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Jury Verdict for Thomas Jefferson
March 24th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
Anna Alaburda’s lawsuit against the Thomas Jefferson School of Law is over: a split jury returned a verdict for the law school earlier today. Nine jurors sided with the school, three would have found for Alaburda. One of the jurors stressed that their deliberations focused only on data reported in two editions of US News, rather than on later figures that might have been more misleading. He implied that even the nine jurors siding with the school were not completely comfortable with the school’s conduct.
What should legal educators make of this verdict? Some may sigh in relief; although graduates filed fraud claims against numerous schools, only one has produced a recovery for the plaintiffs. That one suit involved Golden Gate, which paid $8,000 to each of five plaintiffs in a settlement.
Others may celebrate, interpreting the Alaburda verdict as vindication of all employment reporting practices at law schools. If a jury of ordinary citizens found no fraud, then there must have been no wrongdoing.
I would interpret Alaburda and its kin as a more cautionary tale. The widespread reporting practices provoking these lawsuits damaged the reputation of legal education. Most educators now agree that our prior practices were–at the very least–not as informative for prospective students as they should have been. Some of the practices, such as failing to report the number of students supplying salary data, bordered on deceitful.
After the jury verdict, Thomas Jefferson’s attorney told a reporter: “This is not, you know, Trump University. It is so not that.” In my opinion, law schools should have worked harder to avoid even the possibility of that comparison.
The Latest Issue of the Bar Examiner
March 15th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) has released the March 2016 issue of their quarterly publication, the Bar Examiner. The issue includes annual statistics about bar passage rates, as well as several other articles. For those who lack time to read the issue, here are a few highlights:
Bar-Academy Relationships
In his Letter from the Chair, Judge Thomas Bice sounds a disappointingly hostile note towards law students. Quoting Justice Edward Chavez of the New Mexico Supreme Court, Bice suggests that “those who attend law school have come to have a sense of entitlement to the practice of law simply as a result of their education.” Against this sentiment, he continues, bar examiners “are truly the gatekeepers of this profession.” (P. 2)
NCBE President Erica Moeser, who has recently tangled with law school deans, offers a more conciliatory tone on her President’s Page. After noting the importance of the legal profession and the challenges facing law schools, she concludes: “In many ways, we are all in this together, and certainly all of us wish for better times.” (P. 5)
» Read the full text for The Latest Issue of the Bar Examiner
Path Cleared for Paid Externships
March 15th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar took several significant actions at its March 11–12 meeting. The first of these was approval of several changes in Standards 304 and 305, which govern experiential learning and non-classroom educational experiences. Some of the changes adjust guidelines for supervision of externships; the most controversial allows schools to award externship credit for paid positions.
I have written several times to express my support for this change. Individual schools may still choose to ban paid externships, but the path should soon be open for schools to integrate these externships within their educational programs. The ABA House of Delegates will vote on the change, probably at its August 2016 meeting, but that vote does not bind the Council. [Updated at 4:45 p.m. to correct meaning of ABA’s vote.]
The responsibility now lies with law schools to implement this change wisely. I supported the change because I hope it will help us find innovative ways to educate students more thoroughly for law practice, as well as to help employers develop lasting frameworks for education in the workplace. We won’t accomplish either of those goals unless law schools devote real resources, energy, and collaboration to working with employers on these externships.
If your law school has an innovative idea for creating paid externships–or if you’re an individual with such an idea–please send me an email (merritt.52@osu.edu). I hope to feature good ideas here and promote discussion around them. Few ideas are perfect at their inception but, through discussion and sharing, perhaps we can refine ideas that will achieve our educational goals. Consider it online workshopping of pedagogic ideas!
Improving Bar Passage
March 13th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
Scott Johns, Professor of Practice and Director of the Bar Success Program at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, has posted a thoughtful empirical analysis of the college’s bar preparation program. Johns analyzed 642 students who graduated from the college in 2008–2010 and then immediately sat for the Colorado bar exam. He knew the exam score for each graduate, rather than simply pass-fail status, which allowed for a particularly nuanced analysis. Using multiple linear regression, Johns found the following associations with bar exam score:
- Law school GPA showed the strongest association. An increase of one point in GPA was associated, on average, with an increase of 46.5 points in bar exam score.
