Over the past five years, the number of applications to American law schools has dropped over 25 percent nationwide.

High tuition, heavy student debt and a very tough job market in the nation’s biggest cities are factors behind this decline.

In the flurry of negative national publicity around cost and debt, what may be forgotten is how often law is a helping profession.

As my colleague professor Mari Matsuda recently wrote, legal training helps us to "see beyond the horizon" and to do something with "the gift and responsibility of knowledge."

Lawyers fundamentally are problem-solvers, and our world surely seems to have an abundance of problems in need of careful attention. Indeed, one does not have to be a practicing lawyer to grasp that the much-vaunted rule of law is extremely fragile as well as vital to the health of any society.

Law itself is not some heavenly abstraction; it is made by human beings who yearn for a just society. In the United States generally, and even in Hawaii, we remain very far from guaranteeing equal access to justice for all.

Largely because the University of Hawaii’s Richardson Law School stands out in the most recent rankings and surveys for its diversity, its excellent student-faculty ratio and its renowned training in practical skills, its students who become lawyers are hired at a very high rate.

It certainly helps that our tuition is among the lowest in the nation; in fact, a just-released survey announced that Richardson graduates on average incur the third-lowest amount of debt to pay for law school in the entire United States.

In addition, our students are well-trained in matters that stretch beyond Anglo-American common law. Native Hawaiian principles are embedded in Hawaii’s property law and in public access to Hawaii’s beaches, for example. And the unusual expertise of our faculty concerning the law of Asia and the Pacific helps our students gain nuanced understanding of core issues far beyond our shores.

When the late Chief Justice William Richardson and his allies fought for the opening of this law school more than 40 years ago, they emphasized the need to afford opportunity to all people, with an emphasis on Native Hawaiian issues, Asia and the Pacific, the environment and diversity. And they knew that such a school would create a cadre of skilled people able to face future issues with clarity and competence — that is, leaders in all walks of life.

Legal education at any accredited law school opens doors as well as minds. The analytic abilities, writing and verbal skills, and talent in collaborative work that are developed and honed in law school are unique — and uniquely practical in any work or community service.

As part of our small, supportive community, our students also connect with the lawyers and judges downtown and throughout the state, and vice versa.

To graduate, they must do 60 hours of public service under legal supervision, but they also interact directly in other ways in service to their community.

Even if a potential student does not apply to Richardson, there has never been a better time to apply to law school. A strong legal education can help anyone who wants to grapple with complexity and yet still strive to create a better world — and our world certainly needs all such help that it can get.

Avi Soifer is dean of the Univeristy of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law.