Best Practices for Legal Education

Clinical Legal Education Association board members Mae Quinn and Perry Moriearty are seeking volunteers to participate on an ad hoc committee to explore the proposed elimination of Standard 503 (which virtually requires law schools to use the LSAT as the single test for admissions purposes).  The ABA Standards Review Committee recently voted to eliminate ABA Standard 503, which currently requires every prospective law student to take a “valid and reliable admission test” to assist law schools in “assessing the applicant’s capability of satisfactorily completing the school’s educational program.”  For more details, check out the SALT/CLEA report on the July meeting of the Standards Review Committee.

Now, the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar must decide whether to accept or reject this proposal.  SALT has written to the ABA to support elimination of Standard 503 arguing that, among other things, overreliance on the LSAT has resulted in exclusion of otherwise qualified applicants from underrepresented populations.  On the other hand, the AALS wrote to oppose the proposal.

CLEA has not yet taken a formal position relating to the elimination of Standard 503, but the CLEA Board has created an ad hoc working group to further explore this issue over the coming weeks.  CLEA members are invited to join the working group and/or to contact Mae Quinn (mquinn@wulaw.wustl.edu) or Perry Moriearty (pmoriear@umn.edu) with their thoughts.

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