The Gender Gap in First-Year Enrollments at U.S. Law Schools

The American Bar Association recently released data on enrollments in juris doctorate programs at ABA-approved law school in the United States. The data is broken down by gender.

In the fall of 2018, 38,390 students began study at U.S. law schools. Of these, 20,366, or 53.1 percent, are women. The Georgetown University Law Center in Washington. D.C., has 340 women in its entering class, the largest number in the country. Women make up 58.5 percent of the entering class.The only other law school that has more than 300 women in its entering class is at Western Michigan University. There, women make up nearly 60 percent of the entering class.

There are several law schools where women make up a large majority of the students in the 2018 entering class. Among the law schools where women make up at least 62 percent of the first-year students are North Carolina Central University, Boston University, New England Law School, St. Thomas University in Florida, and the University of Toledo.

On the other end of the spectrum. women are only 40 percent of the students in the entering class at the University of Utah and 42.1 percent of the first-year class at the University of Mississippi.