AccessLex Resource Collections (AccessLex Institute)
Not a member yet
537 research outputs found
Sort by
Law Students Who Learn Differently: A Narrative Case Study of Three Law Students With Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
No full textMore law students than ever before begin law school having been diagnosed with a learning disability. As legal educators, do we have an obligation to expand our teaching methodologies beyond the typical law student? What teaching methodologies work most effectively for law students with learning disabilities? The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of law students with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) about their law school experiences. The case study yielded four themes relating to the social, learning and achievement domains of the students. First, law students with ADD experienced feelings of isolation in law school. Second, the more successful law students with ADD understood their personal learning styles whereas the less successful student students did not. Third, the Socratic Method, as the predominant teaching methodology, inhibited students\u27 learning in the classroom. Fourth, the students expressed feelings of uncertainly about their future careers as practicing lawyers with ADD. It is time for legal educators to welcome nontraditional learners into their classrooms. By seeking to create an environment of inclusion versus exclusion, by expanding our teaching methodologies and by recognizing the multitude of talents and skills our students possess, we can humanize the law school experience for everyone
The Relationship Between Law School and the Bar Exam: A Look at Assessment and Student Success
No full textLaw schools have a moral and ethical obligation to society - and, to an even greater degree, to their students - to adequately prepare the students to succeed as professionals. Ultimate success for law students is measured by the ability to competently practice in the legal profession, which requires passing the bar exam. A recent downward trend in national bar passage rates highlights the need for law schools to address the factors negatively affecting bar passage rates. Based on research conducted at the University of Colorado School of Law, this article discusses methods to reform new attorney licensure and also highlights strategies to improve bar passage. It suggests ways to minimize the effects of the bar exam\u27s negative factors and recommends ways to better prepare law students
Legal Education in the Age of Cognitive Science and Advanced Classroom Technology
No full textCognitive scientists have made major advances in mapping the process of learning, but legal educators know little about this work. Similarly, law professors have engaged only modestly with new learning technologies like PowerPoint, classroom response systems, podcasts, and web-based instruction. This article addresses these gaps by examining recent research in cognitive science, demonstrating how those insights apply to a sample technology (PowerPoint), and exploring the broader implications of both cognitive science and new classroom technologies for legal education. The article focuses on three fields of cognitive science inquiry: the importance of right brain learning, the limits of working memory, and the role of immediacy in education. Those three areas are fundamental to understanding both the effective use of new classroom technologies and the constraints of more traditional teaching methods
Passing the Bar Exam: Psychological, Educational, and Demographic Predictors of Success
No full textWith bar exam performance being relatively overlooked in the legal, psychological, and educational fields, the present investigation is likely the most ambitious attempt yet to uncover predictors of success on the bar exam. The results could lead to specific recommendations for law schools on how to provide improved counseling or educational services to their students and alumni as they prepare for the bar exam. We predicted that law school graduates who tend to experience higher levels of pathological worry, test anxiety, neuroticism, and extraversion would be more likely to have failed the bar exam. Conversely, we anticipated that law school graduates with better time-management skills and higher levels of conscientiousness and openness would be more likely to have passed the bar exam. Finally, graduates with higher LSAT scores and better LGPAs would be more likely to have passed the exam. The role of factors such as gender, ethnicity, employment during bar exam preparation, review courses taken, and recall of anxiety experienced prior to and during the test were also assessed. (210
Misuse and Abuse of the LSAT: Making the Case for Alternative Evaluative Efforts and a Redefinition of Merit
No full textThis is a law review article that examines the admissions process and the reliance on the LSAT. The authors are part of SALT and ABA and give perspective from both of those institutions. There is also a brief history of the previous justifications for use of standardized tests from efficiency to irrational exclusionary prejudices. The authors also include proposals for reform
The Misuse of the LSAT: Discrimination Against Blacks and Other Minorities in Law School Admissions
