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Addressing the Lack of Diversity in the Legal Profession, At the Undergraduate Level
No full textThe study and practice of law is among the most respected and well-regarded pursuits; unfortunately, it is also among the least diverse. The persistent and alarming lack of diversity is prevalent in the industry regardless of the culture. In the United States and in Europe, statistics show that lawyers are overwhelmingly comprised by white males, especially in the higher ranks of the profession. Several factors contribute to this lack of diversity, including access to legal professionals and costs associated with pursuing a legal degree. Several strategies have been initiated to increase diversity in the field, including increasing awareness of the issue in the legal world and actively recruiting diverse populations, yet the lack of diversity persists. This paper will review some of the factors that contribute to the lack of diversity in the legal profession and strategies considered to increase diversity, and ultimately highlight a program that initiated one such strategy – a pre-law program developed to increase knowledge of the legal profession, access to legal professionals, and financial and academic support for the pursuit of a legal career for undergraduate students. The remainder of this paper will outline specifics of the pre-law program, including its student demographics that include over 60 students with very diverse backgrounds, its law-related activities/programming that include presentatons from law students and professions, law school visits, and workshops on applying for law school and writing personal statements, and its achieved outcomes since its inception in 2009 that include formative partnerships with regional law schools and legal organizations, student scholarships, and graduated attorneys
Plugging the Diversity Leak and Strengthening the Legal Profession: Examining the Importance of Targeting Underrepresented Minorities on the Educational Pipeline to Law
No full textAt first glance, the legal profession appears to be thriving with diversity. Three women, including one Hispanic woman, and one African American man currently serve on the United States Supreme Court. The country’s first African American president recently left office, taking with him the country’s first African American woman to hold the office of attorney general. This appearance of diversity is not particularly new — Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all had progressively more racially, and ethnically diverse cabinet picks compared to their predecessors. The illusion of diversity persists even outside of politics and government, in the entertainment world, going back over 30 years with the likes of attorney Claire Huxtable in The Cosby Show and later Judge Phillip Banks, more commonly known as Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Today, Emmy, Tony, and Oscar winner Viola Davis personifies a highly revered attorney and academic on How to Get Away with Murder and millions tune in weekly to watch attorney Olivia Pope balance a successful law firm and political career in Scandal. LGBT individuals, gay men in particular, also see greater representation as attorneys on television. Yet law is one of the least diverse professions in the United States. The vast majority of attorneys — 88% to be exact — are white and white males hold a majority of all high-ranking, prestigious positions.
This persistent lack of diversity among legal professionals and individuals in leadership positions is more accurately portrayed by the optics of our current presidential administration. In its stark contrast to predecessors past, the administration of President Donald J. Trump exemplifies the state of diversity in the legal profession. Once all of President Trump’s cabinet picks are confirmed, women and non-whites will hold only six positions. There will be only three visible minorities in the cabinet — an African American, Asian American, and Hispanic American — and all three possess the highest level of academic achievement among cabinet members yet hold some of the lowest ranking cabinet or cabinet level positions. This Article does not attempt to blame the decrease in diversity on President Trump, or any other administration or official. Rather, the aim of this Article is to identify the importance of education in its role as the integral equalizer in achieving success in high-level leadership positions. In doing so, it becomes evident that diversifying the legal profession greatly depends on pipeline programs that target racial and ethnic minorities, or other narrowly focused minorities, and cultivate academic achievement.
