A blog exploring all aspects of law and legal education — the future of the legal profession, access to justice, diversity and inclusion, testing and assessment, law and technology, and more.
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Carlos Cedillo-Silva saw a legal education as a far-fetched dream, but a summer in the PLUS Program turned his burden into a reality.
There are many ways to make an impact in law, but one we don’t often hear much about is how people become judges and justices. During a recent LSAC webinar, I was joined by two women who took unique paths in law and are now breaking barriers as members of the judiciary, along with a third pathbreaker who now works to help law school candidates make their own successful transitions to the legal profession.
Keni Anthony says she’s always wanted to attend a historically Black university. “Ever since I was little, watching my auntie walk across the stage at Savannah State, I knew from that age that that would be me,” she says.
Victoria Esparza saw her life upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a senior studying political science and Spanish at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Esparza hoped to enter law school the fall after graduation. But financial hardships related to the pandemic, and needing to care for her younger sister while their mother worked, forced her to delay her plans.
Kristen Juhan crunched the numbers and found her career wasn’t adding up. She’d majored in business economics in college and was working as a certified public accountant, but it wasn’t as fulfilling as she’d hoped it would be.
Without the ability to host in-person events during the COVID-19 pandemic, law school candidates and admission offices have had to get creative, with virtual office hours, Zoom panels, and other opportunities to connect digitally. LSAC is also embracing those opportunities.
LSAC joins the entire legal community and nation in mourning the loss of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and we offer our condolences to her family and friends.
We have just completed the June administration of the LSAT-Flex, the online, remotely proctored delivery of LSAT that we designed to give law school candidates the opportunity to complete their application to law school despite the COVID-19 restrictions on travel and large gatherings.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is posing challenges across the board for law schools, but student affairs professionals are dealing with particular challenges as they communicate with incoming first-year students. To gain some insight into what these students should know as we approach an uncertain fall semester, I recently hosted a webinar with three student affairs professionals: Stephanie Carlos, assistant dean for student affairs at University of San Francisco School of Law; Bayrex Martí, assistant dean for student affairs at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law; and Ethan Rosenzweig, associate dean for enrollment management and student services at Emory University School of Law.
Applicants to law school have always been concerned about how to pay for their education, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating those concerns. How are law school admission and financial aid offices dealing with these changing times?