still in high school. Some of those efforts may now be producing more law school applicants, Parrish said.
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However, just because law schools are being inundated with more candidates doesn’t mean they’ll open up more seats in their programs, said Krinsky, of the Law School Admission Council.
“They want all their students to get jobs and nobody’s counting on more jobs being out there,” she said.
That means that the degree of competition is escalating as more applications have rolled in across schools and as the caliber of candidates has notched up, including at DU where Davis said the academic profile of applicants is “noticeably stronger” with higher scores on the Law School Admission Test and higher grade point averages.
Nationally, 71,718 applicants have submitted 503,860 applications so far compared to this time last year, when 57,362 applicants submitted 409,866 applications to law schools, according to the Law School Admission Council. They’re all vying for a spot at a time the average first-year class of law students hovers around 38,000.
While looking ahead to next year’s application season, law school officials predict another influx.
“The expectation is that we’re going to continue to see strong interest in law school in the coming year,” Parrish said, “and that that’s unlikely to change.”