The Culture of Success: Improving the Academic Success Opportunities for Multicultural Students in Law School

Pamela Edwards ^(*)

I. Introduction

Most of the post-Hopwood v. Texas⁽¹⁾ discourse on affirmative action has ignored one salient fact: Although many law schools have programs to admit multicultural students,⁽²⁾ these students have not achieved, in numbers proportionate to their percentage of law students, the traditional indicators of academic success, such as membership on law reviews.⁽³⁾ These students' relative lack of success does not result from a lack of dedication, however, devoting long hours to study-related activities is often not enough. As Derrick Bell has stated:

it is critical that the student understand how to take law school exams. Students can attend every class and study diligently, but unless they have mastered law school exam-taking techniques, they may turn in mediocre exam papers and earn mediocre grades.⁽⁴⁾

A recently released report by the Law School Admission Council confirms this statement and indicates that multicultural students are as diligent as white students in attending and studying for classes, and in some cases even more diligent than white students. These multicultural students are not, however, rewarded with better academic performances during the first year of law school.⁽⁵⁾

This Article should not be read as support for the over-reliance of first-year grades as proxies for: (1) future law school performance; (2) bar passage; or (3) future success as an attorney. Such reliance is flawed. For example, at least one study has shown that multicultural students who were admitted to law school under a race-based affirmative action program passed the bar at "rates rang[ing] from 72.5 percent to 93.3 percent."⁽⁶⁾ Because there is, however, still such over-reliance on first year performance,⁽⁷⁾ this Article strives to provide multicultural students with better preparation to compete in the first-year environment.

Part II of this Article examines factors that affect academic performance, by reviewing both anecdotal and quantitative sources.⁽⁸⁾ In doing so, Part II discusses a recent study of performance and experiences of students who entered law school in the fall of 1991.⁽⁹⁾ The study analyzed these students based on a number of demographic factors, such as: ethnic group, sex, age, socioeconomic status, and previous education.⁽¹⁰⁾ The study also compared law students who performed substantially better in their first year of law school than predicted by their undergraduate grade point averages, with students who performed substantially worse in their first year of law school than predicted by their grade-point averages.⁽¹¹⁾ Part II explores the differences between these two groups of students, and discusses possible implications of multicultural students' academic performances.⁽¹²⁾

Part III introduces learning theory concepts.⁽¹³⁾ After all "students cannot study well and do well on exams, regardless of the amount of time allotted for study, unless they realize that their studying must be specific to the task itself."⁽¹⁴⁾ This Article then discusses the development of critical thinking skills.⁽¹⁵⁾ Finally, concrete recommendations for improving multicultural law students' academic performance are considered.⁽¹⁶⁾

II. First-Year Academic Performance

When compared with predictions based on their undergraduate grade point averages, multicultural students performed significantly worse.⁽¹⁷⁾ Of those 406 African-American students whose responses are reported in the Law School Admission Counsel (LSAC) study, only fifteen percent performed better than predicted.⁽¹⁸⁾ Of the 186 Latino-American students whose responses are reported in the study, thirty-three percent performed better than predicted.⁽¹⁹⁾ Of the 131 Asian-American students whose responses are reported in the study, forty-seven percent performed better than predicted.⁽²⁰⁾ Finally, of the 619 white students whose responses are reported in these tables, seventy-nine percent performed better than predicted.⁽²¹⁾

African-American students comprised sixty percent of the women and approximately forty-two percent of the men who performed worse than predicted.⁽²²⁾ On the other hand, African-American students comprised only thirteen percent of the women and five percent of the men who performed better than predicted.⁽²³⁾ Latino-American students comprised fourteen percent of the women and twenty-three percent of the men who performed worse than predicted, and nine percent performed better than predicted.⁽²⁴⁾ Asian-American students comprised eleven percent of the women and nine percent of the men who performed worse than predicted, and comprised eleven percent of the women and seven percent of the men who performed better than predicted.⁽²⁵⁾ The three Native-American women who participated in the study performed worse than expected, and of the thirteen Native-American men who participated, three performed better than predicted and ten performed worse.⁽²⁶⁾

