Welcome back to Ahead of the Curve. I'm Karen Sloan, legal education editor at Law.com, and I'll be your host for this weekly look at innovation and notable developments in legal education.

This week I'm chatting with Fordham Law dean Mathew Diller about the slowdown in foreign attorneys who want to come to the U.S. to get an LL.M., and what's contributing to that decline. Next up is a look at how Ave Maria School of Law has established a niche as a veteran-focused law campus. Read on!

Please share your thoughts and feedback with me at [email protected] or on Twitter: @KarenSloanNLJ

Whither the Foreign LL.M. Students?

Recent headlines paint a troubling picture of the United States' status as an international mecca of higher education. The number of foreign students applying to graduate programs in the U.S. fell 4 percent for the fall of 2018—the second straight year of decline. 

That got me thinking about law schools and whether they, too, are seeing international students apply in lower numbers. That's an important question given that many law schools added or expanded their LL.M. programs for foreign attorneys as a way to generate much-needed revenue when their J.D. enrollments shrunk in recent years. Those programs are key to sustaining law school budgets.

In a bid for clarity, I rang up Matthew Diller, dean at Fordham University School of Law. He cautioned that he doesn't have national statistics on applications and enrollment of foreign students, but his anecdotal evidence points to a slowdown in the number of international students trying to come to the U.S. in the past two years.

“It feels to me like a more competitive market for strong international students among law schools,” he told me. “Our applications are probably flat or slightly down. They are certainly not growing.”

So what's going on? Diller suspects it's the result of a number of factors. Among them:

➤➤U.S. law schools are facing more competition from schools in other common law countries, namely Australia and the United Kingdom. Australia, for example, is a less expensive and closer alternative for students from Asia, while the U.K. is an easier option for European students.

➤➤The political climate in the U.S. is prompting more questions and concerns from potential foreign LL.M. students about how they will be treated here. Those questions rarely arose prior to the Trump administration, Diller told me. (I wrote a story about this phenomenon back in 2017.)

➤➤Foreign LL.M. students face more hurdles now in obtaining student visas, which Diller said may be the single biggest factor driving down international applications. He told me it's not unusual for Fordham's LL.M. students to have their visas issued right before the semester begins, or even during orientation.

➤➤The declining approval rate of H1B visas are also discouraging foreign attorneys who enroll in LL.M. programs in the hopes of remaining in the U.S. after graduation. Companies are increasingly less willing to shoulder the costs of those employer-sponsored visa at a time when fewer and fewer get approved, Diller told me.

Those all make sense to me. And then there is the fact that so many more U.S. law schools now offer LL.M.s for foreign attorneys, compared with a decade ago. That means domestic schools are competing more fiercely amongst themselves. To that end, Fordham began offering scholarships to attract top foreign candidates—something it didn't need to do until a few years ago. (Diller noted that other law schools started giving foreign LL.M. student scholarships before Fordham did.)

Here's what we don't know: The number of foreign law students who are currently enrolled at U.S. law schools and how that has changed over time. The American Bar Association reports the number of non-J.D. students enrolled at schools annually, which has grown steadily since 1998. More than 14 percent of all law students are now in non-J.D. programs, the ABA's numbers show. But that figure combines foreign and domestic LL.M. students, as well as students in other masters and specialty programs.

My Thoughts: The pool of foreign LL.M. applicants is an important issue for U.S. legal education. Those students were once something of a cash cow for law schools, helping subsidize their J.D. programs and keep the lights on. They still are on many campuses, but it seems clear that law schools can no longer count on those students to keep coming in droves—or at least in higher numbers. The availability of scholarships for top LL.M. candidates is already chipping away at the profitability of those programs, and a major decline in the applicant pool could become a real headache for schools. We're not there yet, though.

Here's Diller: “From the economics side, I don't think law schools can continue to count on international students as being a major way of either growing as institutions or as replacing J.D. students,” he said. “I don't want to make it sound like these programs aren't doing well, because they are. It's just that if you view these programs as the answer to the problems of U.S. legal education, they are not that.”

On a final note, I highly recommend this New York Times story from last summer about Fordham Law's most famous LL.M. student. (Hint, he's “betrothed” to a member of Japan's royal family. Just don't say they're “engaged!”)

Ave Maria's Veterans Niche 

Last week brought news that Ave Maria School of Law had received a $1 million donation from a pair of Naples, Fla., residents to establish a scholarship fund for military veterans who enroll at the school. Hence, it's a good time to highlight what I think is Ave Maria's success in establishing a niche for itself in a state that's crowded with law school competition. (Florida is home to 12 ABA-accredited law.)

In this case, Ave Maria has really separated itself from the Florida pack in two ways. First, it is a firmly Catholic institution as opposed to, say, a school that is part of a Catholic university but does not place religion front and center. Let's not forget that it was established by Domino's Pizza founder and Catholic philanthropist Tom Monaghan. 

But in addition to that, Ave Maria has really leaned into the veterans space. The school's dean Kevin Cieply, is a former Army JAG, as are two other members of the faculty. (Monaghan is also a Marine veteran.) The school participates in the Yellow Ribbon program, which helps military veterans pay for higher education costs not covered by the GI Bill. The combined programs make it possible for veterans to attend at “little to no cost”according to the school. Moreover, Ave Maria's law library is named Veterans Memorial Law Library and it houses a veteran's resource center. There is even designated veterans parking around campus, and Ave Maria has a student veterans group.

I don't want to give the impression that Ave Maria is the only law school with initiatives for student veterans. In fact,the University of Georgia last month unveiled a new scholarship fund for students who served in the military. But I do think Ave Maria has been effective in placing veterans front and center, and it's a useful example of how non-elite schools can find their niche.

Extra Credit Reading 

Check out the first 10 schools on Law.com's annual Go-To Law Schools Big Law Hiring report. The full list publishes Friday.

Florida Coastal School of Law has dropped its accreditation lawsuit against the American Bar Association, leaving just one of four similar suits pending in the courts.

About 40,000 people per month are using Khan Academy's free online LSAT prep programs. The program, which is a collaboration between Khan Academy and the Law School Admission Council, debuted last June.

A former University of Texas law student last week was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for cyberstalking and harassing a Georgetown Law alumni with whom he interviewed for admission. (The cyber stalker did not get into the Washington school.)

A half dozen students in Yale Law School's Rule of Law Clinic helped prepare a joint declaration opposing President Trump's national emergency declaration on the Mexico border that was signed by 60 former national security experts.

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I'll be back next week with more news and updates on the future of legal education. Until then, keep in touch at [email protected]