- LSAT score was the next strongest predictor. A one-point increase on the LSAT correlated with a 1.1 point increase in bar exam score.
- Participation in two of the college’s bar success programs each correlated with higher bar exam scores. A third program did not show a significant correlation.
- Neither sex nor minority status correlated significantly with bar exam scores.
- Age correlated negatively with bar exam scores; on average, older students achieved lower scores.
- Participation in the college’s part-time program likewise correlated significantly with lower bar exam scores.
All of these associations occurred while controlling for the other variables listed above. Participation in one of the successful bar preparation programs, for example, was significantly correlated with a higher bar exam score after controlling for LSAT, law school grades, sex, minority status, and other factors listed above.
Race, Debt, and Opportunity
March 10th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
Education opens doors. In law schools, we have tried for decades to open one particular door: the one that welcomes more minority graduates into the profession. In some ways, we have succeeded admirably. The percentage of minority law graduates almost tripled between 1983 and 2012, from 8.6% to 24.2%. The absolute number of those graduates rose almost four-fold during the same years, from 3,169 per year to 11,951 annually.
Today, all of us can name successful minority lawyers, judges, and law professors–as well as minority business people, nonprofit directors, and policymakers with law degrees. Legal education can even point with pride to the first African American President of the United States.
Just as the doors started to open, however, new obstacles emerged. Research shows that minority students earn lower law school grades than white students–even after controlling for entering credentials. We have also dramatically raised the cost of legal education as our student bodies diversified. And, perhaps most disturbing, we now know that these high costs fall disproportionately on Black and Latino/a students. New data from the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) show that these students assume substantially more law school debt than their white and Asian American classmates. That debt gap is new–and growing.
LSAT, Bar Failure, and Debt
March 6th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
Last fall, Law School Transparency (LST) released a detailed study of declining LSAT scores among entering law students. Drawing upon data from several sources, the report warned that students with LSAT scores below 150 suffer increasing risks of failing the bar exam. For students with scores below 145, the risk is extreme. One school, for example, reported that only 16% of graduates in that category passed the bar on their first attempt. The eventual pass rate for those students was just 36%.
LST also offered evidence that these high-risk students are paying more for their legal education than students with a better chance of becoming lawyers. Schools that admit a substantial number of high-risk students offer fewer tuition discounts than other schools. Scholarships at high-risk schools are also more likely to be conditional (and forfeited) than scholarships at schools admitting lower risk students.
The highly regarded Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) just added an alarming data point to this analysis. LSSSE reports that 52% of law students with the lowest LSAT scores (145 or less) expect to incur over $120,000 of debt for their legal education. In contrast, only 20% of students with LSATs above 155 will owe that much.
The highest risk students are assuming very heavy debt loads for their legal education. Equally disturbing, the difference between those students and their classmates has grown substantially since the great recession. In 2006, LSSSE notes, debt loads did not differ much by LSAT score. Sixteen percent of students who scored above 155 expected to owe more than $120,000 for their legal education; for students scoring at that cut-off or below, the percentage was the same.
In 2011, the gap was much wider. A third (33%) of students scoring at 155 or below anticipated law school debt over $120,000. For higher scoring students, the percentage was just 24%. This year, the gap has widened even more. Only one-fifth (20%) of higher-scoring students expect to owe over $120,000 for their legal education. Among those students, the percentage amassing high debt levels has decreased–despite rising tuition levels and modest inflation.
Students with LSAT scores of 155 or below, on the other hand, are even more likely than in the past to assume high debt levels. Thirty-seven percent of those students now anticipate owing more than $120,000 for their legal education. And, as reported above, the percentage is even higher for those with the lowest LSAT scores: More than half of students with LSAT scores below 146 will owe over $120,000 for their law school degrees. Those are the very students at very high risk of failing the bar.
LSSSE’s public report doesn’t distinguish among law schools, so we can’t tell if this disparity reflects admissions and financial aid decisions at a large number of law schools–or whether it stems from the actions of a small number of schools. LST’s report suggests that the latter is true: A few dozen law schools are admitting a substantial number of students at high risk of failing the bar. The same schools may also be responsible for the high debt load assumed by those students.
