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Leveraging Noncognitive Skills to Foster Bar Exam Success: An Analysis of the Efficacy of the Bar Passage Program at FIU Law
No full textWith falling bar exam passage rates, many law schools have implemented bar exam preparation programs but are still struggling to improve bar exam passage rates. The increase in law school matriculants with LSAT scores below 150 had a statistically significant negative correlation with national mean MBE scores, and with the new ABA standard 316 mandating a 75% bar passage rate, law schools are facing mounting pressure to ensure that their graduates are ready and able to pass their bar examination expeditiously or risk losing ABA accreditation.Law schools have been frustrated by the lack of results with their internal bar exam preparation programs. They often struggle to identify why their students continue to fail the bar exam. Not much has been written about the theory, design, implementation, and evaluation of an effective law school bar exam preparation program. This paper will discuss each of those areas with the goal of helping law schools achieve an important milestone: increasing bar passage rates for their students and maintaining ABA accreditation.This paper will discuss what has caused a decrease in bar exam scores nationwide and how the bar preparation program at the FIU College of Law has counteracted declining pass rates. The focus of the bar prep program at FIU will be discussed in detail, so other law schools may utilize those same concepts
Menstruation and the Bar Exam: Unconstitutional Tampon Bans
No full textSome states have policies that prevent bar exam candidates from bringing their own menstrual products to the test. Via social media, awareness of these policies achieved new heights in the weeks leading up to the July 2020 bar exam. While states adopted different approaches to administering the bar exam during the COVID-19 pandemic, a small number of jurisdictions responded to public criticism by permitting test-takers to bring menstrual products with them to exams. Not all states have adopted permissive policies, however. This essay explains why outright bans on menstrual products at the bar exam likely are unconstitutional. So-called alternate policies, such as making menstrual products available in women’s restrooms, are inadequate. Only a “free-carry” policy for menstrual products is consistent with welcoming all qualified candidates to the legal profession, without regard to biology
Diversity and Accessibility in Legal Education: A Framework for Inclusive Program Management
No full textThis article presents a comprehensive framework aimed at enhancing diversity and accessibility within legal education, addressing longstanding barriers faced by underrepresented groups. The framework outlines a multi-dimensional approach for program managers, integrating policy reform, curriculum accessibility, faculty training, and support systems to create an inclusive environment in legal studies. Methodologically, this framework is based on a thorough review of inclusivity best practices in higher education, insights from diversity case studies within legal institutions, and consultations with accessibility experts. Key findings emphasize that policy-driven inclusivity, alongside adaptive curriculum design and strong support systems, can significantly increase representation and improve student satisfaction among marginalized groups. By implementing regular audits and feedback mechanisms, institutions can monitor and refine inclusivity efforts to ensure sustained progress. The implications extend beyond individual institutions, highlighting a necessary shift in legal education towards equitable access and a more representative legal profession. This framework provides a practical and replicable model, promoting diversity as foundational to the evolution of modern legal education
Diploma Privilege and the Constitution
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdowns are affecting every aspect of society. The legal profession and the justice system have been profoundly disrupted at precisely the time when there is an unprecedented need for legal services to deal with a host of legal issues generated by the pandemic, including disaster relief, health law, insurance, labor law, criminal justice, domestic violence, and civil rights. The need for lawyers to address these issues is great but the prospect of licensing new lawyers is challenging due to the serious health consequences of administering the bar examination during the pandemic.
State Supreme Courts are actively considering alternative paths to licensure. One such alternative is the diploma privilege, a path to licensure currently used only in Wisconsin. Wisconsin’s privilege, limited to graduates of its two in-state schools, has triggered constitutional challenges never fully resolved by the lower courts. As states consider emergency diploma privileges to address the pandemic, they will face these unresolved constitutional issues.
This Article explores those constitutional challenges and concludes that a diploma privilege limited to graduates of in-state schools raises serious Dormant Commerce Clause questions that will require the state to tie the privilege to the particular competencies in-state students develop and avenues they have to demonstrate those competencies to the state’s practicing bar over three years. Meeting that standard will be particularly difficult if a state adopts an in-state privilege on an emergency basis. States should consider other options, including privileges that do not prefer in-state schools. The analysis is important both for states considering emergency measures and for those that might restructure their licensing after the pandemic
Building Bridges: How Law Schools Can Better Prepare Students from Historically Underserved Communities to Excel in Law School
No full textOver decades of teaching, we have witnessed many students struggle to navigate law school successfully. And like all law school professors, we must acknowledge that we often don’t know what we don’t know; many students do not reveal the reasons they feel unprepared, overwhelmed, or lost. They may not even know themselves. Our experiences with struggling students made us think long and hard as to how law schools can help students—especially those left underprepared for law school by their formal education and personal experiences—succeed as students and attorneys. While most education literature reports on such students in early-childhood, primary, and secondary education, less attention is devoted to addressing these issues in professional schools such as law school.
