Washington Square News - TRIALS: diversifying law schools
6/15/09 7:48 AM
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TRIALS: diversifying law schools PRERANA SWAMI Published: Friday, March 6, 2009
NYU and Harvard’s law schools are widely considered to be some of the most competitive. Now, the two are teaming up to diversify future classes of law students.
During summer 2010, a select group of students will attend the NYU School of Law for a five-week program called Training and Recruitment Initiative for Admission to Leading Law Schools, or TRIALS. Harvard Law School will host the program this summer. TRIALS, a new partnership between the NYU School of Law, Harvard Law School and the Advantage Testing Foundation, will make it easier for socioeconomically-challenged students from underrepresented backgrounds to be accepted to leading law schools.
TRIALS will help students “achieve a competitive LSAT score, the confidence to apply to premier law schools and the background to succeed during their legal education,” according to its website.
“There is no question that the law lags other professions in terms of diversity,” said Arun Alagappan, president of the Advantage Testing Foundation and founder of TRIALS. “A recent report by the American Bar Association’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity estimates that nearly 90 percent of the nation’s lawyers are white.”
He added that recent studies have shown that law students overwhelmingly come from wealthy households in which at least one parent is a college graduate with a white-collar job.
“[NYU] wants to play a leading role in opening up law schools to a more diverse population,” School of Law dean Richard Revesz said. “It’s predominantly students who go to colleges that don’t normally send their students to top law schools, but who are enormously talented.” During the five-week program, students will meet with senior instructors from Advantage Testing to prepare for the LSAT. Not only will students take the full LSAT under simulated conditions multiple times, they will also experience what it is like to attend law school. Furthermore, they will attend lectures by prominent lawyers, public figures and legal scholars, including faculty from NYU and Harvard law schools. “TRIALS students will improve their chances of admission to law school, not by virtue of having participated in the program but because of what they have accomplished there,” Alagappan said. “They will be able to articulate their ambitions in a specific and compelling way that many of their peers may not.” TRIALS will be a full scholarship program thanks to a large grant from the Heckscher Foundation. This summer, the program will supply each student with a $3,000 stipend to replace or supplement a summer employment salary.
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