Who goes to Law School? Why?

For many years, the number of female law school applicants was on the rise. In the last five years that number has plateaued. Then at last week's Summit in Austin two second tier law school deans mentioned that they received too few female applicants this year to maintain previous gender . This is not a pipeline problem: the majority of college graduates in the last few years have been women. There was speculation that declining applications reflect women's increased interest in business and medicine rather than some problem women have with the legal profession.

Periodically, Kaplan surveys its LSAT-prep clientele. This year's sample of 1,040 students was "about 50/50" male/female respondents, accoridng to Russell Schaffer, Kaplan's Senior Communications Manager. On the face of it that's encouraging - at least half of the folks pursuing LSAT prep courses are women.