In an effort to quantify the value and potential reach of diversity pipeline programs, Part II of this Article begins by delineating and quantifying diversity in the United States population, in American law schools, and the legal profession. Part III discusses various goals of diversity and identifies the aim adopted by this Article and a majority of pipeline initiatives. Then, Part IV defines the education pipeline to the legal profession before describing the potential of pipeline programs, as exemplified by those already operating. In Part V, this Article takes the position that pipeline programs are essential to the future of the legal profession — not only for the programs’ ability to diversify the legal workforce, but for the potential such initiatives carry in ensuring public confidence in, and accessibility to, the legal and judicial system. Lastly, this Article concludes by reminding the reader that society looks to the legal profession to draw its leaders but the profession cannot be expected to fill this need with attorneys of color that do not exist. The legal profession, as action-oriented problem solvers, must place itself at the forefront of ensuring membership is as inclusive as the communities we seek to serve
If You Build it, They Will Come: What Students Say About Experiential Learning
No full textIn the Fall of 2013, soon after the reduction in applications that many law schools experienced in 2011-13, the University of Denver’s law school lead the way nationally in making a significant additional investment in experiential learning. Starting that fall, it provided the option for all incoming students to spend one entire year of law school in experiential learning courses and programs. While this commitment was being rolled out, the authors prepared a study of the impact of the program on enrollment and the educational experience of students. A three-year study - each year surveying 1Ls - also included follow up surveys of 2Ls and 3L/4Ls, with additional “look back” questions for the 3L/4L surveys. What we learned was that applicants chose Denver Law on several traditional factors (such as cost and location) but also strongly indicated that the experiential learning component was an important part of their decision. In the 3L/4L surveys, students reflected back on their law school education, and still ranked experiential learning as very important to them, while noting the importance of other practical concerns, such as employment outcomes for graduates. Further, they indicated that many opportunities for professional formation were offered in experiential courses that they took. Finally, we noted a significant increase in overall satisfaction with their legal education, as compared to a similar question prior to the implementation of the expansion of experiential learning at Denver Law
The Case for a Uniform Cut Score
No full textTo our detriment, attorneys have become accustomed to state-by-state disparities in the cut score for our national, multiple choice licensing test, the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE). MBE cut scores range from 129 in Wisconsin to 145 in Delaware. The states with the most licensed attorneys, New York and California, use MBE cut scores of 133 and 144, respectively, which land on different sides of the national MBE score bell curve bulge. No one pretends that these disparities are justified because practicing law as a new lawyer is more difficult in California than in New York. The MBE cut score is typically more an aspect of a state bar’s culture and history than a purposeful decision.
These MBE cut score disparities constitute bad logic because every state is attempting to use the same test to predict exactly the same thing: minimum competence to practice law. They are bad science because setting a cut score is a “critical step” in assuring the validity of the use of the exam. MBE cut score disparities are also bad public policy, which explains why professions other than law have moved to uniform multiple choice test cut scores in their licensing tests
Race and Higher Education: Is the LSAT Systemic of Racial Differences in Education Attainment?
No full textLaw school is the least diverse graduate school program, which translates to the lack of diversity among law professionals. Among America’s national law schools, Caucasians fill eighty-eight percent of the seats. This persistent trend over the years has led researchers to question what barriers of entry might exist that are limiting the diversity. One of the most significant barriers has shown to be the Law School Admissions Test. The LSAT is the highest weighing component on whether an applicant will be accepted or denied from law school. Trends have also revealed that underrepresented minorities statistically have much lower scores on the LSAT. This test score gap translates to the lack of diversity in America’s top law schools. This research paper attempts to answer the question of is the LSAT is systemic of racial differences in higher education attainment. In this research economic barriers will be analyzed for a greater idea on socioeconomic differences among students in law school. Following the analysis of the socioeconomic advantages and disadvantages among applicants, a analysis on the test score gap vs. the knowledge gap will be included. Finally, predictability of the LSAT to measure success on the law bar exam will be reevaluated. This reevaluation will comprehensively include data from test takers with subsequent attempts. This additional data will add a dimension to “success” because the ABA currently measures school’s success rate solely on first attempt taker
Not for Free: Exploring the Collateral Costs of Diversity in Legal Education
No full textThis essay examines some of the institutional costs of achieving a more diverse law student body. In recent decades, there has been growing support for diversity initiatives in education, and the legal academy is no exception. Yet for most law schools, diversity remains an elusive goal, some of which is the result of problems with anticipating the needs of diverse students and being able to deliver. These are some of the unseen or hidden costs associated with achieving greater diversity. Both law schools and the legal profession remain relatively stratified by race, which is an ongoing legacy of legal education’s origins as a project dominated by white male elites predominantly serving white male clients. Today’s law schools still lack in diversity, but major developments are increasingly changing student demographics. Perhaps the first push toward diversification of law schools came after the 1920s, when women won suffrage and began to enroll in law school in increasing numbers. Advocacy efforts over the next century would produce many breakthroughs, including in the present,where an unprecedented three women sit on the Supreme Court. With the creation of The Historically Black College/University (“HBCU”) law schools, which enrolled significant numbers of African American students, Civil Rights legislation and court cases in the 1950s and 1960s paved the way for a growing number of ethnic minorities to apply to law school and for a female explosion of matriculants. Today’s diversity initiatives seek to create classrooms with profiles based on a range of intellect and experience as a means to enhance learning for all students. As such, diversity may be understood as supporting the marketplace of ideas concept by seeking to create an environment where study and problem solving draw from a broad range of knowledge and experience. Law schools are also enrolling individuals with lower credentials to assuage the sting of lower enrollment. Maintaining and servicing diverse student bodies inevitably incurs downstream costs. This essay attempts to offer a snapshot of some the administrative, pedagogical, and regulative costs involved, and provide commentary on how law schools might meet these challenges
Law School Scholarship Policies: Engines of Inequity
No full textThe Law School Survey of Student Engagement is part of Indiana University’s Center for Postsecondary Research, a research center in the School of Education devoted to studying the student experience. One hundred and ninety-six different law schools in the United States, Canada, and Australia have participated in LSSSE since 2004.The objective of this survey is to provide data to law schools to improve legal education and inform decision-making and compliance efforts, enhance student success, facilitate internal assessment and analysis, and support research on legal education. The survey is administered via the Internet to all students at participating law schools
The Education of Black Lawyers: Developing a Pipeline for the Future
No full textAmong the innumerable challenges facing law schools today, perhaps none of them are more challenging to the advancement of the black bar than the pipeline problem facing black law students. Coinciding with the recent dip in overall student enrollment, law schools increasingly find themselves competing for the same small group of black applicants. Moreover, once black students are admitted, on top of undergoing the already extraordinary challenge of law school, they often discover that few of their peers share or understand their experience, which risks leading to a harmful isolation and therein potentially impacting performance and future prospects. And beyond graduation, as the lead story notes, black lawyers are not achieving success at rates comparable with the size of the black bar—whether its earning partnership or high positions of authority—while many opt to leave the profession at disproportionally high rates.
