Wrote Fariha Amin, "a full-time worker and mother to a 6-year-old son," quoted in "Law School Accrediting Panel Votes to Make LSAT Optional/Legal-education community has been divided over testing requirement and its impact on diversity in admissions" (Wall Street Journal).
And here's a quote from John White, chair of LSAC’s board of trustees: "This proposal will be highly disruptive. The change won’t be worth it, and we won’t get the diversity we are looking for."
I wonder how he knows... how he thinks he knows.
There's also council member Craig Boise, dean of Syracuse University College of Law: "I find the argument that the test is necessary to save diversity in legal education is bizarre."
How is it "bizarre"? It's something I've heard for more than 30 years. (I was a lawprof for more than 30 years, and I often served on the admissions committee. I've read many real applications and seen the relationship between LSAT scores and other aspects of an applicant's qualifications.)
The LSAT produces a hard number, and it feels secure to rely on such things. But you can rely too much, and the U.S. News ranking has for decades rewarded schools that rely heavily on this number. The question is who will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, not who did best on one structured, high-pressure test.
Posts
102 comments:
"I would hate to give up on my dream of becoming a family lawyer, just due to not being able to successfully handle this test."
That's Very Close, to what *i* said, about my dream of being a Trunk driver,
after not being able to successfully handle the Commercial Drivers License test. The World is NOT fair!!
seriously,
"I would hate to give up on my dream of becoming a family lawyer, just due to not being able to successfully handle the course work."
"I would hate to give up on my dream of becoming a family lawyer, just due to not being able to successfully handle the bar."
"I would hate to give up on my dream of becoming a family lawyer, just due to not being able to successfully handle this trial."
sometimes, the fact that you CAN'T do something.. Means you WON'T do something
Allow me to make a suggestion Fariha. If a law school requires a decent LSAT score, learn how to the test. Get coaching on taking the test. Group coaching or one-on-one. Or take a prep course. As I recall, you could even take the actual test for practice and cancel your score. There are options if you want it bad enough. Quit whining.
Various STEM programs use a calc class as a bust-out. If you can't do that, you're not going to be an engineer--presumably everything which follows is harder.
Had a fraternity brother who failed four attempts. Switched his major to packaging. Turned out it was a protected occupation and he was draft-proof. Grad in 1966.
Althouse--you have seen it as an admissions committee member, so you know how good the LSAT is at predicting law school success. I suppose the answer is, "Somewhat, but not accurate at the margins, and other things are more important for marginal admits." LSAT scores I presume are helpful in ranking those you intend to admit within some categories even when you are straining for "diversity".
Gone are the days of undergraduate admission in state schools by your place on a GPS/SAT grid.
Today, is the content of your character more important than the color of your skin in law school admissions? If so, how much is the content of your character judged by the color of your skin?
I was adverse to a recent Creighton Law grad who bragged that she was in the bottom 10% of her class at now third tier Creighton.
It showed.
My 12(b)(6) motion was sustained.
Calhoun on Amos and Andy did okay.
Anita Hill did okay. LSAT doesn't test for her talent.
You can dramatically improve you LSAT scores by individual practice and repetition. Public libraries have all test books for free, which is how I did it after working long days to pay my bills.
Virtually all minorities qualify for free test prep. Wouldn't that be nice. Plus, they frequently (especially if minority male) get free early-arrival school enrichment programs, special mentoring, and continuing intensive tutoring not offered to others. Must be nice. Plus the system is still rigged to admit them and pay their bills in myriad ways. Must be nice.
Ironically, much of this coddling makes for privileged and resentful expectations -- not more competent students. I attended a public law school with a high percentage of minority students. Their dropout rates, as every law prof knows, are exponentially higher than others despite all that extra help, with possibly one exception that has not been studied: as I took night classes with older students, it strongly appeared that the cohort of minorities with less free time to avail themselves of all that special assistance (ie. those with families and jobs) did better than the coddled ones.
Throw out the coddling, not the tests. Anyone can improve their scores for free, if they put in the work.
Law Talk has an extended session in affirmative action work-arounds, the core being that none of this crap works anyway. Everybody winds up worse off, empirically after 50 years. Law Talk Podcast (Richard Spstein and John Yoo)
Oh forgot Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Richard Epstein, supra, uttered a disgusted grunt when her name came up. Ms. de Jure.
An all-stadardss-have-gone-to-hell grunt.
" I can't pass the test but I want to be an airline pilot".
should American or United hire him/her anyway?
I am sure tests like the LSAT are imperfect. However, the relentless campaigns now to get rid of them all are not based on a rational complaint about their imperfections. They are based on the now apparent triumph of equity (equal outcomes) over equality. That is, any disparate outcomes for designated victim groups are proof of systemic bigotry. Hence these tests that produce disparate impacts must be tools of that systemic bigotry. So they need to go. What replaces them, then? Something less imperfect? I do not think so.
5,4,3,2,1 Racist!
Still not seeing the need for "Diversity."
Absolutely, if a BIPOC wants to be a lawyer, he or she should compete for law school places and legal jobs on an equal footing with the yts.
The underlying premise of Diversity is that there is something inherently different about BIPOCs that allow them to make unique contributions to the school and the legal profession. There are "studies" that purport to say that BIPOC patients have better outcomes with BIPOC physicians (also that female patients have better outcomes with female physicians). No doubt that is an underlying premise of Diversity in the legal world.
If so, yt lawyers, and physicians, would be justified in declining to work with BIPOC patients and clients, if only to get the best outcomes from their respective professional interactions.
