It has become trendy to proclaim the demise of law schools and predict a bleak forecast for aspiring lawyers. An Emory University law professor recently warned that “law schools are in a death spiral” and national headlines suggest recent graduates face an abysmal job market.

These dire predictions are exaggerated and obscure the real but solvable challenges facing legal educators.

First, let's dispense with the “death spiral” argument. It is true that ever since the Great Recession, many law school graduates have struggled mightily to find employment. Commentators look at this fact and draw the conclusion that the legal market has shrunk. That conclusion is demonstrably wrong. The total number of lawyer jobs in the U.S. today is about 9 percent higher than before the recession, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, even without jobs like corporate compliance where a legal degree is preferred but not required.