Unlike the multicultural students, white women comprised sixty-seven percent of the women who performed better than predicted and fifteen percent of the women who performed worse than predicted.⁽²⁷⁾ Similarly, white men comprised seventy-seven percent of the men who performed better than predicted and twenty-three percent of the men who performed worse than predicted.⁽²⁸⁾

However, the foregoing discussion does not account for the influence of socioeconomic status on law school performance. The LSAC Study indicates "that relative over- and underperformance is not independent . . . of socioeconomic status."⁽²⁹⁾ Furthermore, a relationship exists between socioeconomic status and ethnicity that affects the data.⁽³⁰⁾

The LSAC Study confirms that this relative lack of academic success is not the result of insufficient amount of time spent on law school related activities.⁽³¹⁾ That is, the students who performed significantly better during the first year of law school do not spend more time studying than those students who performed significantly worse than expected. The LSAC Study reports data concerning the amount of time spent on a number of activities during the first year of law school. These activities include: (1) attending class; (2) studying; (3) engaging in law-related activities; (4) working at a paid job; (5) participating in community or church services; (6) handling personal and family responsibilities; and (7) relaxing and enjoying recreational time.⁽³²⁾

A.  Studying Longer

Across all ethnic groups, women reported spending more time attending class than men.⁽³³⁾ With one exception, multicultural students reported spending more time attending class than white students.⁽³⁴⁾ Also with one exception, multicultural students reported spending more time studying than white students.⁽³⁵⁾ In fact, African-American women reported spending more time studying than any other group, and African-American men reportedly spent the second highest amount of time studying.⁽³⁶⁾

The LSAC Study further breaks down nine study-related activities. These activities included: (1) reading cases; (2) briefing cases; (3) making and studying outlines; (4) reviewing assignment materials and class notes; (5) participating in study groups; (6) reading hornbooks or nutshells; (7) discussing course-related problems with friends; (8) being tutored by other students; and (9) attending special classes on first year courses.⁽³⁷⁾ In general, the report shows that multicultural students spend more time than white students spend in all of these categories.⁽³⁸⁾

African-American women reportedly spent more time in all of these activities during their first semester of law school than any other group.⁽³⁹⁾ With one exception, African-American women reported spending more time in all of these activities during their second semester of law school.⁽⁴⁰⁾ Most of the LSAC Study data regarding the amount of time spent on study-related activities varies more between the different ethnic groups than between the sexes within ethnic groups.⁽⁴¹⁾ For example, "[t]he difference between [African-American] women and white women is statistically significant . . . in every [study-related] activity."⁽⁴²⁾ It should be underscored that African-American students reportedly spent more time studying than any other ethnic group.⁽⁴³⁾

As previously mentioned, the LSAC Study also compared law students' performances during their first year of law school with prior predictions of these performances based on LSAT scores and undergraduate grade point averages.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Again, study results show that spending more time studying does not guarantee greater success in law school, at least during the first year.⁽⁴⁵⁾

The study notes that "women who performed worse than predicted reported less overall study time than did the women who performed better[,] yet within each specific study-related activity, they reported [spending] more time" than the women who performed better.⁽⁴⁶⁾ Similarly,

[t]he men who performed worse than predicted reported spending significantly more time than the men who performed better in each of the series of study-related activities that were examined. . . . [Unlike the women, however], [t]he men who performed worse than predicted reported essentially the same amount of overall study time as did the men who performed better . . . .⁽⁴⁷⁾

With both men and women, there was no difference in the basic study patterns between the students who performed better than predicted and those who performed worse than predicted.⁽⁴⁸⁾ Thus, the "more time spent studying does not necessarily result in good grades. In short, students who get good grades do not necessarily study more than students who get lower grades."⁽⁴⁹⁾