We had a system similar to for the 1st 2 centuries of our nation's existence. We worked hard to eliminate that, but that's where we are headed.
The Dream? Can't cut it?
I'll call the WAAAAAmbulance!
Once you realize dropping the test gives the schools more access to student loan money it all makes sense.
I will predict this person will hate a lot more stuff she's not cut out for.
I was part of a grad school admissions committee. We wanted to know how much the GRE and other things we could see on an application helped predict how good of a placement the student got 5 or 6 years later, so collected the data and analyzed it. Found several things: 1) Nothing predicts particularly well. 2) For our math intensive subject, not getting above a certain threshold on the math GRE was very predictive of a bad outcome. But for those above the threshold, how far above the threshold didn't predict much. 3) quality of undergrad helped predict a little. 4) Verbal GRE didn't help predict at all, but TOEFL (test of English as a foreign language) helped predict. (If you can't speak English well, you don't get a good job).
So my guess is that the LSAT is not that great of a predictor, but marginally useful especially for weeding out those that can't get above some threshold, and not that predictive when it comes to high vs. very high scores.
I have a niece in last year of early childhood education (pre-k to 3rd grade) program at a state university. Lower ACT scores out of high school and an IEP during high school. Made deans list a number of times during first 3 years of college however. So positive feedback. So for has been unable to pass state teacher licensing exams for certification. Will likely end up with a family studies degree and no ability to teach in a public school. 4 years of tuition for the university however. Not a great choice on her part due to known previous difficulties with standardized testing. Would have been great to have had a test that redirected her 3 years ago. Maybe the LSAT can help others avoid 3 years of paying for law school and then being unable to pass the bar exam.
I would hate to give up on my dream of playing in the NBA just because I have short white legs and don’t know a damn thing about B Ball.
Rinse, repeat. Every Prog argument demanding “access” and “equity” opens with this gambit that combines total emotion and zero logic.
“Give me what I want or I will cry.”
Harsh Pencil, what we are talking about are those who can't meet the threshold. You disprove your own conclusion.
The GRE and LSATs are very different types of tests. You don't seem familiar with the latter. And given the extreme affirmative action imperatives that dominate all academic hiring, there is no Honest way you can look at "placement outcomes" and extrapolate back to GRE scores unless you are performing a grotesquely dishonest ideological exercise.
But then again, you're on a grad school admissions committee, so that predictor is likely quite strong.
Oddly, there are many Fariah Amins who are family lawyers.
Harsh. Perhaps weeding out those who can't make it--below a certain threshold--is and should be all that's needed. Beyond that, a variety of personal differences apply to some and other differences to others.
I recall , fifty-plus years ago, that mono was considered at fault for various unlikely poor performances. Had it myself. Everything became very difficult.
Not testing is the equivalent of a participation trophy. You don't want someone who "participate" in college doing anything really important for you.
Do you?
Our first first-year writing assignment was a case summary of less than two pages. A young classmate told us that the professor, after reading hers, had told her that she was going to have a very difficult time getting through the bar exam. Four years later, she squeaked through on her fourth try. Not exactly the same as the LSAT, but there are predictors and it's folly not to give weight to them.
The irony is that the LSAT presumably was adopted with the goal of fostering diversity, as a neutral tool that would not have the same potential for bias of essays and personal interviews.
Most colleges and universities, about 75% I think, are non-competitive. That is, they will take anyone who shows up and can meet minimal requirements. HS diploma etc. Plus money to pay tuition.
Surely there are law schools like that, are there not?
John Henry
Hey, it's Syracuse! That's the law school that Brandon says gave him a "full academic scholarship" (the only one in his class!), awarded him three undergraduate degrees and from which he graduated toward the top of his class. How hard can Syracuse be? I say give Fariha Amin her piece of paper. Syracuse has obviously given one to at least one worse qualified and less ethical candidate. Unless, of course, Brandon was lying about getting the diploma as well.
Because I had got my ba from them, I was automatically admitted to InterAmerican University B-school. No GRE
But to get out, with a diploma, everyone had to pass, 75%,a "comprehensive examination"
Given twice yearly, 5 questions on core courses in the morning, 5 on concentration in the pm. By its nature it seemed impossible to study for. Many tried, I just winged it.
First time pass rate was something like 40%. A fairly large proportion 25%or so iirc, never passed in 5 tries.
I just knew I'd failed both parts and was sick for a month. Turned out I got 80s on both parts, first attempt. Went back and took it again for a 2nd concentration and was done in an hour. 80 something again.
John Henry
I wonder about the impact down the line when it comes to passing the bar.
One of my kids is an attorney in the public service sector and 80% of the incoming class of new attorneys at her organization did not pass the bar this year and are having to retake it in February.
In discussing this, the impact of COVID was central - a good number of them had had to finish law school remotely. But in the conversation, she mentioned that the strongest indicator for being able to pass the bar is LSAT score.
If you ditch this and center other criteria for admission, are you just setting students up for three years of hard study with a negative outcome at the end because they can't pass the bar and practice?
Well, at least you have their money....
Tucker Carlson raised the question of Justice Brown's LSAT scores and and was dismissed wth outrage as racist, which means that everybody sees the relevance of LSAT scores.
How soon before there is a push to do away with bar exams?
Four years later, she squeaked through on her fourth try.
And they call her "Attorney" today just like any other.
From the old joke about wgat you call a doctor who graduated last in their class.
