Rise in HLS Applications Follows National Trend

As students across the country applied to law schools in record numbers, the Harvard Law School this year received the highest number of applications since 1982, law school admissions officers said yesterday.

Nearly 7000 students applied to the Harvard Law School this year, up from 5900 last year, according to N. June Thompson, director of placement and assistant director of admissions. This year's tally marks the highest number of applicants since 1982, when 7500 applied, she said.

The news is similar at other law schools. "Everybody's up, good schools, bad schools, public institutions and private institutions," said Margery Savoye, Stanford Law School's assistant director of admissions.

Officials at law schools nationwide contacted yesterday attributed the increased interest to a variety of factors, ranging from events in the financial and political world to television programing.

"One possible guess is that the investment banking world does not look as attractive as the year before," said Harvard Law School Dean James Vorenberg '49. "Perhaps the possibility of being a lawyer for the government looks like a more interesting possibility. Some people say it is because of [the television show] L. A. Law. The honest answer at the moment is that we don't know."

Savoye attributed the application increase at Stanford to "three things: L. A. Law, [the Wall St. Crash on] October 19, and all of the interest in the Bork and Ginsburg trials."

But Richard I. Badger, assistant dean and dean of students at the university of Chicago Law School, said "no one is in a position to draw a causal relationship. There's no way to know."

Some law schools are not only receiving more applications but are also seeing candidates with higher board scores.

Badger, who directs admissions for the University of Chicago Law School, said that this year's U. Chicago applicants had done significantly better on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) than the 1987 candidates.

"The number of people with 42 or above on the [LSAT] test had increased 32 percent for us," Badger said. The LSAT is scored on a scale of 1 to 48.

However, Thompson said that Harvard applicants did not show a similar rise in test scores. "I don't think the pool has increased across the top. I think it's just increased across the board," she said.

The growing interest in Harvard Law School comes at a time when some Law School professors and students have been predicted that recentnegative publicity would result in fewerapplications. Supporters of Assistant Professor ofLaw Clare Dalton said that the University's recentdecision to deny her tenure would cause a drop inthe number of applicants.

However Professor of Law David W. Kennedy, aDalton supporter, said yesterday that sincePresident Bok handed down his final decision onlylast month it was too early see the impact of thecase.

"I don't really know," Kennedy said. "TheDalton case just happened, so I don't see how itwould have any effect."

Thompson said she thought controversy from theDalton case probably would not affect admissionsat all. If the case has in any impact, she said,it would more reduce the yield rate rather thanthe application rate. "I think students here seethe controversy as fairly healthy, even if theydon't see the decision as healthy," Thompson said.

The Law School generally accepts about 800students in effort to generate a first year classof 540 students, Thompson said