Not only did multicultural students report spending more time in study-related activities than white students reported, but multicultural students also studied longer than they had expected to prior to entering law school. Moreover, [f]or every ethnic group [examined], women reported that the course work in law school was significantly more difficult relative to their expectations than did men."⁽⁵⁰⁾ "Among women students, [however, multicultural] students reported that the difficulty exceeded their expectations significantly more than did white women."⁽⁵¹⁾ Similarly, in comparison to white men's expectations, multicultural men found that the difficulty of law school exceeded their expectations.⁽⁵²⁾ Furthermore, African-American women found themselves spending more time studying than they had anticipated prior to law school. Although

both [African-American] and white women reported that the amount of study time required outside of class exceeded their expectations significantly more than men in the same ethnic group. . . . [T]he amount of study time required exceeded expectations most for [African-American] women and least for white women. [African-American] women reported an amount of study time relative to expectations that is significantly higher . . . than was reported by any other group of women.⁽⁵³⁾

This difference in expectations may explain in part the relatively poor performance of multicultural students. The LSAC Study indicates that students "who performed worse [than predicted by their grade point averages] found the level of difficulty of the work and the amount of study time required to be significantly more than expected when compared with [those students] who performed better."⁽⁵⁴⁾

B.  Factors That Interfere with Academic Success

There are several factors that affect students' law school performance, such as: (1) poor legal writing skills; (2) concerns about financial conditions; (3) overwork; (4) discrimination; and (5) cultural factors.

1.  Poor Legal Writing Skills

The LSAC Study reveals that those students who performed better than their undergraduate grade-point averages had predicted, did better in their first-year legal writing course than those students who did worse than their undergraduate grade-point averages had predicted.⁽⁵⁵⁾

Before entering law school, women have more confidence in their writing skills than do men.⁽⁵⁶⁾ "[W]omen in every group found writing to be significantly easier than did men from the same ethnic group."⁽⁵⁷⁾ However, the results change when the students were asked about their first year legal writing course. Respondents were asked to rate their difficulties on several aspects of the first year legal writing course. These aspects were: basic writing style and grammar requirements, organizing written products, and analysis required for legal briefs.⁽⁵⁸⁾ Although women reported having less difficulty with the basic writing style and grammar requirements than the men in the same ethnic group, they reported having more difficulty with the analysis required for legal briefs.⁽⁵⁹⁾

Looking at the groups of women, "both [African-American and Latino-American] women found basic writing and grammar skills as well as organizing written products to be significantly more difficult . . . than did white women."⁽⁶⁰⁾

The question of "whether the differences in difficulty are related to actual difficulty with the analysis skills, or rather related to differences in male and female writing styles, particularly when the written products are being evaluated by male readers" is left for future study.⁽⁶¹⁾

[With both men and women, those students] who performed worse than expected found every aspect of the legal writing program--mechanics, organization, and analyses--significantly more difficult than did the [students] who did better. . . . If difficulties with all these aspects of legal writing carried into final examinations in other first-year courses, they well could account for much, if not most, of the variation in grades between these two groups of [students].⁽⁶²⁾

Moreover, as Derrick Bell observed: "Most law teachers are entirely familiar with `legal writing' and will likely measure the student's work against their standards for good legal writing."⁽⁶³⁾

Extensive undergraduate writing experience does not seem to guarantee better performance in law school. Students

who performed worse than predicted reported taking significantly more undergraduate courses in the areas of humanities, social science, and speech and communications than [students] who performed better than predicted. These are the areas in which more written products might be expected, providing ample feedback to these [students] about the quality of their writing. It is not reasonable to consider that the skills they acquired and utilized in high school and college were lost in law school.⁽⁶⁴⁾

This result may also be caused by the difference between law school exams and undergraduate essay exams.⁽⁶⁵⁾ Nonetheless, the LSAC Study shows that students lose confidence in their writing skills during their first year of law school.⁽⁶⁶⁾

While undergraduate writing experience does not seem to guarantee better performances in law school, the LSAC Study did not uncover any concentration of undergraduate courses taken by students who performed better than predicted. The LSAC Study did note, however, that

the [students] who performed better than predicted and who reported significantly less difficulty with all aspects of their first-year legal writing program, including legal analysis, [did] not report having taken significantly more courses in any of the areas such as mathematics or computer science that are traditionally thought of as developing analytical reasoning skills.⁽⁶⁷⁾

