Could now be a good time to go to law school?

Imagine a law school applicant getting accepted to law school and making a counter-offer to the school’s standard tuition. A counter-offer that’s maybe half the rack rate, a counter-offer to pay tuition over the next 10 years interest free, or a counter-offer to pay for two years and get the third for free.

It’s not that far fetched. The Puget Sound Business Journal’s Ben Miller reports that Washington state’s three law schools are scrambling to get law students.

With enrollment down 33%, Seattle University, the state’s largest law school, is looking to open a branch in Alaska (the only state without a law school), the University of Washington is offering in-state tuition to out of state students, and Gonzaga is offering a two year program.

It’s a buyer’s market. At the same time, at least one law professor has predicted that by 2016 the number of law jobs available will exceed the number of new grads.

Perhaps you want to apply to law school, see which ones you get, see what you can get for tuition, and then make the decision whether to go. If you can work part time in the day or evening to support yourself while in school and get a job in the law in 2017, that’s not all bad.

Of course, you’ve got to really want to be a lawyer. Many people do and love the law as a career. If not, certainly head in a different direction.