LCLD Pipeline Committee
Day-Two Working Session: Oct. 8, 2010
At the LCLD annual meeting Oct. 7-8 in Washington, D.C., Pipeline Committee Chair Brad Smith presented a strategic overview of the LCLD’s legal pipeline initiative. On Day Two of the meeting, the Committee met to consider details for the strategy. Here is the committee’s report:
The vision:
Help build a diversity pipeline to attract into the legal profession individuals as diverse as the country itself.
The Goal: Strengthen the legal pipeline by increasing the number of diverse persons moving from U.S. colleges into and through law school, making our law schools as diverse as the population graduating from college.
Strategic Focus:
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1. Move More Diverse Students from College to Law School.
a. Current figures show that 25.4% of the population graduating with four-year degrees from U.S. colleges and universities are from minority groups, but only 21.7% of law school enrollments are from minority groups.
i. The fall-off is particularly acute for African-Americans (from 9.8% of college graduates to 6.9% of law school enrollments) and Hispanic-Latinos (from 7.9% of college graduates to 6.1% of law school enrollments).
b. Over time, we aim to increase by 1,800 the number of minority students moving from college to law school each year; this would make our law schools as diverse as the population graduating from U.S. colleges and universities.
c. Design a campaign that focuses on recruiting diverse students to law schools.
i. The campaign will develop outreach programs that will:
1.Promote the legal profession;
2.Target candidates who show potential and may otherwise fail without some intervention to raise GPAs, LSATs.
3.Equip participating students with skills that will help them be more prepared for law school; and
4.Prep students for the LSAT.
ii.The campaign envisions the opportunity to:
1.Leverage and support existing programs in order to maximize return on our investments;
2.Partner with law schools and faculty;
3.Enlist members of the LCLD Pipeline Committee to be part of the campaign; and
4.Cast a wide net to include additional law schools that we do not generally recruit from today.
2. Help Diverse Students Succeed in Law School.
a.Continue to partner with participating students after they enroll in law school.
b.Encourage LCLD members to provide summer internships for the participating students after their first year of law school.
i.An informal survey at the meeting showed that 80% of the Committee members have 1L programs and that about 75% are willing to commit to expand their 1L program to include such students.
c.Enable the participating 1L students to be mentored by lawyers who have served in the LCLD Fellowship Program.
d.Ask the participating 1L students to spend a week during the summer in training and mentoring younger students who are participating in the undergraduate program.
3. Measure Success by Tracking the Following Statistics:
a.The number and percentage of participating students who complete our program and enroll in law school;
b.The number and percentage of participating students who successfully complete law school and get a job; and
c.Measure whether we see an increase in the number of minority students enrolling in law school until we bridge the 3.5% difference between college graduates with bachelor’s degrees and law school enrollments.
4. Align Resources with our Ambition.
a.There is a significant amount of work involved in operationalizing our strategic plan.
b.Consider retaining a consultant to help us best identify how to target the programs:
i.Survey of the best programs at our segment of the legal pipeline; and
ii.Conduct additional research regarding current barriers to entry.
c.Marshal additional resources from the legal and foundation communities.
Our aspiration:
By the year 2020, our initiatives will succeed in making American law schools as diverse as the population graduating from the nation’s colleges and universities.