Over the last three decades law has become a popular study choice in Australia, with the Council of Australian Law Deans saying around 7500 law students graduate annually (although some argue the figure is double that, at 15000).
A recent count of Australia’s legal profession estimated 66,000 solicitors overall, making it too small a sector to absorb all these new graduates each year and leading many people, including the Prime Minister, to comment that a number of them would be better off studying another degree.
Some people note that law has become a new generalist degree, much like an arts degree. In 2018, all Australian universities offer law subjects; although the vast majority through a Bachelor of Laws degree (or LLB) aimed at professional practice.
But this was not always the case.
Why Australia ended up with so many law schools is as much about changing structures of higher education as it is about the popularity of law with students, as we document in our recent paper.
The Australian federal government made dramatic reforms to the university system in 1988, resulting in a significant expansion in the number of universities (through creating new universities from other higher education institutions) and the number of students.
This prompted a rapid growth in both new and established universities offering law degrees.
Dr Gwilym Croucher is an academic at the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education and a Principal Policy Adviser to the Chancellery of the University of Melbourne.