John Henry
The nice thing about being catechized into Christianity is that you have some concept that the world does not revolve around you, and your desires in a particular moment are not the most determining factor of what is right and good and the best long-term outcome. It makes me sad that so many people do not understand this worldview. They are destined for great disappointment and frustration in life.
The question is who will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, not who did best on one structured, high-pressure test.
This seems awfully loaded, even for a one-sided argument. The “question is” clause conspicuously lacks any reference to “who will perform well as a student?” Or “who will manage to graduate?”, the very matters the LSAT purports to predict. Are those really irrelevant or subordinate questions to a law school admissions committee? An applicant who doesn’t graduate and pass a structured, high-pressure bar exam will certainly not “go on to do good work,” unless you’re talking about “good work” as something other than a lawyer. A poorly-performing student could nonetheless make a positive contribution to a law school class, of course, but does the admissions committee really want to exploit prospectively underperforming (and less likely to graduate) students in that way, for the benefit of the better students? I know there are arguments that the LSAT doesn’t actually predict what it purports to predict. Let’s consider those arguments before deciding to scrap the LSAT on the ground that the questions it answers aren’t the right questions.
"You can dramatically improve you LSAT scores by individual practice and repetition. Public libraries have all test books for free, which is how I did it after working long days to pay my bills."
Which is fine, but the LSAT is just the first of many hurdles to get over in becoming a good lawyer. If you're not significantly above average in terms of intelligence, logical reasoning, reading comprehension, and verbal expression, there's no guidebook waiting for you at the library that's going to cure these deficiencies.
What was the purpose of the post? To incite a rant-fest of outrage over diversity quotas being more important than actual ability? Ann, you said you have 30 years of experience with admissions and professorship. But you didn't share anything more than a cautionary phrase about over-reliance on hard numbers. What does your experience say? Do low scorers on the LSAT do better than the high scorers, generally? Or is it a fairly reliable predictor of later student achievement? That's the real answer, isn't it?
“ Althouse--you have seen it as an admissions committee member, so you know how good the LSAT is at predicting law school success.”
How? You see who you let in, not what happens to them later or how well others might have done instead.
But the measure isn’t how well they do in law school, but how much they contribute to the class and what they go on to contribute to society after they graduate.
Of course, they must be able to do the work to graduate. If they stay in Wisconsin, there is no bar exam.
Half of the students will be in the bottom half of the class. That’s a certainty. Nothing to wring one’s hands about.
Law is dead.
"I wonder about the impact down the line when it comes to passing the bar."
That's easy. Next up: get rid the bar exam. Doesn't the state bar of Wisconsin admit anyone who has graduated from UWisconsin Law or Marquette Law?
Back in 1973 they did.
Jaydub,
Leaving aside the fact that he was lying, here's what Brandon actually said:
The first year in law school, I decided I didn’t want to be in law school and ended up in the bottom two-thirds of my class. And then decided I wanted to stay and went back to law school and, in fact, ended up in the top half of my class
Going from top 66% to top 50% could be an improvement. But it could also be a decline. Given his lifelong penchant for lying and the convoluted phrasing, I'm going with the latter.
I was reminded of this 2 weeks ago when he talked about "the most common price of gas" (mode) instead love the average or even median price.
John Henry
So my guess is that the LSAT is not that great of a predictor, but marginally useful especially for weeding out those that can't get above some threshold, and not that predictive when it comes to high vs. very high scores.
Tests of General Mental Ability (GMA) predict first year success in graduate school. If you can't pass muster in your first year, well you need to think of a different career.
Note that GMA tests are not the sole metric for determining admission to college or grad school. They are the best single predictor of success, but they are almost always combined with other predictors such as letters of recommendation and grades. Back in the day, your grade in undergrad Advanced Psychology Statistics was commonly used to filter out people who could not handle the heavily research oriented classes in grad school.
So it is 'diversity' .vs. competency.
If you can't get 'em to cut the mustard then say a 'diverse' profession is a must.
Dumb it down... yea that is gonna help.
Tucker Carlson was called a racist because he never asked about any other USSC nominee's LSAT score.
WK,
Could you ask your daughter how many tests, exams, quizzes she took in Ed school?
A serious question. I ask because I have an ms from a respected Ed school (SNHU '04) and we were taught that testing was bad and should avoid giving them. We also never had any tests throughout the ms program.
In contrast, the snhu B-school where I taught for nearly 30 years required at least 1, and encouraged 2, in every course. Masters level.
What occurs to me us that test taking is a skill that can be learned. If nothing else by gaining confidence from passing a lot of relatively non-critical ones.
If the first test she encountered was the enormously critical certification, it seems unfair to her.
Fwiw:I am a big believer in testing and standardized testing at all levels K-phd.
With a page or 2 of caveats obout how the testing is done.
John Henry
John Henry
The chair of the LSAC board graduated from a HBCU and YLS. He probably had a very high LSAT.
Half of the students will be in the bottom half of the class. That’s a certainty.
Not necessarily, Ann.
Imagine a class of 40. 10 get A, 30 get B.
What percent are in the bottom half?
It may be different in law schools with the funky forced curve grading.
John Henry
The question is who will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, not who did best on one structured, high-pressure test.
What would you recommend that would accomplish "will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, " if not an objective test ?
"The question is who will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, not who did best on one structured, high-pressure test."
Isn't law school structured and high-pressure itself? Or have I been fooled by television?
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"But the measure isn’t how well they do in law school, but how much they contribute to the class and what they go on to contribute to society after they graduate."
