Should law school admissions be curtailed? Cooley explains why it is expanding even in a tough job market

By Tom Gantert and Jo Mathis Legal News In the past two weeks, both The Chronicle of Higher Learning and The Wall Street Journal have written about Cooley Law School's decision not to trim enrollment in a down job market for attorneys. The Wall Street Journal stated there was a ''glut of attorneys'' nationwide. While other law schools were making class sizes smaller, Cooley Law School said it would not. As of the fall of 2011, Cooley Law School has a total enrollment of about 4,000 spread among its Michigan campuses in Lansing, Grand Rapids, Auburn Hills and Ann Arbor. James Robb, Associate Dean of Development and Alumni Relations, said he disagrees with the national media's perspective of a down market for lawyers, especially in Michigan. Robb said he believes the national media have a bias with a focus on ''big law.'' ''A lot of the national reporters, they think the really, really big law firms in New York or Washington (DC) are the legal profession,'' Robb said. For example, Dewey & Leboeuf LLP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May in New York, according to Reuters. Dewey & Leboeuf employed as many as 102 attorneys in Washington D.C. as of 2011, according to The National Law Journal. Big firms influence the media's perspective, Robb said, while they have little impact on what happens in Michigan, which doesn't have nearly as many mega firms. According to the 2010 State Bar of Michigan survey, 70 percent of the private law firms in Michigan had six attorneys or fewer. ''I'm not sure why the Dewey & Leboeuf law firm is important to the five lawyers at a Jackson County law firm,'' Robb said. ''I don't think the premise that it is a horrible job market, at least in Michigan, is really the case.'' Instead, Robb sees a state with a lot of attorneys nearing retirement age. And law degrees don't necessarily translate to a job as an attorney, he said. ''President Obama is a lawyer,'' Robb said. ''Gov. (John) Engler (a Cooley Law School graduate) is a lawyer. There are all kinds of things you can do with a law degree. It's great training for business and public service.'' Robb said some law schools voluntarily cut back on enrollment because they're concerned about their ranking in the U.S. News & World Report. If those law schools were to maintain the same number of students from a dwindling number of applicants, they would need to ''dip lower into their admissions pool and negatively impact their ranking.'' ''In a sense, it is a matter of the market,'' Robb said. ''Why restrict this? Why not let the market take care of it? If students perceive now is not a good time to go to law school, why would they apply? Why keep those who want to go from coming? To do that would not be consistent with Cooley's mission.'' Robb said that nationwide, applications to law schools are down. But that didn't stop Cooley from expanding outside of Michigan. Cooley opened a campus in Tampa Bay last month with its first class of 104 students, about twice what was expected. ''The numbers indicate the Tampa Bay area was ready for a law school,'' said Jeff Martlew, associate dean of Cooley's Tampa Bay campus, in a press release. Published: Thu, Jul 12, 2012

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