For the first time in years, the median LSAT score at GW Law School declined.

Here’s a prediction: The change won’t matter. It dropped only from 167 to 165 – a small sacrifice in order to enroll a larger class. Our ranking won’t plummet. The quality of the school is still the same.

But given the heavy load of challenges on legal education, everyone who cares about the school should hope that the lack of a numbers crisis does not throw the college into complacency.

Remember, the difference between a 167 and 165 on the LSAT is the difference of getting about two to three problems right on a standardized test. But the administration must not become satisfied, emboldened by this year’s favorable enrollment statistics.

The problem is that the economics of the legal profession are changing. There’s a growing fear that while law is a noble profession, it might not be worth the heavy up-front costs of three years of time, money and lost alternative opportunities.

This creates tough times for law schools ­– nationwide 2012 first-year enrollment was down 8.5 percent – and GW’s stats are going to remain volatile.

Many of these issues are currently under discussion by faculty and administrators at the school as part of a strategic planning process. But what the law school needs are more frequent, more public, and more reflective discussions about the future of the legal profession.

I want to hear how the law school will innovate and meet a changing marketplace.

The fundamentals are there. The school maintains a strong faculty, opened a new Law Learning Center in August and continues to pour $2 million into a program that helps students find a career and give them some cash to get off their feet if they don’t have a job by graduation.

Fluctuation in the LSAT score – typically the most important component of a law school application – won’t change the law school’s stature. It will be just like last year, when the school maintained a high ranking on U.S. News & World Report’s annual listing despite an unusually low 3.6 median GPA.

The average GPA increased this year back into the 3.7 range, by the way. A median of 3.71 isn’t the 3.79 that the school publicly touted as its highest median GPA ever back in 2010, but it’s a pretty impressive A/A- average.

But without pressure to face the market head on, will the law school become complacent? How will it aim to get ahead?

I wanted to ask this questions to interim Dean Gregory Maggs, but he declined an interview through a law school press aide.

Instead, I looked to a past incident, the 2009 decision to decrease evening student enrollment after the school dropped to 28th in the U.S. News ranking. The school has traditionally held a top 20 spot in recent years.

At the time, Maggs told The Hatchet: “The thing that I’m worried about most is the current college seniors who are thinking about where to apply. We might be off their radar screen…”

Maggs understands completely the law school admissions game. He wasn’t about to let GW relax standards in order to admit more students one year to the detriment of the next. He’s a tenured, senior faculty member with a stake in the long-term viability of the school. He used that experience this year when he helped pull in a larger first-year class that maintained relatively solid academic credentials.

But the test over the next five years for GW Law and law schools around the country is going to be difficult. Institutional reputation is at stake. The law school can’t just dig in and stand its ground.

The writer, a second-year student in the law school, is a Hatchet columnist.