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Three Nudges That Translate Into Hiring More Women
No full textSometimes, the expected and inevitable can stall; occasionally, they fail to show up altogether. From time to time, the bright flash of lightning does not yield the slightest thunder, no matter how long we wait or count. Several years ago, we embraced one such inevitability: That the uptick in women graduating from law school, given time, would eventually repair the gender gap at all levels of law firms, from new hires to partners. We\u27ve waiting and counted, but the inevitable outcome continues to elude the profession. Nudges can help in designing a consistent hiring process, one that features well-defined decision points, allows firms to achieve the goal that has eluded them: recruiting more female lateral talents
Beyond the ‘Resiliency’ and ‘Grit’ Narrative in Legal Education: Race, Class, and Gender Considerations
No full textThe narrative on modifying legal education to produce entrepreneurial students with resiliency and “grit,” however, often has a troubling class and race-regarding dimension. This Essay argues that the “grit” reform initiative has the potential to rationalize future disparities, by shifting the focus from responding to the continuing impact of poverty and identity bias on student outcomes to bolstering individual character traits and resiliency
Assessing the Viability of Race-Neutral Alternatives in Law School Admissions
No full textOver the past several years, law schools have experienced many challenges stemming from declines in student enrollment due to a shrinking applicant pool. The declining number of applicants is particularly problematic for law schools seeking to educate students in racially diverse learning environments. In light of recent challenges to the constitutionality of race-conscious affirmative action and the likelihood that President Donald Trump will make several appointments to the Supreme Court—thereby shifting its balance toward the ideology of colorblindness—it is imperative to engage in a project that examines the relationship between racial categories and race-neutral identity factors in law-school admissions. Understanding the relationship between racial groups and certain race-neutral identity factors will help law schools comply with Fisher I’s mandate that universities consider race-neutral means for achieving diversity before using race as a factor in their admissions processes. This empirical study surveyed first-year law students at public American Bar Association approved law schools and asked them about race-neutral aspects of their identity, such as family background and educational-institution characteristics, to determine whether there is a relationship between their race and certain socioeconomic identity factors. The findings will enhance law schools’ understanding of race-neutral admissions factors that may contribute to their abilities to assemble racially diverse student bodies, and will give them tools to experiment with trying to yield racially diverse classes without asking applicants about their race
The Impact of Individualized Feedback on Law Student Performance
No full textFor well over a century, first-year law students have typically not received any individualized feedback in their core doctrinal classes other than their grades on final exams. Although critics have long assailed this pedagogical model, remarkably limited empirical evidence exists regarding the extent to which increased feedback improves law students\u27 outcomes. This Article helps fill this gap by focusing on a natural experiment at the University of Minnesota Law School. The natural experiment arises from the assignment of first-year law students to one of several “sections,” each of which is taught by a common slate of professors. A random subset of these professors provides students with individualized feedback other than their final grades. Meanwhile, students in two different sections are occasionally grouped together in a double section first-year class. We find that in these double section classes, students in sections that have previously or concurrently had a professor who provides individualized feedback consistently outperform students in sections that have not received any such feedback. The effect is both statistically significant and hardly trivial in magnitude, approaching about 1/3 of a grade increment after controlling for students’ LSAT scores, undergraduate GPA, gender, race, and country of birth. This effect corresponds to a 3.7 point increase in students’ LSAT scores in our model. Additionally, the positive impact of feedback is stronger among students whose combined LSAT score and undergraduate GPA falls below the median at the University of Minnesota Law School. These findings substantially advance the literature on law school pedagogy, demonstrating that individualized feedback in a single class during the first-year of law school can improve law students\u27 exam quality in all of their other classes. In light of the broader literature on the importance of formative feedback in effective teaching, these findings suggest that, at a minimum, law schools should systematically provide first-year law students with individualized feedback in at least one “core” doctrinal first-year class prior to final exams. Doing so would almost certainly have positive distributional consequences and improve the fairness of law school grades. It would also likely promote students’ acquisition of relevant legal skills. Finally, this reform would help implement the American Bar Association’s recent requirement that law schools utilize formative assessment methods in their curricula
Reflections on Racial Stigmas and Stereotyping
No full textI have been a member of the bar for over 50 years. When I graduated from law school, blacks were denied access to most meaningful positions in private firms, corporations, government jobs, the judiciary, and the academy. Today we can point to significant numbers of African Americans in prominent positions in every arena in which lawyers serve our society. Yet, with all the progress we have seen, we are still plagued by the pernicious effects of racial stigmas and stereotyping. And racial injustices still stain the landscape of our country.
