Chris Batz, Owner of The Lion Group – A member of the Sanford Rose Associates® network of offices, Featured in Legal Management, Giving Back to the Future

Plano, TX 1/28/2020

By: Erin Brereton

Some industry members are trying to convince young adults to consider a legal career — and finding it can have an unexpected effect on fulfilling staffing and other needs.

After 14 years of approximately 40,000 to 44,000 new students enrolling each year, the number of prospective industry members entering U.S. law schools spiked to more than 52,000 in 2010 — and then promptly declined by more than 4,000 in 2011 and kept falling until 2016, when enrollment marginally increased by just nine students, according to the nonprofit Law School Transparency organization’s analysis of ABA data. Although the numbers have continued to rise incrementally since, in 2018, 38,392 first-year students started law school, which is still fewer than a decade ago.

As a result of recent declines, there’s currently an emphasis on increasing diversity within the profession, according to Chris Batz, Owner and Recruiting Manager at the Lion Group LLC legal recruiting firm.“ Six years ago, there definitely was a concern and a real drop in enrollment in law schools,” Batz says. “It’s behooves the law schools to [recruit more industry members]. They’re hearing from firms, ‘We need more women, more diversity and multicultural JDs coming from law school.’”

Read full article here: https://www.legalmanagement.org/2020/january/features/giving-back-to-the-future