That doesn't sound like something that can be quantified. There is a sense that institutions will sacrifice anything for quantifiable racial diversity. There should be some objective criteria involved in admissions decisions. The LSAT provides a score, and that score can be compared to law school GPA's or bar exam passage rates. Throwing out the LSAT because it isn't a perfect tool isn't likely to improve the quality of lawyers.
The LSAT is getting trashed because its becoming too obvious that the Law schools are discriminating against Asian and white applicants. with the LSAT an Asian could say "I got a score of (making this up) 700 and the black/Hispanic got 400". Discrimination!
Now you get rid of the test, and proving discrimination becomes even harder. More power to the mysterious administrators who decide who gets in and who doesn't.
"I wonder how he knows"
He knows the LSAT predicts law school performance. He knows doing away with the LSAT will bring in a wider range of incompetent students, which is the point. Therefore, he knows it won't bring the "diversity we want." Unstated is that you can't get the diversity you want: a spectrum of colors all highly capable.
""I find the argument that the test is necessary to save diversity in legal education is bizarre." How is it "bizarre"? It's something I've heard for more than 30 years."
Have you heard the argument in that form, i.e., that the test is necessary to save diversity? it does strike me as an odd way of framing it.
"But you can rely too much"
What's too much?
"The question is who will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, not who did best on one structured, high-pressure test."
But the test is just another IQ proxy, and IQ is highly predictive of productivity across sectors and jobs. And as IQ researchers have demonstrated, just one "structured, high-pressure test" taken early in life tells you a lot about that person's likely life course. Which could be used as an argument against the LSAT: just have everyone take a proper IQ test at some earlier point, and be done with it. As long as actual cognitive performance matters.
"I wonder about the impact down the line when it comes to passing the bar."
I don't think there is any real doubt what will happen- when the bar exam still weeds out all the same people the LSAT weeded out, the bar exam will also become optional to admission.
Diversity of individuals, minority of one?
"This proposal will be highly disruptive. "
I wonder how he knows... how he thinks he knows.
Diversity (i.e. racism, sexism, ageism), Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE) doctrine. He is the very model of a bigot that he's been looking for.
And AMDG beats me to it. The only thing that might protect the bar exam is the need to limit the #s of lawyers- a cartel does still like to protect its product's price.
"Half of the students will be in the bottom half of the class. That’s a certainty. Nothing to wring one’s hands about."
Bottom halves are not all the same.
I think law school enrollments have been dropping so it's not a surprise that law schools are trying to make it easier for students to get in. I wonder if the schools are going to make it any cheaper to attend? Maybe rather than dropping the LSAT as one component of the admission process, law schools should be trying to find ways to make it more affordable so that the students don't graduate with a mountain of student loan debt and the bleak possibility of maybe, only maybe, getting a job making $60K a year after passing the Bar exam, although presumably that test is going to be phased out eventually as well.
Why do we even need law schools? Why can't a person who wants to contribute and do good work just hang out a shingle and call himself a lawyer? Why does there need to be any credentialing at all? Kim Kardashian, she's working on becoming a lawyer and she isn't going to any law school. the Kardashian-Jenner family, they are society's standard bearers these days.
I respectfully dissent from Prof. Althouse’s statement of the issue. The issue is not who will contribute to the class (by which I think she means the Socratic dialogue in class) or who will go on to be a good lawyer (something that law schools are completely unable to predict) but rather who will be most likely to do well in law school, i.e., get good grades on law school exams. The LSAT is a pretty good gauge for that, much better than college grades or all the various soft metrics that are just a vehicle for favoritism.
I've read that the LSAT is very closely predictive of a student's success in law school. Why shouldn't a student's LSAT be given heavy weight?
Disclosure: I did very well on the LSAT and so have a likely bias.
Ah the LSAT---and prep courses for same. I took the LSAT in the fall of 1964. There were no prep courses at the time--and I did very well. OTOH I started high school in the fall of 1957 in Southern California. Public high schools were in the midst of a "Sputnik" Russian science scare. And students were segregated in rigid academic tiers. There was college prep, and then there was super college prep "Technical" was the term. We were tested early and often and good test taking skills developed. And that paid off when I took the LSAT with no other preparation.
Go forward 20 years or so--about the time our host started teaching law school--and there was a whole industry of LSAT and GRE test preparation companies. And LSAT scores were skewed upward as a result. That's not necessarily a bad thing. When the intrepid would be lawyer graduates from law school and takes the bar exam--there's a whole industry of bar review prep courses. And everybody takes one. And if you did well on the LSAT as a result of prep courses, you just might pass the bar exam--as a result of prep courses.
Here in California the first time pass rate for the bar exam is typically well below 50%. Students from the more rigorous schools have a first time pass rate in the high 80s or low 90s and things go down hill from there. Bottom 10% at Syracuse just might have to take the Cal Bar several times--and Kamala had to take it twice to pass.
But the "pass" grade on the Cal Bar is 70%--and the Bar examiners don't tell you what your actual score was--you might have aced it, or barely cleared the 70% hurdle. You'll never know. You simply learn that you passed.
Admitted to the actual practice of law some will have the drive and the intellectual horsepower to do the most demanding work; some will not. A failed M&A lawyer might be a good family law practitioner. Personality, people skills, the ability to persuade and inspire client confidence all play a part in success as a lawyer. And those things aren't measured by the LSAT. But you have to get past the bar exam to demonstrate those abilities or the lack thereof. And if a student is not likely to be able to pass the bar exam, is dedicating a seat in a 1L class to that student a good investment of a school's resources?
