At one point in time, law was lucrative, and there were not enough lawyers. Schools responded by growing in size and in tuition. Students could justify the loans because there was a high chance that the "investment" would pay off.
Fast forward a few decades and law as an industry is contracting. Since the profession is not as lucrative, if you follow the chain, then schools should have contracted in response, minting fewer lawyers. But they can't easily adjust when they've built a bureaucracy and dramatically increased the number of tenured faculty. That lead to them misleading applicants by not having transparency with their true employment numbers. For a while, students were duped. But at this point, the cat is largely out of the bag. Applicants numbers are down, and the demise of debt-burdened law grads have hit national headlines numerous times over the last 5 or so years. So now, in uncoordinated fashion, schools must adjust and finally down size. Too bad students were caught in the crossfire for many years before the flares went up.