First-Year Law School Enrollments: Women Outnumber Men in All Racial and Ethnic Groups

The American Bar Association recently released data on enrollments at U.S. law schools. In the fall of 2024, there were just over 115,000 students enrolled in juris doctorate program at law schools in the United States. This was down by 1.2 percent. Enrollments in master’s degree programs stood at 23,583, up 2.4 percent from 2023.

The number of entering first-year students was 39,689, up nearly 5 percent from 2023. Of these, 22,260 were women. Thus,. women made up 56 percent of all entering students at U.S.law schools.

Among first-year law students, women outnumbered men in every racial or ethnic group in 2024. Women made up 53 percent of White first-year enrollments but 69 percent of Black first-year enrollments, For Hispanics, women made up 60 percent of first-year enrollments in U.S. law schools; for Asian American first-year students, women were 62.2 percent of the total enrollments.