AccessLex Resource Collections (AccessLex Institute)
Not a member yet
537 research outputs found
Sort by
Integrating Performance Tests into Doctrinal Courses, Skills Courses, and Institutional Benchmark Testing: A Simple Way to Enhance Student Engagement While Furthering Assessment, Bar Passage, and Other ABA Accreditation Objectives
No full textThis article explores ways to weave performance tests into the law school curriculum to enhance student engagement and active learning, and to further ABA-mandated assessment and accreditation objectives. Some options include using them as discrete simulation exercises in doctrinal courses, as content for certain dedicated skills courses, or as possible institutional benchmark testing. Section II provides an overview of PTs, suggesting how they can be effective teaching tools. Section III demonstrates how integrating PTs into the law school curriculum, at both the course and institutional levels, may help law schools comply with numerous ABA Standards, including those regarding assessment and bar passage — without undue time or costs. Lastly, Section IV of this article exposes and addresses certain objections to the use of performance tests in law schools
Foreword: Diversity in the Legal Academy After Fisher II
No full textThis foreword provides a summary and lessons learned from the symposium, entitled Diversity in the Legal Academy After Fisher II. The purpose of the symposium was to take stock of diversity in the legal academy and examine the barriers that impede law schools\u27 efforts to achieve diversity in their student bodies and faculties
Graduate and Professional School Debt: How Much Students Borrow
Get PDFThere is wide variation in how students cover tuition and living expenses while they pursue graduate and professional degrees. Most research doctoral degree students attending public and private nonprofit schools benefit from generous institutional fellowships and assistant ships that cover a significant portion of their expenses. But master’s degree students in all sectors cover most of their expenses with earnings from employment and federal student loans. Borrowing is particularly important for professional degree students, most of whom have neither earnings from employment during the academic year nor grants and fellowships to cover tuition and living expenses while they are enrolled. This brief reviews borrowing patterns and trends among advanced degree students, disaggregating by demographic characteristics as well as type of program and institutional sector
Federal Investment
No full textLaw students borrow from the U.S. Department of Education Direct Loan Program for school. These loans are income-generating assets for the government. The government is investing in not only law students, who will repay loans (in theory) with interest, but also law schools. Some (or many) law schools would close without federal investment because schools depend on tuition revenue to stay open and students depend on federal student loans to pay tuition and cover living expenses. Federal student loan policy dictates that the government will lend the full cost of attendance to anyone who attends an ABA-approved law school. If the government changes this lending policy, for example by limiting or eliminating Graduate Plus loans, private lenders may fill some of the lending market, though presumably not all of it.
School-specific borrowing data come from U.S. News & World Report, which relies on data reported to U.S. News by law schools. In a few cases over the years, law schools did not report the percentage borrowing properly. When that occurs, the previous year\u27s rate is used unless a school reports the correct rate to Law School Transparency or a better estimate can be generated. Graduate data come from the American Bar Association.
