If you've ever been to a dinner party where at least one guest is a lawyer, you've heard the speech: Don't go to law school unless you really, really want to be a lawyer. They'll tell you about the student loans, the brutal hours, the sleepless nights billing time in six-minute increments.
And yet—despite all the horror stories—law school applications are booming.
Not just up, but up 20.5 percent year-over-year, according to figures from The Wall Street Journal—the kind of spike that makes law school deans both giddy and nervous. The Law School Admission Council has recorded nearly 63,000 applicants so far this year, with most admission decisions finalized by May when institutions require deposit commitments.
While application spikes often coincide with economic downturns or presidential elections, experts say this year's surge is different—it's driven by multiple converging factors, including a stagnant job market, fears about AI, political volatility and growing interest in the legal battles shaping American democracy.
"For the vast majority of this increase in applicants, it's the usual reasons—but all on steroids," Mike Spivey, CEO of the Spivey Consulting Group, which specializes in law school admissions, told Newsweek.
"It's unnatural. Demographically, there are no more college students graduating this year than there were last year," Spivey added.
And this isn't just another cycle. The rise in applications has been exacerbated by one man's continued hold on American politics—Donald Trump.
The Trump Effect, Continued
With four criminal indictments, ongoing lawsuits, and seemingly daily new legal challenges over presidential powers, the president is at the center of some of the most consequential court cases in modern American history. For law school applicants, it's a front-row seat to the collision of law and politics—and many want in.
With Trump as his own legal spectacle, Spivey believes this surge in law school applications isn't fading anytime soon.
"That is spot on," he said when asked whether Trump's ongoing legal battles or challenges to major policies are contributing to the rise in applications. "It's also why we expect to see a bit of an uptick next year as well."
It's happened before. The first "Trump Bump" came in 2016, when law school applications spiked as progressive students saw a president they feared would challenge civil liberties. Then, in 2020, another wave of applicants came after Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices, altering the judicial landscape for a generation.
Now, Trump's personal and fading legal troubles—combined with his brash policies concerning issues like immigration, executive power, and corporate regulations—are once again driving people to law school.
"This cycle, we would estimate that about 90 percent of our clients, many more than even just two years ago, know exactly why they want to go to law school and what problem they hope to fix with their degree," Spivey said.
But Trump is just one piece of the puzzle.
Fierce Competition
At Georgetown Law, applications reached 14,000 for just 650 spots, making this one of the most competitive years in the school's history. The University of Michigan Law School, operating for 166 years, has never seen this level of interest. At Creighton University School of Law, applications jumped 25 percent.
Some schools are overwhelmed, turning to extensive waitlists that function like airline boarding groups, leaving students scrambling for any advantage. When Michigan Law's admissions dean, Sarah Zearfoss, shared the numbers with faculty members, they were stunned. The sharp increase forced admissions officers to reconsider selection strategies, as the applicant pool has become more competitive than ever.
Even beyond these schools, competition has intensified nationwide. Columbia Law School reported an 11.75 percent acceptance rate, while NYU's School of Law saw an acceptance rate of 16.67 percent—both reflecting an increasingly selective admissions process.
The demand is not just limited to top-tier institutions. Even mid-tier law schools are seeing significant jumps, with applicants casting wider nets in hopes of securing admission somewhere.
Law School Interest Presages Recessions
Law school has always been a place to wait out economic turbulence, and today's uncertain job market, stock market volatility and fears of an imminent recession are pushing people back into lecture halls. The past two recessions saw similar surges—after the 2008 financial crisis and again during the 2020 pandemic.
"When there is financial instability, people go back to school," Spivey explained. "Look at the 2008–2009 recession and the surge in applicants that followed. The same happened during the pandemic in 2020–2021."
With a labor market making that is making it harder for recent graduates to secure stable employment, many are seeing law school as a way to bolster their career prospects. Layoffs and the disruption from generative AI tools happening in white-collar industries like finance and tech are also sending young professionals looking for new career paths. The promise of a $225,000 starting salary at a top corporate law firm is luring many, making the financial burden of law school seem more justifiable.
Spivey estimates that about 8 percent of this year's applicant surge is tied to financial concerns. Still, some experts warn that an overcrowded job market could leave many new graduates struggling to find employment.
Will the Law School Boom Continue?
Despite record-setting application numbers, total current numbers still fall below historic peaks of the early 1990s and mid-2000s, when roughly 100,000 hopefuls sought admission.
However, Spivey believes the trend isn't slowing just yet.
"Next year I think we'll see ... a smaller increase in applications—but an increase nonetheless, at about more or less 5 percent," he said.
And while some insiders and experts have pointed to the removal of the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) logic games section, widely considered the most challenging part of the notoriously difficult exam, Spivey believes that the economic and political forces at play remain the dominant reasons students are applying in record numbers.
"Law school is a reactionary process. People see instability—political, economic, or legal—and they want to understand it, engage with it, and shape it. That's what's happening here," Spivey said.
