ABA Journal:  A handful of law schools have announced plans to shrink their incoming classes, leading to speculation about the reasons why.

Is the move designed to better students’ chances of landing a job or to better the schools’ rankings in U.S. News & World Report? Inside Higher Ed points out that law schools with smaller classes can be more selective, admitting students with better credentials and with a greater chance of passing the bar, all factors in the rankings. The pressure to downsize is even greater at a time when law school applications have dropped by about 11 percent.