Hastings to Cut Law School Enrollment by 20 Percent Over Next Three Years
Acknowledging that the legal market has undergone a sea change and that there is a reduced demand for law graduates, one of the University of California law schools is making a big reduction in its enrollment.
Hastings College of the Law will cut its law student roster by 240 over the next three years, a 20 percent decrease, the National Law Journal reports. Other law schools have also cut enrollment as the applicant pool shrinks, but Hastings’ cuts appear to be the largest, NLJ noted.
“The critics of legal education are right,” Dean Frank Wu told the NLJ in a Monday telephone interview. “There are too many law schools and too many law students, and we’re going to fix that.
“We would easily be able to fill 425 seats,” he said, referring to this year’s incoming class size, “but to do so would be irresponsible.”
