It’s been nearly three years since ChatGPT successfully passed the bar exam, a feat that sent a wave of existential dread through the legal profession. Yet the demise of this career hasn’t materialized just yet, and Gen Z appears to be flocking to law school as a hideout from the stormy entry-level hiring market.
Just as in 2008 and 2020, interest in law school is surging again, with the number of applicants up more than 40% over the past two years, according to American Bar Association (ABA) data compiled by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC). The quasi-official white-collar recession indicator of crammed study halls full of aspiring litigators had a reckoning of sorts in 2011, as documented in the blog “Inside the Law School Scam,” at first published anonymously and later revealed to be the work of Paul Campos, a law professor himself at the University of Colorado. (Campos later published a book, Don’t Go to Law School (Unless).)
