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Law School Prices and the Enrollment of Students from Different Racial Backgrounds
No full textLaw schools in the United States have steadily increased their tuition and fee prices across the last decade, requiring more students to take out loans, which may disproportionally reduce access for students of color, who are underrepresented at law schools. Framed using human capital theory and student price sensitivity, this study incorporates institution-level data on 194 public and private law schools from 2006 to 2015 to explore whether enrollments of students from different racial groups change in response to tuition prices and estimated net costs of attendance. Results from two-way fixed effects models suggest that first-year enrollments of Black and Hispanic students do not change in response to increases in tuition or net costs. However, a greater number of Asian American and White students enroll when tuition prices are higher and among private law schools, a greater number of Asian American and White students enroll when net costs are higher
Empirical Reflections: A Statistical Evaluation of Bar Exam Program Interventions
No full textThe bar exam seems like a formidable hurdle to many law students. Consistent with approaches at other law schools, the University of Denver Sturm College of Law instituted a Bar Passage Program, primarily aimed at academically struggling students, consisting of three core components – a second year legal analysis course, a final semester pre-bar legal analysis problem-solving course, and a post-graduate supplemental bar success workshop program. This article walks through the step-by-step processes of statistically evaluating such interventions and explores whether such interventions are statistically warranted, particularly for students that struggled academically in law school. Using data over the course of a three-year period, this article finds that active learning participation in the Bar Passage Program is beneficial to students, in particular, those who struggled academically in law school
Experiences of Academically Dismissed Black and Latino Law Students: Stereotype Threat, Fight or Flight Coping Mechanisms, Isolation and Feelings of Systemic Betrayal
No full textThis study examined the law school environment as perceived by Black and Latino students who were academically dismissed from law school. This study focused on the perceptions of the former students, as opposed to the institutional perspective, which is unique to this field of inquiry. Strange and Banning\u27s comprehensive ecological model on educational environments served as a foundation for this study. Eight participants who were academically dismissed from law school and identified as Black or Latino were interviewed. Through analysis, four themes emerged: experiences of stereotype threat, fight or flight used as a coping mechanism, isolation in the law school environment and culture, and perceptions of systemic betrayal and disparate treatment.
Findings lead to implications for the stakeholders in legal education, including the need to examine unintended consequences resulting from the environment with no pedagogical purpose. Finally, recommendations for students, faculty, administrators, and the American Bar Association are discussed, including the need for additional collection of data on minority student academic dismissal, and improvement of teaching methods to include evidence-based pedagogy. The resulting themes offer insights and opportunities for individual law students and law schools to increase the retention of minority law students
Why the Bar Examination Fails to Raise the Bar
No full textThis article does not take the position that we would be better off without a bar exam, although there may well be a case to be made in support of that proposition. There is enough evidence that public and the profession’s confidence in legal academia is not universally strong enough to support turning the decision on licensing over to law schools alone. However, a review of what is generally tested on bar exams does suggest that it is unlikely that current bar exams are testing the right things in the right way as a proper measurement of competence to practice law. Certainly the current test does not seem to be asking questions that should allow anyone to conclude that applicants who fail are \u27less able\u27 to practice law, at least as ordinary speakers of the English language use that phrase.
In fact, there is substantial evidence that the bar exam itself is helping shape the legal education system into one that is failing at least some of its constituents. If we want to \u27raise the bar\u27 with our professional licensing examination, we need to make sure that we are testing the skills that are important for being a competent attorney. We also want to make sure that law schools are teaching the skills that are necessary to the practice of law, not just those that will aid in the passing of an arbitrary examination. (p. 51
Teaching the Digital Caveman: Rethinking the Use of Classroom Technology in Law School
No full textThe term “digital native” was created by an educational consultant more than a decade ago to suggest a sharp divide between students born into a digital world and “digital immigrants.” It has sent legal educators into a tizzy ever since trying to figure out how best to teach this supposedly new breed of law student. Do we allow laptops in the classroom or ban them? Is multitasking part of a new learning style or does it interfere with learning? Are today’s students primarily “visual learners” who learn best with technologies like PowerPoint or is traditional media like print more effective?
This article begins by putting the present debate over the learning styles of “digital natives” into historical context revealing that new technologies have always led to a “moral panic” that they are changing the way students think and learn. To avoid making the same mistakes again, this article suggests we reject popular stereotypes and clichés about digital natives and look instead to learning science for a more objective understanding about how our students really learn. Only by understanding how the brain works and what it was originally designed to do can we make well-informed decisions about when to use classroom technologies and when to shut them off. Based on the foregoing, the last section of this article offers guidelines for making better use of several popular classroom technologies in ways that promote the critical thinking skills at the heart of a legal education
Diversity in the Legal Profession: Perspectives from Managing Partners and General Counsel
No full textWithin the American legal profession, diversity is widely embraced in principle but seldom realized in practice. Women and minorities are grossly underrepresented at the top and overrepresented at the bottom. What accounts for this disparity and what can be done to address it are the subjects of this Article. It provides the first comprehensive portrait of the problem from the vantage of leaders of the nation’s largest legal organizations. Through their perspectives, this Article seeks to identify best practices for diversity in law firms and in-house legal departments, as well as the obstacles standing in the way.