Students from historically underserved communities face significant barriers to academic achievement in law school, which ultimately impact their academic and thus professional success. While many law schools have made strides to lower these barriers, much remains to be done. In 1975, only one in four law students were women and fewer than one in ten were members of a “racial minority.” By 2019, 54% of first-year law students were women and 31% of first-year law students were members of a “minority.” Moreover, many law schools now attempt to be “kinder and gentler place(s)” by “humanizing” legal education to help students fear their classmates and classes less.
Despite these strides, students continue to struggle in the law school environment. Although no single characteristic defines those students who may need more assistance than their classmates, terms such as at-risk, vulnerabledisenfranchised, and disadvantaged predominate the literature. These terms are problematic, as they grossly generalize and stigmatize students. Using these adjectives mistakenly overemphasizes common situations instead of focusing on the students themselves. Thus, this article discusses the needs of law students whose circumstances—including but not limited to economic status, race, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or educational background—disadvantage them in relation to their classmates whose privileged environment better prepared them for law school.
This article first discusses factors that affect academic performance at law school. Second, it illustrates prelaw school and law school programs that target the needs of students from historically underserved communities. Finally, this article proposes ways law school faculty and administration can help these students succeed in law school and in their careers
A Five-Year Retroactive Analysis of Cut Score Impact: California’s Proposed Supervised Provisional License Program
Get PDFA five-year cohort of 39,737 examinees who sat for the California Bar Exam (“CBX”) between 2014-18 was analyzed using a simulation model based on actual exam results to evaluate how the minimum passing scores (“cut score”) of 1440, 1390, 1350, 1330, and 1300, if used as qualifying scores for a provisional licensing program, would affect the number of previous examinees, by race and ethnicity, who would qualify to participate within retroactive groupings of five-year, four-year, three-year, two-year, and one-year examinee cohorts.The result of the simulation models indicated that selecting a qualifying score lower than the current California cut score of 1390 will significantly increase both the overall number of eligible participants and the diversity of the group eligible to participate in the proposed alternate licensing program.This study follows an initial study of 85,727 examinees of the CBX from 2009-18 titled, Examining the California Cut Score: An Empirical Analysis of Minimum Competency, Public Protection, Disparate Impact, and National Standards that determined maintaining a high cut score does not result in greater public protection as measured by disciplinary statistics, but does result in excluding minorities from admission to the bar and the practice of law at rates disproportionately higher than Whites
Assessing the Experiential (R)evolution
No full textFor more than a century, law schools have resisted substantial reforms relating to experiential education. Yet, in 2014, the ABA mandated a six-credit experiential course graduation requirement for law schools, alongside a packet of experiential curriculum amendments. Proponents of experiential education had hoped for a fifteen-credit mandate, aligning law schools with other professional schools that require one-quarter to one-third skills training. Still, six credits is significant, potentially marking a striking shift in the direction of legal education. To date, no one—including the ABA—has broadly evaluated the post-mandate legal education experiential landscape. It is particularly urgent to consider recent shifts in legal education as law schools grapple with new paths forward in the backdrop of a global pandemic and calls to meaningfully address systemic racism in legal education.In 2018–2019, the first classes of law students graduated under the revised ABA Standards, and the authors conducted a national survey of ABA-accredited law schools, receiving responses from 126 institutions. Data collected from this survey informed our study, which is the first systematic, empirical investigation into the experiential landscape shift since the revised Standards were adopted. Our analysis reveals a proliferation of deans and directors of experiential education, continued growth in experiential curricula, including among experiential courses in the first-year curriculum, and experimentation with new pedagogical approaches. Hybrid experiential courses termed “labs” and “practicums” have expanded as well. These trends of expansion and experimentation suggest law schools individually and collectively should enter into a period of assessment. Institutions should take stock of their existing programming to ensure they have engaged in responsive and responsible growth. These assessments should also consider whether the institutions have promoted sustainability for and diversity within their experiential faculty, programs, deans, and directors. Particularly, in the context of looming financial concerns, an ever-changing legal market, and an evolving profile of law students, schools should resist efforts to shortchange experiential programs; overstretch experiential deans, directors, and faculty; give short shrift to diversity and equity concerns; and relax rigorous standards for experiential education