Standardized tests have been at least an attempt to be objective and treat people equally. As the tests fall one by one like dominoes, I can only imagine the processes will become even more subjective, with the goal always to produce particular outcomes of race and gender.
The places the tests most matter to me are in fields like medicine or civil engineering where having knowledge of a subject is a life and death issue.
Althouse, you've probably posted the answer to my questions before, but can you describe your grading factors (EOSemester exam, in-class preparedness and contribution, etc.), grading standards, test taking environment (open book, open note), etc.
Were your tests considered hard or easy by your students, a fair test of the courses' subject matters, a test that allowed those who had learned and grasped the material to distinguish themselves on the exam, etc.?
At the high end, it is clear that those who come close to pegging the LSAT, do the same with at least the MBE portion of the bar exam (that’s all I needed at the time for the CO Bar). And if you came in on the low end of the LSAT, you are going to have trouble passing it, ever. When I took the MBE the first time, I just practiced it, taking a couple tests a day, until I was testing 10 points above the cutoff, then kicked back for the last couple days. Came into the test, finished both sections over a half hour early each 3 1/2 hour session (so I could leave the testing before the cutoff), having double checked my work. I knew I had passed. And I had, adding over 20 points to my practice scores. That seemed to be the universal experience with those of us with very high LSAT scores.
On the flip side, LS grades seemed to correlate much better with undergraduate GPAs. What always surprised me were those in the top 10% of their LS class who struggled to pass the Bar exam. In at least a couple cases, I am pretty sure that it was stress related. After failing once, they seemed to be able to destress enough to pass the second time around. On the flip side, there are always some who have decent LSATs and LS grades who fail the bar multiple times. John John Kennedy was one - rated one of the most eligible bachelors in the country, presumably getting too much you know what, to study enough to pass.he apparently passed the third time, when he had to buckle down or lose his job, after 3 failures. When we were absorbed into a large law firm, the patent agent in the office next door was offered a paralegal slot, because he had never passed the bar. At the time, the patent bar had half the pass rate as did that of our state. He passed that. Last I knew, after 4-5 tries, he still hadn’t passed the state bar. But then, I had watched him study for it one time, and fully understood why he failed. He just couldn’t buckle down enough to pass. For most of us, you sit through BAR/BRI classes, take the practice tests, write the essays, and bingo - you pass.
Then there are those who probably shouldn’t have gone to law school in the first place. This is their real concern, because they minorities, esp I think Black and Native Americans, are significantly underrepresented in the practice of law. Maybe Hispanics to a lesser extent. Sometimes it is lack of K-16 preparation. And sometimes just not enough mental horsepower of the right type. Or enough mental discipline. The complaint is that these minorities are underrepresented in the ranks of attorneys. The proposed apparent solution is to make it easier for these minorities to get into LS. No LSAT means that admission can (and will) be more subjective, and more Affirmative Action can be sneaked through the admissions process. Except that these same Minorities already fail the Bar exam disproportionately - after having graduated from LS (they also fail out of LS disproportionately). And that, I fear, will be the result of that - more underrepresented minorities are going to waste more of their lives in LS, with an ever lower probability that they will ever be able to pass the bar exam and ever practice law. Or, they could go to U Wisconsin where mere graduation from LS apparently is sufficient to pass the WI bar…
She’s not exactly a great writer—
https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/council_reports_and_resolutions/comments/2022/june/22-june-comment-fariha-amin.pdf
Read more of the comments
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2022/09/aba-receives-over-100-comments-on-its-proposal-to-make-law-school-admission-tests-optional.html
"I wonder if the schools are going to make it any cheaper to attend?"
LOL!!!!! Good one, Sally!
No SAT for college, no LSAT for law school, next standard to go, MCAT for medical school.
"I would hate to give up on my dream of becoming a family lawyer, just due to not being able to successfully handle this test."
Wrote Fariha Amin, "a full-time worker and mother to a 6-year-old son,"
This is exactly the person who benefits from taking a standardized test!
She's got big commitments -- a full time job, a small child that requires lots of care. She's considering taking on two more big commitments -- three years of hard work and a big debt to pay for it.
And no one in the entire application process -- maybe no one in law school -- has an incentive to be straight with her about whether those new commitments are a good bet.
Not every lawyer is rich. Not every lawyer is happy. If a test is telling you you're likely to be poor and unhappy, you should listen!
It seems like underperformance on these tests is often related to time pressure. Redesign the tests to give plenty of time and see if you end up with a more accurate measure.
“The issue is not who will contribute to the class (by which I think she means the Socratic dialogue in class) “
That’s one part of it. I meant all the ways students benefit each other. In admissions, you’re assembling a group, the class body, and you want that to be part of the education. That’s the reason th Supreme Court has permitted the use of race. The diversity of the student body is something that is believed to be good for all the students.
“ Althouse, you've probably posted the answer to my questions before, but can you describe your grading factors (EOSemester exam, in-class preparedness and contribution, etc.), grading standards, test taking environment (open book, open note), etc.
Were your tests considered hard or easy by your students, a fair test of the courses' subject matters, a test that allowed those who had learned and grasped the material to distinguish themselves on the exam, etc.?”
There was one final exam. Essay questions very much about the material discussed in class. Not something you could do by skipping class and cramming with a commercial outline. I was considered tough.
”Admitted to the actual practice of law some will have the drive and the intellectual horsepower to do the most demanding work; some will not. A failed M&A lawyer might be a good family law practitioner. Personality, people skills, the ability to persuade and inspire client confidence all play a part in success as a lawyer. And those things aren't measured by the LSAT. But you have to get past the bar exam to demonstrate those abilities or the lack thereof. And if a student is not likely to be able to pass the bar exam, is dedicating a seat in a 1L class to that student a good investment of a school's resources?”
