Law School Thrives in a Challenging Era

THE CHALLENGE:

Our partnership with Boston College Law School began at a time of daunting challenges for legal education, with the number of matriculating students at American law schools at its modern low and law school graduates confronting a diminished employment environment. BC Law needed to understand how it could position itself to better face those competitive challenges and thrive sustainably in a difficult market.

OUR SOLUTION:

Art & Science Group’s engagement with BC Law revolved around quantitative research with prospective students and qualitative research with legal employers. Among what struck many as counterintuitive conclusions for a prominent law school: While ranking played an important role in shaping the preferences of students considering BC, as it does with virtually all such schools, other aspects of the experience collectively had a greater impact on application and enrollment decisions. Rather than focusing its strategy directly on rankings, BC Law could focus on the specific concerns of a pool of talented prospective students with high expectations for attending a prestigious law school with prominent faculty, a reputation for academic excellence, and outstanding placement opportunities. (Indeed, some attributes many at BC Law thought of as advantages in its positioning were not as attractive to prospective students as assumed.) 

Testing the impact of various potential strategic initiatives, a three-part strategy emerged that could draw even more high-ability students to BC than a rise in rankings could: Shift the balance between excellent academic preparation and a wide range of experiential opportunities, with a particular focus on leveraging partnerships in and around Boston. Refocus placement on the leading legal centers across the country. Play on existing strengths across specialties and local resources to develop a signature program in innovation and entrepreneurship, which stood out in the research as a particularly appealing “steeple” to the highest-performing students. In the few years following our partnership, strong leadership at Boston College Law School and robust engagement with Boston bolstered its competitive position and enrollment substantially, and in ways that incidentally had the added benefit of bringing a significant boost in the School’s ranking.