Japan Legal Education: “Meiji Gakuin planning to close law school in 5 years”
Meiji Gakuin University will be shuttering soon and it will accept its last students in the 2013 academic, according to Daily Yomiuri Online:
“Minato Ward, Tokyo-based Meiji Gakuin has seen a drastic decline in law school applicants. It accepted only five students for this academic year, although there were places for 40 students.
Meiji Gakuin Law School will become the third law school to stop accepting new students.
The decision to close its law school comes against the background of the low number of students passing the new national bar exam, observers said.
Current law schools were only established in 2004. Before that aspiring lawyers were taught in university law departments, graduate schools and preparatory schools for the bar exam, for instance.
A Meiji Gakuin official said the university decided to close its law school because it did not expect an increase in applicants and would not be able to provide an effective education if the situation did not improve.
According to the university, 58 students from its law school have passed the bar exam since the establishment of the law school, with fewer than 10 passing the exam annually in the past three years.
Last year, only five of 112 Meiji Gakuin Law Schools graduates passed the exam, a pass rate of 4 percent.”
Not exactly a place one would want to be starting their law studies right now, and it shows that the somewhat dire situation at U.S. law schools is becoming more global. Too many lawyers, not enough good jobs. Many have been calling for the closing of lower tier law schools for years, but they still make money and therefore will remain opan as long as they can. But how long is that at this rate?