Yes it is a good investment, if the under qualified student is an underrepresented minority in the practice of law. The Woke progressives setting admissions policy get to feel better about themselves. That’s always a noble goal. Never mind that those minorities they sneaked into LS are unlikely to ever get admitted to the bar. These administrators did their part - they increased the diversity of their LS classes, and that looks good on paper.
I was a patent attorney, who spent much of my practice preparing and prosecuting patent applications, and not one of those who might have a patent ticket, but preferred, say, patent litigation. And, if you have a patent ticket, but no state bar admission, you are a patent agent, ethically locked out of the better parts of the practice, and always at a competitive disadvantage to those of us with both tickets. They cannot legally give patent infringement opinions, and probably shouldn’t give patentability opinions - both of which can be highly lucrative. Infringement opinions were great - like my father’s foreclosure filings, it was mostly canned, with much of the verbiage refined over time and reused constantly. And that patent agent next door, with a LS degree, won’t be hired by large firms as anything more than a paralegal.
Back to the rest of your point there. The back row in my LS classes had a group of students who were there just to get their tickets punched. The only classes they really exerted themselves in revolved around trial work. They wanted to be trial lawyers, and most of them got their wish. Not litigation where you spend months prepping for trial, and rarely got to sit first chair until you had been doing it for a decade, but in court day after day.
Grading followed a required curve.
Open or closed book varied over the years.
When I was in high school, the mother of a friend was going to the local law school for (iirc) marriage and family law. She was doing really well, too, so it can be done.
It wasn't a prestigious institution, but she had all of the traits that you tend to see in law students -- work ethic, obsession with details, drive to be first in every class. She was a nontraditional student, but a very traditional kind of student.
Was it a good bet? For her, it probably was. I get the idea that family lawyers have to hustle to make a living, but she definitely had the drive.
Sally327 said:
"Why do we even need law schools? Why can't a person who wants to contribute and do good work just hang out a shingle and call himself a lawyer? Why does there need to be any credentialing at all? Kim Kardashian, she's working on becoming a lawyer and she isn't going to any law school. the Kardashian-Jenner family, they are society's standard bearers these days."
*****************
Perhaps you should watch "My Cousin Vinnie".
But seriously: the rules of Criminal and Civil Procedure alone are complicated and actually requires legal training to understand and follow. Ditto Evidence law. People who represent themselves "pro se" invariably do a terrible job, waste huge amounts of court time, and make juries utterly miserable.
When those same perps are convicted, they sometimes appeal on the basis that they "lacked effective legal counsel"! Such chutzpah! (but that's no longer a valid ground for appeal)
(Kim K. has failed to pass the CA bar three times. I wish her well, but her performance doesn't inspire confidence. CA doesn't require a law degree for admittance to the bar, but you gotta pass that test.)
... next standard to go, MCAT for medical school.
To promote Diversity, Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE) in the modern model of medicine they are looking for.
"There was one final exam."
I know it's still common practice in law schools, so no snark against Althouse, but as an outsider to that world I find it pretty amazing.
In admissions, you’re assembling a group, the class body, and you want that to be part of the education. That’s the reason th Supreme Court has permitted the use of race. The diversity of the student body is something that is believed to be good for all the students.
Can anyone explain (in theory) how and why racial diversity in classes is good for all students?
I am pretty sure that the empirical data does not exist, but I am interested in the theory.
Althouse: The question is who will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, not who did best on one structured, high-pressure test.
Law is a structured, high-pressure career. There is a relationship there.
If you are going to argue against standardized testing, your argument must be either (a) the standardized test is a mediocre (or even poor) indicator of the tester's likelihood to succeed or (b) there is a better system to identify success that should be used instead. As best I can tell, standardized testing does a very good job at predicting outcomes at a relatively inexpensive cost. It is not perfect. There are going to be persons who do poorly on the LSAT and will make good lawyers and vice-versa. That said, no matter what system you use, it is going to be wrong some of the time. "Standardized testing is imperfect so it must be replaced" is not a logical argument.
The thing is I am not dumb, and I know the reason why this is being done has nothing to do with the likelihood of the success of applicants. This is woke equity BS that insists that any differential between success and demographics is caused by racism, etc. They want to be able to admit students based on racial quotas and subjective reasons (i.e. conservatives need not apply). The mistake is to think law schools are doing this in good faith. They've simply come around full circle to the days when we did not want "those people" on campus. The only difference is who they are bigoted against.
The only question here is if the influx of lesser candidates is going to result in a higher drop out rate, the school all so happy to pocket the money of the failures, or an influx of bad lawyers who were shoved through the system.
@Darkisland
In my previous comment I was referring to my niece so some of my information is second hand. Not sure how often she was tested in courses in their program. I know she struggled on standardized tests in high school and had accommodations for other testing. It seems that the university education program entry requirements may have changed after she was accepted and started. Likely would not have been a direct admit with the standards that were set after she enrolled. I agree with your point about standardized testing. My kids probably first took the ACT in 9 th grade as it was used as an enrollment screening for summer programs they participated in. I think both kids were pretty familiar with the standardized tests due to the number of times they took them. I agree testing skills can be learned but you have to want to do that. My son is currently finishing an accounting/finance undergrad and has accepted a job with a company that will be supporting him to pursue CPA and CFA certifications. A number of industries require certifications.