No full textThe use of the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) as the sole or determining factor in admission, and specifically, the use of an LSAT cut-off score below which few, if any, candidates are admitted is a form of institutuional racism.This misuse of the LSAT is devastating to all minorities, but is particularly devastating for Blacks and Latinos. Over the last ten years, the enrollment of Blacks and Mexican Americans in law schools has decreased. This decrease has come about despite an increase in the number of applications, a rise in average UGPA of these applicants, and an increase in their average LSAT score. This article explores how misuse of the LSAT in the admission process has led to institutional and systematic racism in law schools and the legal profession
Retargeting Affirmative Action: A Program to Serve Those Most Harmed by Past Racism and Avoid Intractable Problems Triggered by Per Se Racial Preferences
No full textAffirmative action programs at elite schools have long neglected those suffering most from the effects of racism. After concluding that inferior K-12 preparation has left such students too far behind to handle their rigorous academic programs, elite schools have focused their programs on better prepared middle and upper-class minority applicants. Although the resulting diversity is a positive, this Article contends that affirmative action programs need to be retargeted to directly aid the most disadvantaged minority students. It offers a three-part program. In the first, and most significant element, schools would designate a substantial number of places in each class for the most qualified students who both demonstrated their qualifications to mentor and tutor those students during their K-12 years and made a binding commitment to do so. The article also discusses three intractable questions triggered by per se racial preferences and, in its second and third parts, proposes a racially conscious, but race-neutral alternative for avoiding the problems they raise and a few other shortcomings of per se preferences. The approach is particularly relevant in the current environment, where Grutter v. Bollinger could soon be reinterpreted, if not effectively reversed, by the current, more conservative Supreme Court
Patching Leaks in the Diversity Pipeline to Law School and the Bar
No full textCalleros begins by stating that some adopt an ambitious goal of having a bar that reflects, in percentages, the racial composition of the country. Others have a more modest goal of the bar maintaining a level of diversity that promises representation of minority groups and prevents minorities from feeling like outsiders in their institution. Calleros says that the good news is that many law schools have a sincere desire to meet these goals to achieve racial diversity. However, the bad news is that law school rankings do not consider diversity as a factor to these rankings. Since these rankings are extremely significant to law schools, schools tend to focus on factors that will increase their ranking. Calleros fears that the importance placed on rankings will increasingly reduce the value of diversity for schools, particularly those struggling to gain or maintain a respectable position. These pressures might serve as a counterweight to Grutter v Bollinger, which stated that students benefit most from a university when it is diverse. Calleros suggests that law schools identify and support one of its own, whether student or faculty member, to form partnerships to implement diversity pipeline programs. These actions might not produce results for several years, but it is every law schools obligation to the law community to make this attempt
Misuse of the Law School Admissions Test, Racial Discrimination, and the De Facto Quota System for Restricting African-American Access to the Legal Profession
No full textThis article examines two obstacles that African-Americans currently face in obtaining admission to law school. The first is law school admissions practices that have a disparate impact on minority students and appear to be driven by competitive, economic motives. And the second is law school accreditation practices that have a disparate impact on minority students without valid, reliable, and objective evidence establishing that these practices have a legitimate educational purpose
Educational Debt Burden and Career Choice: Evidence from a Financial Aid Experiment at NYU Law School
No full textThis paper examines the influence of educational debt aversion on the career choice of law school students, including the decision to attend law school and the decision to work in public interest law. To isolate the role of debt aversion, I analyze experimental data from NYU Law School’s Innovative Financial Aid Study in which two career-contingent financial aid packages were randomly assigned to participating admits. Because the packages had equivalent monetary value and differed only in the duration of indebtedness, differences in career choices associated with financial aid assignment can be attributed to psychological debt aversion. The results indicate that debt aversion matters: In classes for which the lottery was announced prior to enrollment, participants randomly assigned to the low-debt package are nearly twice as likely to enroll. In classes without selective matriculation, lottery winners have a 36-45% higher rate of first job placement in public interest law. Both results are consistent with a simple model of debt aversion in which psychic costs of holding debt during and after school generate differences in the discounted lifetime utility of the financial aid packages and, hence, in the value of attending law school and of working in public interest law