Nonelite law schools face an existential threat due to market-based disruptions, write Michele Pistone and Michael Horn, who describe innovations that can help.

The current existential threat to many law schools represents the canary in the coal mine for higher education.

Law schools have typically long enjoyed budget surpluses, and the universities in which they sit have benefited. But over the last few years, the financial situation of most law schools hasreversed. Facing multiple years of declining enrollment and public support, alongside increasing costs and tuition discounting, law schools often are no longer a source of surplus revenue. Many law schools now are relying on financial support from their universities to stay afloat. This reversal is a harbinger for the rest of higher education, which is beginning to face some of the same challenges.