Information about Fall 2024 admissions and other matters reported by American Bar Association-approved law schools to the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is now publicly available.
The information is required to be made public under Standard 509 of the Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools.
The spreadsheets, explanatory information and the ABA's database of Standard 509 reports, as they are known, are available at https://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/.
Some of this information has been collected and summarized on the Section’s website in its Statistics section under the 2024 Standard 509 Data Overview.
The 196 law schools that are approved by the ABA to confer the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree reported a total J.D. enrollment of 115,410 for the Fall 2024 term, a decrease of 1,441 students (1.2%) from 2023.
An additional 23,583 students were enrolled in other than J.D. degree programs (LL.M., masters, and certificate programs). This is an increase of 551 students from 2023 (2.4%).
Together, total law school enrollment for Fall 2024 decreased 890 students (0.64% percent) to 138,993. Law schools reported that 39,689 students began studies in the Fall 2024 FY class (First-Year enrollees) class. This is an increase of 1,803 students (4.76%) from the 2023 reporting cycle.
For the first time this year, law schools provided information regarding which test they accepted for each student admitted.
There were 38,728 students accepted with LSATs, 701 with GREs, 23 with the JD-Next prep course and entrance test, and 237 without a standardized test (a law school may admit up to 10% of an entering class without requiring a standardized test as long as the students meet certain criteria, or under other circumstances if they have obtained permission to do so under a variance).
Women comprise 56.1% of the incoming First-Year class, along with 42% men, 1% another gender identity, and .9% preferred not to respond. The Data Overview includes additional information regarding the demographics of this year’s First-Year enrollees.
Beginning this year, “U.S. Nonresident” is no longer a separate race/ethnicity category. U.S. Nonresidents have been added to the appropriate race/ethnicity and gender categories (including Race Unknown), as reported by the law schools.
“Providing accurate information about law schools to the public, especially prospective students, is one of the Section’s most important responsibilities,” said Jennifer Rosato Perea, managing director of ABA accreditation and legal education. “The collection and analysis of 509 reports – in addition to the bar passage and employment reports -- furthers the Section’s integral roles as an accreditor, educator and leader in legal education.”
The material released today covers admissions, tuition and living costs, financial aid, class and faculty demographics and other areas. The data can be easily searched and sorted, allowing for school-by-school comparisons and analysis and should be useful to prospective law students, pre-law advisors, media outlets and others who study and write about legal education.
Bar passage data for 2024 bar examination outcomes are expected to be released in February 2025. Employment outcomes for the class of 2024 measuring law graduate employment on March 15, 2025 (approximately 10 months after spring graduation), are expected to be released in April 2025.
The Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the national accrediting agency for programs leading to the Juris Doctor degree, or J.D. The Section’s more than 15,000 members strive to improve legal education and lawyer licensing by fostering cooperation among legal educators, practitioners and judges through workshops, conferences and publications. The section and its governing council operate for accreditation purposes as independent arms of the ABA.