But whether it’s a few schools or most schools, this is an issue that affects all ABA-accredited law schools. We all participate in a system of accreditation that signals quality and fairness to applicants. Do we want to perpetuate a system in which an increasing number of high-risk students take on the heaviest debt loads?
Lawyers and Legal Services
February 26th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
There was a time when lawyers delivered most of the nation’s legal services. That time, however, is slipping away. Businesses increasingly obtain law-related work from contract managers, compliance officers, and human resource directors. Individual clients buy homes, draft wills, file uncontested divorces, and conduct other legal business with interactive software. When those individuals visit the courthouse, they may consult a self-help kiosk rather than a lawyer.
The ABA now recognizes that these changes are altering the market for legal services. The House of Delegates recently approved Resolution 105, which establishes model regulatory objectives to guide state regulation of “non-traditional legal service providers.” The objectives are relatively hospitable to non-traditional providers. They include, for example, a focus on “delivery of affordable and accessible legal services” as well as “efficient, competent, and ethical delivery” of those services. Those objectives would support many types of service delivery by non-lawyers.
The mere passage of this resolution, moreover, sends an important signal to the legal profession: Alternative service providers are here to stay. Have law schools gotten this message? What does it mean for us?
LSAT or GRE?
February 25th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
The University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law has decided to accept GRE scores from applicants. The school will also accept LSAT scores, with applicants free to choose between the tests. (Note, though, that an applicant who takes the LSAT must submit that score; that applicant may choose only whether to submit a GRE score as well.)
Is Arizona’s move an attempt to attract more students in a weak market for legal education? Undoubtedly–the school’s press release admits as much. But that doesn’t mean that the change is bad for prospective students or legal education. Weak markets should prompt innovation. Arizona has taken a number of other steps to make legal education more accessible and attractive to students: It slashed tuition (twice) for nonresidents and created a BA program in law.
Here’s why I like Arizona’s latest innovation as much as the other two.
Women In The Law
February 23rd, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
During three years of law school, I learned the law from only one female professor. But she was a gem: the future Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After graduation, I had the honor of clerking for then-Judge Ginsburg on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The following year, I clerked for an equally admirable woman in law, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Justices Ginsburg and O’Connor faced stiff sexism throughout their careers. Even when they ascended to the Supreme Court, their gender could diminish them. I heard one lawyer address the Court as “your honors and Mrs. O’Connor.” Other advocates confused Ginsburg and O’Connor, despite their different jurisprudence and physical appearance.
Entering the law a generation after these pioneers, I faced much lower barriers–although women of my generation still struggled to prove their value in the workplace and to combine work and family. Today’s women, another generation forward, face a somewhat more hospitable workplace. But I don’t kid myself that the playing field is level: glass ceilings, hidden biases, and workplace stereotypes still hinder women in the legal workplace. Both men and women, meanwhile, struggle to combine a demanding professional career with a supportive home life.
Against that background, I’m delighted to announce that LST Radio is creating a podcast mini-series that will explore the ongoing role of gender in the legal workplace. Episodes will address implicit bias, the leaky pipeline, media images of female lawyers, and much more. Podcasts will include summaries of expert research, interviews with individuals, and round table discussions.
LST has assembled a first-rate team of producers, as well as partners who will distribute the podcasts widely. But to go into production, they need some start-up funds. Diversity Law has made a generous matching pledge: If you donate to the “Women in the Law” podcast project now, your dollars count double. Give $10 and the project receives $20. Give $25 and $50 goes in the pot. I’ve already made my pledge–please add your dollars here.
Let’s make sure we understand the forces that still hold women lawyers back–and work to overcome them.
Selective Attention
February 20th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
Want to see why it’s more difficult to multi-task than you think? Take a look at this video. It’s silly, but it shows how limited our attention is. Our brains aren’t video cameras that record everything within hearing and seeing distance; instead, we focus selectively on parts of the landscape. Other events–like all of those changes in the video–escape our notice.
This lesson is important for students who think they can follow a law school class while texting, reading for the next class, or (horrors) reviewing another professor’s law review submission. If their attention is focused on one of those activities, they will miss much of what happens in the classroom.
The phenomenon, however, also has implications for professors.
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Deborah J. Merritt
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Law School Cafe is a resource for anyone interested in changes in legal education and the legal profession.
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