How to Attack the Legal Profession’s Diversity Problem (Perspective)

Deborah Jones Merritt, John Deaver Drinko/Baker & Hostetler :

This month the ABA’s Council, which bears responsibility for accrediting law schools, will consider a proposal to tighten the accreditation standard governing bar passage. The proposed standard is a modest one: It requires simply that three-quarters of a school’s graduates who choose to take the bar exam pass that exam within two years of their first try.

Opponents of the proposal argue that it will diminish diversity in the legal profession. They draw upon data showing that minority applicants pass the bar at lower rates than their white peers. Requiring law schools to meet this modest bar passage standard, they suggest, will close down schools that enroll a substantial number of minority students.

Some of these claims are well intentioned, but they are misguided. They endorse a system of legal education in which minority students disproportionately enroll at low-ranked law schools, pay top tuition to attend those schools, and fail the bar exam at distressingly high rates. This is not a recipe for diversifying the legal profession.

Law schools have much better tools for accomplishing that goal. We could lower tuition, which would help less affluent minorities afford law school. We could award scholarships based on need, rather than LSAT scores. We could reform teaching methods to support first-generation lawyers. We could devote more resources to pipeline programs that offer opportunities to high school and college students.