美国法学院面临大裁员。

来源: commonsense888 于 2013-11-01 19:29:28 [档案] [旧帖] [给我悄悄话] 本文已被阅读：次 (229 bytes)

2004 年有10万人申请法学院，2013年只有5万人。差不多一半的法学院在裁减教授员工。有甜牛的教授都被开了。问题是一般律师，打离婚，房贷，赶房客的，很难找到好工作。金融财务等高端才吃香。除了顶端的法学院，一般的学校就不要往里挤了。

LAW SCHOOLS

‘Massive layoffs’ predicted in law schools due to big drop in applicants

Posted Jan 31, 2013 7:27 AM CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A plunge in the number of applicants to law schools will likely lead to closures and faculty layoffs, according to law professors following the statistics.

Based on current trends, the number of law school applicants for the 2013 school year is expected to number between 53,000 and 54,000, a 30-year low. In 2004, for example, 100,000 people applied to law schools, theNew York Times reports. “Responding to the new environment,” the Times says, “schools are planning cutbacks and accepting students they would not have admitted before.”

Experts attribute the drop in interest to higher tuition costs and a decline in high-paying law firm jobs. University of Southern California law and economics professor Gillian Hadfield told the Times there is “a significant mismatch between demand and supply.” According to Hadfield, the problem is not an overproduction of lawyers. “Actually, we have an exploding demand for both ordinary folk lawyers and big corporate ones,” she said. But general practitioners dealing with matters like mortgages and divorce have a hard time making a living, she said. Big companies, on the other hand, aren’t satisfied with law schools’ emphasis on academics at the expense of practical training, she said.

Change is afoot, according to other law professors interviewed by the newspaper. University of Chicago law professor Brian Leiter expects up to 10 law schools will close in the next 10 years, and half to three-quarters will cut faculty, staff and class sizes.

Indiana University law professor William Henderson said the changes could occur as early as this fall. “In the ’80s and ’90s, a liberal arts graduate who didn’t know what to do went to law school,” Henderson told the Times. “Now you get $120,000 in debt and a default plan of last resort whose value is just too speculative. Students are voting with their feet. There are going to be massive layoffs in law schools this fall. We won’t have the bodies we need to meet the payroll.”