To calculate the amount cumulatively borrowed by law school graduates from a law school, LST multiplied the number of graduates times the percentage of those graduates borrowing loans that were processed by the school. LST rounded that number to the nearest whole graduate and multiplied it times the average amount borrowed for that school. The federal government investment figures do not include students who never graduated and those enrolled in non-J.D. programs. The adjusted federal investment figures apply group averages to the schools with unknown borrowing data. LST uses weighted averages rather than normal averages for the group and nationwide averages
Test Validity: Faster is Not Necessarily Better
No full textThis article argues that we should change the default rule for standardized testing: Test developers should not be allowed to implement speeded exams that adversely impact individuals with disabilities unless they can validate the time limits. Applying principles developed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the Americans with Disabilities Act, test developers should need to demonstrate that a speeded, standardized exam is a valid predictor of the desired skills and abilities, and that no less-impactful alternative, such as a non-speeded exam, is available to measure those skills and abilities. The shifting of the default rule to non-speeded exams would mark the implementation of a new universal design principle that would make standardized testing more equitable for a range of people, including racial minorities, women, people with low socio-economic status, older applicants, and individuals with disabilities. Testing entities should devise non-speeded exams that can validly measure the skills and abilities of the entire applicant pool rather than continue to place the burden on people with disabilities to meet onerous and expensive standards to request extended time. This solution is novel, simple and fair
Predicting Law School Enrollment: The Strategic Use of Financial Aid to Craft a Class
No full textIn this study, we explore what factors predict student decisions to enroll at law schools and how the probability of enrollment varies across students with various profiles and conditions. To find the predictors of enrollment and differences in the probability of enrollment across groups, we employ a logistic regression model using the institutional data obtained from one of the top-ranked law schools in the nation. After estimating the logistic regression model, the probabilities of enrollment are calculated for students with specific profiles and conditions based on the coefficients generated by the logistic regression analysis. The findings reveal many factors that are associated with the probability of enrollment at this law school. Particularly, students with higher academic qualifications, underrepresented minority status, the most selective undergraduate school, STEM background, and previous applicant status have a lower probability of enrollment compared to their respective counterparts. Simulation analysis findings show that the increase in financial aid does not increase the probability of enrollment for URM students and that out-of-state and international students are more sensitive to financial aid increases than in-state students. Admissions and enrollment management offices at individual institutions could apply this exercise with their own data to understand who is more or less likely to enroll and how their students with various profiles respond differently to various financial aid offers and recruitment efforts. It is our hope that this article is used as an example to other law schools to leverage their institutional data to create enrollment models that will help make more effective admission decision making
Priming the Pump: How Pipeline Programs Seek to Enhance Legal Education Diversity
Get PDFAccessLex Institute has developed this research brief to provide an overview of legal education pipeline programs in the U.S. – the channel by which we, as stakeholders in legal education, can improve access to law school. The prevalence of these programs and their components are discussed in detail. The brief also takes preliminary steps towards assessing their impact and effectiveness. The immediate goal is to provide useful information to aspiring students, their advisors, and others concerned about legal education diversity. The ultimate goals for future research are to identify components shared by the most effective and impactful pipeline programs, and to encourage other programs to adopt those best practices
The Culturally Proficient Law Professor: Beginning the Journey
No full textBoles argues that for legal education to be inclusive we need culturally proficient instruction. Culturally proficient instruction will have powerful implications for legal education. Law professions should use culturally proficient instruction to; deconstruct the culture of marginalization in law schools and reconstruct a culture of racial inclusion, redistribute responsibility among all law faculty and not just faculty of color, empower professors to teach cultural proficiency throughout the curriculum and law students to learn skills they will engage with their future clients. Three strategies for law faculty are seeking training in cultural proficiency, mitigating unconscious behaviors, and recognizing and reducing microaggressions
Defining Access: How Test-Optional Works
No full textThe number of colleges using Test Optional Policies (TOPs) in higher education admissions has dramatically expanded in recent years. And these colleges have avoided “one-size-fits-all,” finding varied ways to administer TOPs and experiencing varied outcomes. Much of the momentum around Test-Optional admission is focused on whether the use of standardized tests (specifically SAT and ACT) unnecessarily truncates the admission of otherwise well-qualified students. In particular, there is concern about whether widespread reliance on the use of these tests in the admission process tends to replicate the status quo in social class and opportunity in our American society
Performance Changes on the California Bar Examination: Part 2
No full textPassage rates on the California Bar Exam (CBX) have declined steadily over the past decade. A 2017 study (Bolus, 2017) found that between 2008 and 2016, the percentage passing the exam declined from 62% to 44% - a drop of 18 percentage points. The reasons for the decline have been subject to extensive debate. Some stakeholders have attributed the decline to changes in the examination itself, others have argued that changes in the qualifications and credentials of bar examinees may have contributed. Still others have suggested that additional factors explaining this decrease in pass rates may include changes in law school curriculums, or shifts in undergraduate educational practices or technology.
The current study was designed to examine some of these hypotheses, including those associated with changes in law school attendee credentials. Though the study does provide some data on whether course choices (e.g., bar courses vs. skills courses and externships) affects pass rates, a primary purpose was to test the widely shared hypotheses that the quality of students, as measured by LSAT scores, undergraduate GPAs, and performance while in law school has changed over the years and that this change has accounted for much of the decline in performance on the CBX