Law and Labor

Law schools encourage minority applicants

By Alana Roberts / Staff Writer

Leaders in the legal industry worry there are not enough minorities entering the legal industry to adequately serve the nation's population. But a concerted effort by professional groups and law schools is underway to get youngsters interested in the law early.

They say the legal industry has been slow to address the lack of minorities in the field and has been surpassed by other professions that boast higher percentages of minorities. According to the 2000 U.S. Census racial and ethnic minorities make up 9.7 percent of practicing attorneys nationwide, while minorities make up about 30 percent of the U.S. population.

Those facts concern leaders in the legal industry.

"The numbers are scary,' said Evett Simmons, chair of the American Bar Association's Presidential Advisory Council on Diversity in the Profession. American Bar Association statistics show minority enrollment in law schools has increased incrementally during the 10-year period between the1994-1995 and 2004-2005 school years from 19.6 percent to 21 percent.

"The problem didn't occur overnight so the problem is not going to be resolved overnight,' she said. "You have to recondition people. You've got minorities who don't see themselves as being able to be successful professionals, because we have a society that has not allowed that to happen. You have to change that way of thinking.'

Simmons is a partner and chief diversity officer for the law firm Ruden McClosky in Port St. Lucie, Fla., as well as a past president of the National Bar Association.

"It's even more difficult to get into law school once you do away with a lot of the programs that were geared to get more minority students into law school,' Simmons said. "If you don't have something in place to encourage diversity then it's going to be almost impossible (to get it).' One way to attract more minorities into the legal profession is to capture the interest of youngsters in kindergarten through 12th grade, Simmons said. She said those efforts should include working to improve the reading, writing and speaking skills of minority students.

'If you're going to change the rules then we need to position our kids to be able to play in the new game,' Simmons said.

Programs like summer law camps sponsored by groups like the National Bar Association and the Hispanic National Bar Association allow high school students to begin preparation for a legal education, she said.

Glenn Bell is assistant director for minority affairs of the LSAC, the nonprofit organization that administers the Law School Admission Test. He said the organization has sponsored the effort since 1996 and awarded $350,000 this year to law schools that hold minority recruitment events. He said the LSAC also has a pilot program that allows undergraduate college students to participate in a summer camp.

The organization awards up to $1,000 to each school that holds minority recruitment events during National Minority Law School Recruitment Month and another $1,000 for events held during other times of the year.

"We work in concert with the ABA, and quite often with the minority bar associations, minority law student organizations and the law schools,' Bell said. "The law schools hold programs all of the time. We participate in them and support them financially.'

Leaders and students at the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV are also involved in the effort to get more minorities interested in law school. The school has events planned to coincide with LSAC's National Minority Law School Recruitment Month activities, including a week-long event called Diversity Week, which is set for March 4 through March 12.

"The idea behind Diversity Week is to encourage minority students to go to law school,' said Gerald Sequeira, director of admissions and financial aid at Boyd. "The focus is on juniors and seniors in high school and freshmen in college. It's the perfect time to reach them so they can prepare and it's not too late to make changes in terms of their studying.'

The events are part of a collaboration of the school's faculty, administration and several student groups, like the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association, the Student Bar Association, the Black Law Student Association and the Minority Law Student Association.

Richard Morgan, the school's dean, said the school has made a lot of headway toward becoming diverse.

Minorities made up 27 percent of the Boyd School of Law's fall 2005 entering class and women made up 50 percent. At 13 percent Asians led minorities in the class, Hispanics followed at 9 percent, blacks made up 4 percent and American Indians made up 1 percent. Further, minorities make up 22.2 percent and women make up at least 50 percent of the school's faculty, he said.

"We want to have a diverse law school," he said. "We want to have people from different ethnic and racial groups and different backgrounds and experiences in the law school. We want to do that at the faculty level and the student level. First, it makes the school a more interesting place and a better learning environment. Secondly, we want to be fair. I think we have it to a considerable extent."

IBLV Homepage