The Value of Legal Education as a Continuum of Personal & Collective Gains: Insight from Administrators & Latinx Students Across Differently-Ranked Law Schools
No full textIn this paper, we focus on Latinx law students’ valuation of their legal education across differently-ranked institutions to understand how law students navigate the uneasy waters of a deeply hierarchical field that also verbalizes a commitment to ethnoracial equity. Drawing from 96 interviews with law students as administrators from eight different institutions, we find that administrators and students within higher-ranked institutions express distinct patterns of valuation than their counterparts at lower ranked institutions. For those at lower-ranked institutions, their valuation of their education is contingent on their prospective goals to serve their local communities. In contrast, students at higher-ranked institutions rely on rankings to articulate prospects of a prestigious future. Across all tiers, however, we show the significant toll that narrowly normative accounts of value propositions have for both students and administrators
Diversity and Inclusion in the American Legal Profession: Workplace Accommodations for Lawyers with Disabilities and Lawyers Who Identify as LGBTQ+
No full textPurpose: Workplace accommodations, vital for employees with disabilities, promote diversity and inclusion efforts in organizations. This article examines who requests accommodations and who is more likely to have requests granted. We investigate the roles of individual characteristics and their intersection, including disability, sexual orientation, gender, race/ethnicity, and age.
Methods: Using data from a national survey of U.S. lawyers, we estimate the odds of requesting accommodations and having the requests approved. We also estimate differences in odds according to individual characteristics, adjusting for control variables.
Results: Personal identity factors, such as disability status, gender, and age, predict requests for accommodations. Odds of requesting accommodations were higher for women and people with disabilities as compared to men and those without disabilities, but lower for older individuals. Odds of requesting accommodations were higher for an older population segment—older lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) lawyers—than for younger lawyers. Accommodations were granted differentially to individuals with multiple marginalized identities. Counter to predictions, being a person with a disability is negatively associated with having an accommodation granted. Older lawyers generally have higher odds of having accommodations granted, but odds for groups such as women and racial/ethnic minorities decline with age. LGBQ lawyers who are racial minorities have lower odds than White LGBQ lawyers of having their accommodations granted. Longer tenure increases the odds of requesting accommodations. Working for a private organization decreases the odds; working for a large organization generally increases the odds.
Conclusions: Those most needing accommodations, such as lawyers with disabilities and women, are more likely to request accommodations. Disabled lawyers, older women lawyers, older racial/ethnic minority lawyers, and LGBQ minority lawyers have relatively low odds of having requests granted. The results highlight the need to consider intersectional identities in the accommodation process
2020 AccessLex Legal Education Research Symposium Presentations
No full textPanel 1: Research and Dissertation Fellows Discussion Nicholas A. Bowman, University of Iowa, Promoting the Representation and Success of Students from Minoritized Racial Groups at U.S. Law Schools Willis A. Jones, University of South Florida, Examining the Determination, Consistency, and Variation of Law School Cost of Living Estimations Kelly Rosinger, Penn State University, Exploring the Impact of Test-Flexible Admissions on Law School Diversity and Selectivity Krista M. Soria, University of Minnesota, The Role of Financial Factors in Graduate, Professional, and Law Students’ Mental Health, Time to Degree, and Career Interests
Panel 2: Empirical Insights on Academic and Bar Exam Performance Jessica D. Findley, University of Arizona College of Law John Mayer, CALI Jason Scott, AccessLex Institute Derek T. Muller, University of Iowa College of Law Christopher J. Ryan, Jr., Roger Williams University School of Law
Panel 3: Expanding Support for Underrepresented Populations Elaine Chiu, St. John\u27s University School of Law Kamille Dean, St. John\u27s University School of Law Jessica D. Findley, University of Arizona College of Law Elizabeth Mertz, University of Wisconsin Law School Aida Vernon, St. John\u27s University School of Law
Panel 4: Discussion with the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project Meera E. Deo, Thomas Jefferson School of Law Danielle M. Conway, Penn State Dickinson Law Danielle Holley-Walker, Howard University School of Law Kimberly Mutcherson, Rutgers University Law School Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Boston University School of Law Carla D. Pratt, Washburn University School of La