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 programs 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 3,060 were Black students. Thus, Black students made up 7.7 percent of all first-year students. In 2023, there were 2,969 entering Black first-year students at U.S. law schools.
Among the 2024 cohort of 3,060 entering Black students, 2,099 were women. Thus, women made up nearly 69 percent of all Black first-year law students. The number of first-year Black women was up 7.4 percent from 2023. For Black men, the number of first-year enrollments were down 6.7 percent.
