Recent law school graduates face the tightest job market in years. Amid lingering industrywide uncertainties, officials at some law schools are scrambling to ensure that underrepresented minorities get jobs, especially law schools not customarily tapped by the country's largest law firms. In some of the more striking measures, a dean will troop…

The Supreme Court has held repeatedly that race-based preferences in public university admissions are constitutional. But debates over the wisdom of affirmative action continue. Opponents of these policies argue that preferences are detrimental to minority students--that by placing these students in environments that are too competitive,…

Although many Americans turn to education as a means of generating social equality, institutions of higher learning themselves remain internally stratified, with students of color often having different experiences and sometimes attaining lower academic outcomes than whites. Law schools are especially notable for their intensely competitive…

This study investigated the overall prevalence of discrepant Law School Admission Test (LSAT) subscores, their differential incidence for subgroups of examinees, and the psychometric properties of alternative measures of discrepant performance. The sample consisted of 39,350 examinees who took the LSAT in December 1991. Subscore differences, often…

This report, an addendum to "Projecting the Need for Legal Education in Texas," adopted by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board in 2002, assesses different strategies to enhance the number of students from under-represented groups in Texas public law schools. The report is based on two literature reviews and a survey of efforts…

A brief look at the current and future Black and minority law students, their situation, and their potential role as a stratum for progressive societal change. (Author)

Describes Temple Law School's unusual Special Admissions and Curriculum Experiments Program, which reserves one quarter of its enrollment for the disadvantaged, whatever their color or ethnic background, who show exceptional promise. (Author/RK)

Three year trends in the law grade averages of nonminority, Black, and Chicano students were studied in two sets of law schools enrolling more than 900 Black students and more than 300 Chicano students. Reasons for the differential improvements in grades are considered, including statistical artifacts and substantive factors. (Author/BS)

This study of Law School Admission Test (LSAT) performance by selected subgroups has been conducted to provide some baseline information that can later be referenced in a variety of projects and activities. The study provides a detailed psychometric analysis, by selected gender and ethnic subgroup membership, of LSAT Form OLSS1. This form was…

This book contains information on legal education opportunities for minority groups, focusing especially on scholarships and special programs. The bulk of the book consists of a directory of the approximately 135 law schools that responded to a questionnaire. For each school, information is offered on: total size, freshman class size, out-of-state…

This study was designed to address questions of differential validity and questions of differential prediction in the law school admission process. The former were evaluated by comparing the magnitude of validity coefficients resulting from both simple and multiple correlations between first-year performance in law school and the traditional…

This study was designed to address questions of differential prediction of law school grades for various racial/ethnic minority subgroups. Differential prediction was evaluated by comparing the predicted and actual law school first-year grade point averages (FYAs) for various racial/ethnic subgroups within individual law schools based on…

The paper details likely incomes and living costs of law graduates as related to educational costs and debts. Concern is expressed about the deterrent effect of potential high debt on minorities and an approach to financial aid which would take minority status into account is urged. (Author/DB)

In this guide for planning general law education and selecting an area of specialization, noted law professors offer advice on these aspects of legal training and practice: gaining admission to law school; strengths and weaknesses of traditional legal writing; law examinations; special problems facing women and minority group students; questions…

This response to Lino Graglia (HE 530 289) reviews the history of opposition to affirmative action for minority groups; notes early efforts of law schools to avoid desegregation requirements; reports persistent low enrollments of African-American students in law schools; and recommends that law schools undergird admissions policy with…