Part I begins with an analysis of the challenges confronting the American bar with respect to diversity and the gap between the profession’s aspirations and achievements. Part II sets forth the methodology of the survey of law firm leaders and general counsel. Part III explores the survey’s findings, and Part IV concludes with a summary of best practices. “We can and should do better” was how one participant in the study described his firm’s progress, and that view is the premise of this Article
Creating Wise Classrooms to Empower Diverse Law Students: Lessons in Pedagogy from Transformative Law Professors
No full textMany of today’s law students experience a triple-threat. They suffer from the solo status that accompanies being a member of an underrepresented group, the stereotype threat that accompanies being a member of a stereotyped group, and the challenges that attend lacking a background in the law before beginning law school. But today’s law schools often fail to create safe environments; teach foundational content and skills; or take basic steps towards providing instruction that ensures students from all backgrounds are empowered to thrive. While much has been written about improving legal education and about the failure of current pedagogies to provide a sound education to students experiencing this triple-threat, little has been written about approaches that ensure that these students succeed. This article is an attempt to identify an initial pathway forward. It builds off of research regarding legal pedagogy, inclusive pedagogy, and the results of eleven in-depth-interviews with “transformative professors” who were identified by UC Berkeley law students as being skilled at ensuring that students from all backgrounds feel safe and can succeed academically. This rich data can inform professors and institutions across the state and country in their efforts to provide a legal education that, instead of simply privileging the most privileged, provides a transformative education to all
Diversity Within Diversity: The Varied Experiences of Asian and Asian American Law Students
No full textAsians and Asian Americans are often forgotten in conversations about diversity. The “model minority” stereotype – the idea that people of Asian descent are successful because of their cultural emphasis on achievement, discipline, and conformity – pervades the limited discourse, ignoring the vast diversity among Asian and Asian American communities. Scholars such as Frank Wu, Robert Teranishi, and Vijay Prashad have broadly critiqued this monolithic approach, but there are still large gaps in the research. Virtually no research has focused on law students of Asian descent. This report begins to fill these gaps. By finely disaggregating its racial and ethnic data, LSSSE takes on a daunting challenge. Racial classifications as a whole are ambiguous and imprecise. For people of Asian descent, these dilemmas are compounded by issues of nationality, diversity, and identity. Many people emphasize their own national origins (e.g., Chinese American). Some have more complex regional identities: for example, students from the Indian subcontinent often identify themselves as “South Asian” to distinguish themselves from East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), Southeast Asians (Vietnamese, Laotian), and Filipinos. Others prefer terms like “Asian Pacific American” or “Asian Pacific Islander” and adopt a Pan-Asian identity, focusing on their common experiences. There are lots of debates about identity and terminology here, highlighting the need for, and the difficulty of, taking a granular approach to racial and ethnic trends
Eye of the Beholder: How Perception Management Can Counter Stereotype Threat Among Struggling Law Students
No full textWhen individuals belong to a group about which there is a negative stereotype, their fear of confirming that stereotype will often suppress their performance ability. This phenomenon is known as “stereotype threat,” and it has been documented with regard to gender, race, age, social class, athletic ability, and any number of other classifications, so long as a negative stereotype exists about that group.
Law students with low grade point averages (GPAs) are at greater risk than their higher–GPA peers of failing the bar exam, and they know it. Left unchecked, the pressure of this correlation— the stereotype threat—may itself depress their bar exam performance.
Together with school–wide efforts, however, academic support programs and messages can be developed so as to diffuse the negative stereotype of low GPA resulting automatically in bar failure. This Article discusses how the bar exam can be reframed, its consistency emphasized, and other techniques to help move students away from the fear that struggling in law school means bar exam failure. The Article also discusses how law schools can create a positive stereotype for students participating in bar preparation programming, by manufacturing a sense of belonging to a group that is stereotyped to do well on the bar exam. Such positive affiliation may result in a “stereotype boost,” or overperformance compared with peers
Speed (Not the Drug, and It Does Not Kill, But It Can Cause Stress)
No full textIn summary, we have no reason to believe that the MBE is a speeded examination, whether we examine failure to reach the final item, straight-line answers, or declines in performance on items at the end compared to those in the beginning. None of the indexes assessing patterns at the end of the exam reach anywhere near the 10% level traditionally used to define a test as speeded. Comparisons of the percent correct on the last 10 items versus the first 10 items for the 2014 examinations found at most a 4% reduction in performance in July, but that is counterbalanced by a 2% increase in February. The reading rate required to complete the MBE in the time allotted is less than 100 words per minute, a rate that would be expected of students somewhere between the first and second grades. Finally, the language used on the examination is well within the education level that should be expected of graduating law students, being at the most targeted at the second year of college