'Trump bump,' iffy economy cited for huge law school application spike: Experts

The number of applicants applying to law schools in the United States has increased dramatically in 2025 compared to last year and some experts believe an easier entrance exam, the soft economy and what they describe as a "Trump bump" are factors fueling the spike.

According to the Law School Admission Council, the number of applicants for law school has jumped more than 20% from 2024.

What's behind the spike?

"I don't think anyone actually knows definitively because I think there's probably multiple factors at play," Anna Ivey, a college and law school admissions consultant, told ABC News.

Ivey said the last time there was such a large increase in the number of law school applicants was during President Donald Trump's first term in the White House.

"We called that the 'Trump bump.' There were a lot of people who thought it was a good time to flock to law school. Anecdotally, I can say there were certainly some portion of law school applicants who were motivated because of what they were perceiving happening in the administration," Ivey said. "I suspect we're having another 'Trump bump.' Now that he's back in office, I would not be surprised if that's happening at scale."

Ivey said the mass layoffs at federal government agencies may have prompted many of the fired workers to go to law school.

"This administration is perhaps contributing more than the previous Trump administration because of all of those mass layoffs in the greater D.C. area -- all those mass layoffs of very capable civil servants," Ivey said.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that applicants to the nation's nearly 200 law schools are up 20.5% compared with last year. The newspaper reported that Georgetown University Law Center received 14,000 applications to fill 650 spots, while the University of Michigan Law School received the most applications in its 166-year history.

Ann Levine, a law school admissions consultant who worked for 25 years as a law school admissions director, said she believes the boost in applicants is related more to what the climate is on college campuses than a "Trump bump."

"What I'm seeing in my work with students is more related to the insecurities they feel on campus and also just the state of the world in terms of what their prospects are financially with jobs," Levine told ABC News. "I think that getting a traditional job with benefits and a good salary has kind of fallen away. These are kids who have grown up with the gig economy, these are kids who were in high school and college during COVID, mostly high school. So their formative years have been very insecure."

Both Levine and Ivey said changes to the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) over the past five years are also a factor in the increase in applications.

Ivey said the elimination of the LSAT logic games section helped increase scores. But Levine said the biggest changes in the LSAT were increasing the number of times a would-be legal scholar can take the test from three to five times in an admissions cycle.

"That has a ripple effect for everyone applying to law school, and that has a ripple effect for not just the top schools but for the whole food chain and for the whole ecosystem of law schools," Ivey said.

Levine said another significant change in the LSAT is allowing people to take the test digitally instead of in person. She also noted that the LSAT allows far more accommodations for students with disabilities.

"You have a huge number of people getting more time to do the LSAT," Levine said. "This used to be a very time-constrained test. And now you have more and more people getting double time, extended time, time and a half, more breaks. There are all kinds of things you can ask for that help them improve their scores."

But the increase in applicants is making it harder for students to get accepted to law school, Ivey said.

"It's not a great time to be an applicant, unfortunately," she said.