ILLUSTRATION: DAVID VOGIN

...the need to help students of color enter the law school pipeline is not only a moral imperative, it’s a matter of dollars and cents.

Winter 2006 | Trends

Keeping the Law Diverse

By Charles Coe

SOMEWHERE AT THIS VERY MOMENT, a young person of color is looking at a law school catalog. After spending a few minutes flipping through the pages, she sighs, rises from her chair and tosses the publication into the trash.    More and more people of color seem to be reaching that same conclusion — law school just isn’t for them. According to the Law School Admission Council, the last few years have seen a slow but steady drop in minority applicants. In 2005, the number of African-American applicants was down 8.2 percent over the previous year. Among Asian-American applicants, the drop was 5.9 percent, and for Latino applicants (including Chicanos and Puerto Ricans) the reduction was 8.7 percent. Overall, people of color comprised 28 percent of the 2005 national applicant pool of 94,167.

At Northeastern, the numbers differ somewhat: applications from African-Americans were up 6.5 percent, while those from Asian-Americans were down 11 percent. There was also a 15 percent decrease in Latino applicants. Despite the ups and downs, the law school remains diverse: people of color constitute 33 percent of the first-year class.

Nelson Castillo, president of the Hispanic National Bar Association, thinks a variety of factors may be contributing to the dip in applicants. He points to the high costs of college and graduate education, the lack of mentors for Latino and African-American students and the “almost nonexistence of Latino and African-American lawyers, judges and other legal professionals in the media, whether pop culture media like TV shows, or the more salient media representatives likes news commentators.” Other issues may include apprehension about the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), which, like many other standardized tests, has come under fire for what some regard as inherent racial and gender biases, and the chilling effect of recent anti-affirmative action movements in higher education.

REACHING OUT

Although the downward shift is not dramatic, various stakeholders in the legal community are keeping a close eye on the situation and devising strategies to address it.

Jamila Glean ’06, chair of Northeastern’s chapter of the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) points out that her group, like others across the country, is working to support and encourage potential applicants. “At Northeastern, we sponsor a ‘Day in the Life’ program,” she says, “where undergraduate students from across the state come to spend the day with a law student — attending two classes and having a discussion with BLSA members about how to achieve the goal of becoming an attorney.” The program is now in its third year.

“We ask people to identify their ethnicity early in the process and connect prospective students with the relevant on-campus law student associations,” says MJ Knoll-Finn, assistant dean and director of admissions at the School of Law. “And we do mailings that target those populations. We also invite various undergraduate affinity groups to campus and do outreach to inner-city high school students.”

Outreach to students of color is also a top priority for various bar associations. For example, the National Bar Association (NBA) is the nation’s oldest and largest national association of predominantly African-American lawyers and judges. The NBA’s philanthropic arm, the National Bar Institute, sponsors a yearly law camp at Howard University School of Law, where students meet with distinguished law professors, visit courts and museums and participate in a mock trial competition. The NBA works with the Hispanic National Bar Association, the National Native American Bar Association and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association to identify students for participation in the camp. The Hispanic organization, together with its affiliate, the Hispanic National Bar Foundation, also launched its own annual law camp for high school students last summer, introducing teenagers to high-level diplomats, legislators and other role models while also providing a foundation in basic legal concepts.

The NBA also coordinates a national program in which a mentor attorney agrees to meet with a high school student at least four times a year. Executive Director John Crump describes these programs as “growing lawyers,” and stresses that it’s vital to start working with students as early as possible. “We try to get them in ninth grade,” he notes.

Many law firms also offer both formal and informal mentoring programs. William “Mo” Cowan ’94, a partner specializing in corporate and commercial litigation at Boston’s Mintz Levin and president of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association, considers it crucial for firms such as his to offer mentoring opportunities. “I often meet young people of color who say, ‘I’ve never met a lawyer who looks like me,’” he explains. “I was fortunate to meet a lawyer who felt I had potential and encouraged me to pursue law as a career.”

Darin Smith ’94, a colleague of Cowan’s at Mintz Levin who specializes in securities law, is a founding member of the firm’s diversity committee. Along with Cowan, he’s involved with the firm’s mentoring activities. “We hold workshops where first-year law students come in for practice job interviews,” says Smith. “We tell them to come in business attire with resumes in hand.”

More practical, grassroots efforts like these are needed to ensure the legal profession continues to diversify. According to stakeholders, it’s imperative that practitioners in the legal profession reflect the composition of the communities they serve. “Attorneys of color may better understand the issues clients of color face, and therefore provide the best representation,” points out student Jamila Glean.

Castillo concurs: “It is important for the governance structure of society to speak to everyone through representation of all segments of society. Otherwise, we cannot truly be a government by the people, for the people.”

ANCHORING THE DRIFT

But the need to help students of color enter the law school pipeline is not only a moral imperative, it’s a matter of dollars and cents. “There are more and more people of color in decision-making roles in the corporations that law firms are competing to represent,” says Smith. “Some of them are responsible for the purchase of hundreds of millions of dollars in legal services, and they want people of color on their team.”

“People of color are looking for peers to help them with their business needs,” Cowan echoes. “Having access to a diverse pool of qualified attorneys will increasingly become a matter of economic survival for law firms. Frankly, I think the business aspect of diversity will likely drive the discussion farther than the fact that it’s ‘the right thing to do.’”

Despite the downward drift in minority law school applicants, the trend is by no means irreversible. “Although this is a national problem, I think the solutions are going to come at the local and regional level,” says Cowan. “We can get students interested in the profession with candid, one-on-one or small-group discussions and help them start creating professional networks. If that happens in enough places, I’m sure we can turn things around.”

Charles Coe is a freelance writer and published poet.