Solving these issues requires, of course, a multipronged approach, but part of the solution requires interventions at the law school level. How do law schools get more black applicants to matriculate? How do law schools ensure black law students are getting what they need from their J.D. programs and graduating? And how do law schools prepare these future black lawyers to not just get hired but also advance in their legal careers? There is a pipeline that leads to law school, through law school, and to a successful career in the legal profession. The future health of the black bar depends on law schools’ ability to enable black law students to not only locate the schools but also make it out the other side. The following sections offer perspective on these issues
How Top Law Schools Can Resuscitate An Inclusive Climate for Minority And Low-Income Law Students
No full textThe lack of diversity in top law schools (TLS) has contributed to a learning climate that isolates, undervalues, and criticizes minority and low-income students. The lack of diversity at TLS is especially paramount, in comparison to similar issues at colleges, because students at TLS are more likely to become U.S. Supreme Court Justices, Presidents of the United States, and leaders in other industries who will create, interpret, and influence laws that have global implications. If TLS do not create inclusive climates, all students, especially its minority and low-income students, may be unprepared to meet the future legal responsibilities that await us. This Note argues that TLS should create an inclusive learning climate to better support minority and low-income students and provides a collection of ideas for creating an inclusive climate. Part I of this Note specifies the students and law schools that are the focus of the analysis. Part II details the institutional, faculty and student factors that contribute to an exclusionary climate. In Part III, this Note proposes a range of institutional, faculty and student-level inclusive climate ideas that TLS can choose from to create a more inclusive climate
Foundations for Practice: Hiring the Whole Lawyer: Experience Matters
No full textIn July 2016, we published Foundations for Practice: The Whole Lawyer and the Character Quotient, which shared findings from a survey that asked more than 24,000 lawyers what new lawyers need as they enter the profession. Respondents overwhelmingly indicated that new lawyers need characteristics, alongside professional competencies and legal skills (collectively, “foundations”). New lawyers, it turns out, are successful when they can demonstrate much more than their intelligence and legal competency. We called the new lawyer who can demonstrate this combination of characteristics, competencies, and skills the “whole lawyer.”
If we want new lawyers to develop the requisite foundations, we of course need law schools to commit to admitting, educating, and graduating students who can demonstrate they have those foundations. We also need employers to commit to hiring new lawyers based on their demonstration of those foundations—rather than mainly academic achievement.
How can employers hire new lawyers who have the desired foundations? This report provides answers.
In our survey, we asked respondents to identify the foundations new lawyers need to be successful in the respondent’s specific type of organization, specialty, or department. Then we asked them to consider the helpfulness of a set of hiring criteria in determining whether a candidate for employment has the foundations they identified as important. Notably, we did not ask them how they currently hire. We effectively asked how they would hire if they wanted to identify candidates with the necessary foundations.
We learned that experience matters. While many employers in practice still rely on criteria like class rank, law school, and law review, our respondents indicated that if they wanted to hire people with the broad array of foundations they identified as important, they would rely on criteria rooted in experience, including legal employment, recommendations from practitioners or judges, legal externships, participation in a law school clinic, and other experiential education.
In The Whole Lawyer and the Character Quotient, we recommended that law schools and the profession work together to ensure that new lawyers have the foundations they need to practice. Our findings here give them a place to start. While we do not believe there is only one way to ensure new lawyers have the foundations they need to be whole lawyers, we do believe the path toward a system that prepares lawyers who are ready to enter the profession will be elevated and supported by experience-focused learning and hiring