Sacramento law school among institutions nationwide seeing major increase in applicants
SACRAMENTO — Law schools across the country are being flooded with student applications, and now one local university is seeing four times more applicants than it can admit.
Michael Hunter Schwartz, dean of the McGeorge School of Law, said there's a big increase in the number of people applying for the 205 spaces at the Sacramento institution.
"We are up about 25% this year, and over the last two years 40%," Schwartz said.
It's a trend being seen nationwide with more than 64,000 people applying to law schools this year — a 20% overall increase.
Some students say the volatile political climate is a big reason why they want to get a law degree.
"A lot of people want to become attorneys, obviously, because of everything that's happening in this world right now," said law student Brandon Blanco.
"We need to take up positions where we can actually make a change and not watch from the sidelines, and that means becoming attorneys, judges," said law student Lema Abdallah said.
With layoffs in high-tech, government, and other white-collar jobs, some applicants say they're seeking more reliable careers.
"You see the attractiveness of that stability and obviously the increase in salary, so everyone's just going to flood into it," said law student Justin McCurdy.
Schwartz said the number of people who are at the second career level has seen "enormous growth." He noted that the higher number of applicants allows McGeorge to admit more top-tier students — and there are also more rejections.
"We're having to write more of those hard letters or make those hard phone calls," he said.
Schwartz said that he's encouraged by the number of people looking for life-long legal careers.
"They see that we can be better as a society, and they choose law as a mechanism for making that change," he said. "It's actually incredibly inspiring."
UC Davis' law school says it is also seeing an increase, with 3,700 people applying this year for just 200 seats.