Understanding that because my niece has not passed the first certification exam she will not graduate with an education degree but family studies. Seems like the university has created an out so that stats are not pulled down showing education majors did not pass the certification exams. Seems to be a bit of a scam.
@Sebastrian
"I know it's still common practice in law schools, so no snark against Althouse, but as an outsider to that world I find it pretty amazing"
But it's pretty amazing how quickly one can get used to a single exam being your grade. I was able to start law school before I got my bachelor degree. My law school would admit you if you had at least 90 hours toward a bachelor with requirement that the bachelor got finished by end of law school, and I was going to be 12 hours short at the end of a summer semester and get a bachelor degree in December. My choice was to apply for the next August class or apply to start early. I decided early and was accepted into law school, didn't take any undergrad classes during 1st year and then took an undergrad class during my 2nd and 3rd years in addition to law school hours. (Made for a topic of conversation in job interviews; my resume showed both undergrad and JD having the same graduation year and interviewer would point out the 'typo.')
My first 'extra' undergrad class had a single mid-term that was optional. Prof recommended everyone take the mid-term, saying that those who skipped it and relied only on final exam typically didn't do as well in class. I choose to skip it because I didn't like idea of taking tests during the semester. When mid-term was reviewed in the class after, I considered it comfortably easy. The final exam upon which was my entire grade rested was decidedly not. Probably the toughest undergrad test I ever took, and I came well prepared.
About 10 years ago, I had a long discussion with a then-first year student at my old law school. Most grades in 1L classes were still based on a single test, but almost all tests were open book/note and take home (maybe 24 hrs, maybe 48 hrs, maybe days). All of my test in mid-80s were proctored tests equal in duration as the credit hours earned in the class; open book/notes weren't permitted in 1st year classes. One of my first-year professors was still teaching, and his 1Ls were basically freaked that he kept to old school that you only brought pens and whatever was in your head to take the test.
"Can anyone explain (in theory) how and why racial diversity in classes is good for all students?"
The Supreme Court accepted that race could be a factor, but race balancing and quotas were never accepted as a good enough reason. It had to be this idea of making the classroom better in some complex way that admissions experts needed to be free to do. It can't be just X extra points for having a particular race. That was rejected in Gratz. It has to be something more subtle.
So this benefit isn't the benefit of just seeing that there are different races in the classroom. So the question isn't whether there's some good in that. The question is whether classroom discussions and out-of-class interactions are more rewarding to the students if there are lots of different kinds of students, with race being one of the things that would be part of what an individual has to offer, just like many other factors.
In law school, we study cases, and the cases involve all sorts of things, and students with different backgrounds can make discussions more realistic. For example, I found if very rewarding to have students with experience in the military, in medicine, in law enforcement, in business, in government, in finance, etc. etc. Is race like that? Of course, it also needs to be so valuable that it meets strict scrutiny. And you don't need to pass strict scrutiny to add weight to an admissions file because of experience in the military, in medicine, in law enforcement, in business, etc. You can just outright discriminate in favor of applicants who seemed as though they might be valuable to the group because of this experience.
" The question is who will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, not who did best on one structured, high-pressure test"/"Law is a structured, high-pressure career. There is a relationship there."
Some people who can sit down and take a good test don't really fit into a workplace environment that well. I've known a lot of super-smart people who can knock out a great 3-hour test but who you would not want on your work team. Some of these people don't work well with clients.
In any event, not all law jobs are high-pressure. You tend to think about lawyers in the high-pressure setting, but if you were a low key "people person" -- like maybe Fariha Amin -- you can find a place.
The law school isn't stuck on one particular type of person!
Blogger Mike said...
Ah the LSAT---and prep courses for same. I took the LSAT in the fall of 1964. There were no prep courses at the time--and I did very well.
I took the SAT in 1956. My high school just told us to go to the study hall, we were going to take a test. I have no idea what my score was as that was not provided. It was enough to make me a National Merit Scholar in the first year when there were only 100 scholarships. The same with the MCAT. I had just begun premed (from Engineering) and my roommates talked me into taking it anyway. Then they talked me into applying to one medical school "just for practice." I was accepted that December. Neither roommate ever went to medical school.
There was one final exam. Essay questions very much about the material discussed in class.
That sounds kind of like one structured, high-pressure test. Were there circumstances that would make that description inapt?
I was considered tough
Something to be proud of. Every great professor I ever had or knew was "considered tough." I regret to say that my Con Law professor was not one of them, and I'm sure it would have been worth a winter in Madison at out-of-state tuition to be trained by Professor Althouse.
The law school isn't stuck on one particular type of person!
Of course not, but shouldn't an admissions committee be aiming to maximize the graduation rate, so as to minimize the wasted time and money of the non-graduates? Or does the tuition paid by the 1L washouts helpfully subsidize the successful students? Is there a target level of washouts?
Law school lecture classes were graded on a curve based on final exam. Students just identified by ss#. It was a shock to first years, who mostly had not experienced curves in college, that the Kingsfields and the Althouses employed the same curve.
i'd hate to be family hiring a lawyer and get one who coud not handle the test.
"The question is who will contribute to the class in law school and go on to do good work, not who did best on one structured, high-pressure test."
Sorry for any repetition.
So, do people who do well on the one end-of-course exam that was standard for Althouse and so many law profs also contribute more to the class and go on to do good work? Did UW measure such correlations at all?
Why are single structured high-pressure tests fine for course assessment but not for entry to law school?
