While we were researching the Exhibits page for tomorrow’s Recorder, we came across these ethnicity stats from the Law School Admission Council that break down the population of first-years at ABA-accredited law schools.
We didn’t just happen upon this stuff. We were curious enough to go looking after reading last week about this Columbia Law School professor's study on African-American and Mexican-American law student populations.
You can probably guess what the biggest slice of pie is at right, but we break it all down in a much larger chart after the jump ...
We took the most recent data we saw (Source: Law School Admission Council), and made it into a colorful pie chart. Click on it to see it bigger:
Now you might wonder, How much different is that than in the past?
Well, the answer depends on what you consider to be big or small changes, percentage-wise. For instance, the Caucasian/White slice made up more of the pie (72.5%) back in 2000, while Hispanic/Latinos made up less (3.6%) than they do now. You can check out more historic data on the Law School Admission Council's Web site: Go here, then click on "law school applicant data" ... then "data" ... then "matriculants by ethnicity."
Of course, we'd be remiss if we didn't also note that changes in absolute numbers are a different animal. The study we mentioned above goes into both percentages and absolutes, in regards to African-American and Mexican-American law students, at this Web site.
P.S. This week’s Exhibits in The Recorder, loosely tied to this because it’s another thing the Law School Admission Council keeps track of, examines the link between a crappy economy and law school popularity.
— Pam Smith
Aside from trends, these stats don't mean much without a comparison against U.S. demographics for the typical first-year law student age group.
Posted by: Greg May | January 12, 2010 at 01:25 PM