Suffolk University Law School is offering a new pipeline program to encourage diversity applicants.
The Summer Pre-Law Pipeline Program will be held in-person from June 6-17. The two-week course will offer 30 hours of academic classes with professors and alumni on campus and will focus its efforts on first-generation and low-income students. The program is free and will focus on introducing interested applicants to the law school experience and exposing them to networking opportunities. They will also receive one-on-one application assistance from experienced admission officers and mentoring from legal leaders.
The application deadline for the course is March 1. Applications received after that date may be considered if space remains.
The summer program is just one element of Suffolk’s ongoing efforts to eliminate bias and enhance diversity in the legal profession. Suffolk Law also launched a full-tuition scholarship program for those admitted from dozens of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and a $20,000 scholarship for first-generation college students from 29 New England-area schools.
“If we want to improve the systems that make Black and brown people a rarity at the levers of power, law school is a great place to start,” said Cherina Wright, Suffolk’s assistant dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
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The University of Virginia School of Law is also helping low-income and first-generation law students get a leg up on their studies. The school’s new Roadmap Scholars Initiative introduces students to the legal profession while offering financial and counseling support.
It launched with $200,000 in funding from UVA Alumni Association donors.
There are three stages to the initiative for participants:
First, scholars in the program will reside in Charlottesville for four weeks during the summer after their sophomore year of college. To get a taste of what being a law student is like, they will take mini-courses on a broad range of topics from the school’s curriculum.
The second stage includes a stipend to take an LSAT prep course, mentoring from University of Virginia law students and alumni and monthly meetings with Mark Jefferson, the initiative’s director and the school’s assistant dean for diversity, equity, and belonging.
The final stage takes place after the scholars’ junior year, with scholars attending a two-week application boot camp in Charlottesville followed by a legal internship at a private-, public- or nonprofit sector employer.
“This is a dream program for high-achieving students who are interested in law school and want to learn more, and who want to be fully prepared for the highly competitive nature of applying to UVA and other top law schools,” Jefferson said.
Applications are currently being accepted with the launch scheduled for June.
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Seattle University School of Law received a gift of $5 million from the Moccasin Lake Foundation to create a pipeline of graduates to help domestic violence survivors and members of underserved communities across the state.
The gift will enable the school to render legal aid and provide greater access to family law services. Other benefits include the establishment of an endowed chair in Family Law, more scholarship support for students interested in family law/domestic violence law and educational campaigns to increase awareness of domestic violence.
Deirdre Bowen, associate professor of law, who created a Domestic Violence Protection Order (DVPO) clinic in the early days of the pandemic, said a majority of the counties in Washington state are “legal deserts,” or areas where few lawyers exist to provide much-needed legal services. The gift will help the law school expand its reach to these areas.
To date, students have helped more than 500 survivors – many of whom are low-income and lack the resources to hire attorneys – to complete court-required online legal forms.