Another old lawyer: "But it's pretty amazing how quickly one can get used to a single exam being your grade"
I'm sure. And no doubt it's convenient to faculty. But is it the best way to train people and to assess the development of their skills? Even undergrad chemistry has labs, reports, etc.--you accumulate skills, under guidance, with regular feedback. In the fields I am familiar with, and in many undergrad courses I recall, a single exam to assign a grade for an entire course would have little pedagogical value. I know law students can take clinical courses etc., but if the point of law school is professional training the traditional testing method seems questionable except for ranking purposes--and of course for lightening the grading load for faculty.
i'd hate to be family hiring a lawyer and get one who coud not handle the test.
Entry level requirement: pass the exam.... read, write, etc.
@Sebastian.
It's changed somewhat over the last decades but historically little of a law student's required classes involve professional training beyond 'thinking like a lawyer' combined with knowledge transfer. During my schooling, we had a mandatory research and writing class and mandatory moot court in the first year, and then at least one other class that required written submissions (but law review membership fulfilled that requirement). But IIRC that was it as far as mandatory classes for professional and skill development.
In addition to some clinical classes like you mentioned, my law school had practical classes on client counseling and mediation, maybe a negotiation competition, and had trial practice classes for those interested in litigation. All were elective. Nothing on transactional skills like drafting or even drafting legal documents outside of a litigation context were even offered.
Law schools didn't (don't?) provide you with much insight into the actual, day-to-day practice of law, and that it was very heavily skewed toward the intellectual/theoretical approach to law. I think that's because most law professors either have little or no experience practicing law with actual paying clients or left the practice because they didn't like it much. I know when I asked a very young professor why he'd left a DC law firm to teach, he just smiled.
Most of law school is aimed at teaching you what you need to know to pass the bar exam, and the practical stuff you learn after. (Again, YMMV by school and given I went decades ago.)
Because of that, I think anyone who can memorize well, think and write logically in an 'if, then' treeing structure, and can do well on the LSAT could pass a bar exam after taking the bar review course (a commercially offered review of the bar subjects with a study book of the subjects in outline form) and studying hard for 6 or so months, especially if teaching assistant-like classes were periodically available for questions and discussions.
I studied engineering in undergrad and statistics to the PhD level. In most all classes we had 2 1 hr exams and a 2 hr final plus 13 homework’s. Homework was 10%, tests 40%, and final 50%. This was pretty much universal. Perhaps a project thrown in as equal to a test. 90% or better was an A.
If you have, in law school a single final, that is pretty tough. You don’t get a check on how tough the prof is before the high stakes final test that can flunk you out.
Law school is grad school so you would need to get a 3.5 gpa to be in good standing at a good school, so the only thing the LSAT would do is to keep kids from destroying their lives by going to law school and flunking out, and not going into something they were good at. In a good school they are not going to let someone pass who does not meet requirements.
Another question is, how important is success in law school to success in the practice of law. Many engineering grads go into sales and other fields. Perhaps in law you also don’t need to really learn anything to do some jobs.
I have never been to law school, but I guess the modern thinking is that after many decades of requiring the LSAT it is better to let all the kids in and then see if they can pass the high stakes final for each class. If they can’t then after a year or so flunk them out. Perhaps I don’t understand, and the admissions dept. can tell without the LSAT which candidates can pass all the finals without the LSAT.
The idea must be that even though they can’t pass the LSAT they may be able to pass enough of the finals, over 3 years. Ok. What would be wrong would be to lower the standards and pass them even though they did not learn the subject.
This may be a better strategy for the lower tier schools who can’t fill classes and need the tuition money, if even for the first year or so.
Over the past few months I've learned to mentally replace the term "trans" with "not".
Thus, I read "transwoman", and I make an automatic correction to "not-woman".
Long ago I had to do the same for "diverse" and "diversity". Now I just replace the terms with "anti-white", and it all makes more sense.
I considered law school back in the 80's because I was doing tax work. I never did it because I was too well paid. I did look at the LSAT prep exams and it seemed to be testing for reading comprehension, applying logic to stated facts and ability to write. All those are things I would think would be needed for success as a lawyer. People who can't handle test situations are probably not suited for law practice where you frequently have crucial time limited presentations of your argument even if you don't litigate. The schools are just going to return to the pre-war normal of using recommendations and interviews to make admission decisions to elite schools. This will mean mostly connected people with a few slots for the unquestionably brilliant and hard working (Jewish applicants in the 30's and probably Asians now) and a few for worthy cases (like Blacks and Native Americans since the 19th century).
@Josephbleau
Law school admissions used to be like that - no LSAT, standards less formal, higher attrition rate. The old 'look to your left, look to your right, one of you won't be here next year.'
And that might have made more sense when I went in the mid 80s and my annual tuition/fees was, IIRC, around $2,500 (add books and living expenses).
But at today's tuition/fees, admitting students who can't do the work or can't pass the bar is borderline immoral and some would claim it amounts to one or more torts or other violations of law. (Plaintiff attorneys are notoriously creative, especially class action lawyers.)
"How? You see who you let in, not what happens to them later or how well others might have done instead."
God forbid any admissions committee follow up on admitted students or bypassed applicants to see the results of their actions. That would be factual information leading to accountability!
None of the "commonsense gun laws" (TM) proposed has the amity, ghe likelihood, or even a chance of preventing criminal violence.
I see "CGL" proposed, and all it ever amounts to is disarm the law-abiding while criminals continue without the least hindrance. To hell with that and to he'll with those anti-rights criminal supporting proponents of nonsense.
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