In this piece, I reflect on our ongoing quest for racial justice. I respond to those who suggest that our pursuits are fruitless. I also ponder whether we too often label ourselves victims and, consequently, internalize stigmas and stereotypes that become self-fulfilling prophecies
The Pell Grant Proxy: A Ubiquitous But Flawed Measure of Low Income Student Enrollment
No full textPolicymakers and the media use the Pell Grant program to measure the share of low-income students enrolled at specific colleges and universities, but the reliability of this measure is rarely scrutinized. This paper discusses several key limitations of the “Pell proxy” that could affect its reliability, especially when used to draw conclusions about admissions and recruiting practices at particular universities or categories of schools. Generally, the proxy undercounts low-income students enrolled in institutions of higher education while counting middle-income students as low-income. Using the Pell proxy to compare trends is even more problematic because Pell Grant take-up rates and eligibility rules have changed markedly over time. These trends may have affected the makeup of Pell Grant students differently by institution, reducing the reliability of the Pell proxy further
Agreements to Improve Student Aid: An Antitrust Perspective
No full textLaw schools tie much of their scholarship money to LSAT scores and undergraduate grades. By awarding substantial discounts to students with above-median indicators, schools attempt to climb the U.S. News ranking ladder. This practice, as many educators recognize, reduces access to legal education for low-income and minority students. As a result, many schools would like to shift at least some of their scholarship funds to need-based awards. Schools, however, struggle to make that change unilaterally; they worry about losing ground in the rankings race
Who Goes to Graduate School and Who Succeeds?
Get PDFDuring the Great Recession, those with college degrees fared much better than those without degrees, but a number of college graduates struggled to find satisfactory employment, leading many to graduate study. The option of seeking an advanced degree has gained momentum in recent decades, and now some observers call the master’s degree the “new bachelor’s degree.” This brief is the first in a series addressing questions about enrollment and success in graduate school, funding of graduate students, the conceptual differences between undergraduate and graduate students, and the data available to address these questions. As participation in graduate programs rises, it is critical to ask who is enrolling, which programs they are choosing, whether they complete their degrees, and how their investment in education beyond the bachelor’s degree pays off. This brief reviews changes over time in educational attainment levels and the earnings premiums for advanced degrees, and then explores differences in enrollment and completion patterns across demographic groups
Are Law Degrees as Valuable to Minorities?
No full textWe estimate the increase in earnings from a law degree relative to a bachelor’s degree for graduates of different race/ethnic groups. Law earnings premiums are higher for whites than for minorities (excluding individuals raised outside the U.S.). The median annual law earnings premium is approximately 34,000 for Asians, 28,000 for Hispanics. Law earnings premiums for whites, blacks and Hispanics have trended upward and appear to be gradually converging. Approximately 90 percent of law graduates are white compared to approximately 82 percent of bachelor’s degree holders
Spaced Repetition: A Method for Learning More Law in Less Time
No full textSpaced repetition is a learning method that allows people to learn far more, in far less time. Discovered more than 100 years ago, recent advances in mobile technology have made its potential even greater to change the way law students, bar preppers and others in the legal field learn. This article describes the science of spaced repetition and its potential uses in law. It also describes the author’s work in building a platform for law students, SpacedRepetition.com to allow them to harness this technology.
Early findings are both exciting and consistent with the benefits of this method found in other fields. In one recent use of the technology, an entire graduating law school class was offered the chance to use SpacedRepetition.com to supplement their traditional bar preparation courses. Those who used the spaced repetition method passed the bar exam at a rate 19.2% higher than students who did not make use of it