2.  Financial Worries

While financial concerns distract many first-year law students, these concerns especially affect multicultural students. Moreover, the LSAC study demonstrates that African-American students enter law school with larger undergraduate debts than any other ethnic group involved in the study.⁽⁶⁸⁾ Thus, "the percentage of [African-American] women entering law school with no undergraduate debt is significantly smaller than the percentage for any other group of women."⁽⁶⁹⁾ It is not surprising that African-American students are, therefore, more concerned about paying off their education debts than any other multicultural group.⁽⁷⁰⁾ In fact, every group of multicultural students, except Asian-American men, expressed greater concern than white students about their ability to pay off their educational loans.⁽⁷¹⁾ In addition to undergraduate debts, African-American students borrowed a greater percentage of their costs for their second year of law school than did other multicultural groups.⁽⁷²⁾ Among multicultural groups, "59 percent of both [African-American] men and [African-American] women reported borrowing half or more of the costs of the second year of law school."⁽⁷³⁾ As to those students who had to borrow more than half of the costs of their second-year expenses, women had to borrow a greater percentage than the men in their respective ethnic group.⁽⁷⁴⁾ Fifty-five percent of Asian-American women and fifty-seven percent of Latino-American women reported having to borrow more than half of their second year expenses.⁽⁷⁵⁾ However, only forty-six percent of Asian-American and Latino-American men had to borrow more than half their costs of their second year.⁽⁷⁶⁾ Similarly, approximately forty-nine percent of white men and fifty-two percent of white women reported having to borrow more than half of the costs of their second year of law school.⁽⁷⁷⁾

In addition to loans, African-American students depended more than the other groups on need-based and non-need-based scholarships to finance some portion of the costs of their second year of law school.⁽⁷⁸⁾ Latino-American students reported the next greatest reliance on need-based and non-need-based scholarships to finance some portion of the costs of their second year of law school.⁽⁷⁹⁾

A corollary of this Article's hypothesis--financial concerns interfere with first-year law school performance--is that first-year law school performance affects financial worries.⁽⁸⁰⁾ The LSAC Study indicates that a greater percentage of students who performed better than predicted by their grade-point averages during their first year of law school entered law school with no undergraduate debt than those who performed worse than predicted by their undergraduate grade point averages. Performing worse than expected in the first year of law school increases students' financial worries, including concerns about one's future ability to pay off educational debts. Students who performed better than predicted by their undergraduate grade-point averages expressed less concern about their ability to pay off their educational debts than those students who performed worse than predicted by their undergraduate grade point averages.⁽⁸¹⁾ The LSAC Study also includes data on students who entered law school in the fall of 1991 and did not return to law school for their second year.⁽⁸²⁾ Of those students who performed worse than predicted by their undergraduate grade-point averages, roughly fifty-three percent of the women and sixty-four percent of the men indicated that the "need to work for financial reasons" was a factor, although not necessarily the major factor, in their decision not to return to law school for their second year.⁽⁸³⁾

3.  "All Work and No Play . . . "

Studies have shown that students study more effectively if they incorporate breaks into their study schedules.⁽⁸⁴⁾ Unfortunately, multicultural students in general spend less time in leisure activities such as, relaxation and recreation, than white students.⁽⁸⁵⁾ Consistent with spending the most time studying, African-American students, and especially African-American women, reported spending less time in leisure activities than that of any other ethnic group.⁽⁸⁶⁾ The difference in the time spent by African-American women on the one hand, and Asian-American and white women on the other, is statistically significant.⁽⁸⁷⁾ Students who performed worse than predicted by their undergraduate grade-point averages spent less time on leisure activities than students who performed better than predicted by their undergraduate grade-point averages.⁽⁸⁸⁾ However, the students who performed worse than predicted had expected to have less time to spend on these activities than did students who performed better than predicted.⁽⁸⁹⁾

The LSAC Study results confirm the common wisdom that first-year law students should not hold paying jobs. Students who performed worse than predicted by their undergraduate grade-point averages worked more hours at a paid job than those students who performed better than predicted.⁽⁹⁰⁾ Furthermore, "[w]omen who performed worse than predicted spent somewhat more time working at a job for pay than they originally anticipated, while the women who performed better worked for pay at the identical rate they anticipated."⁽⁹¹⁾

There was no such variance with the men in these two groups.⁽⁹²⁾ Moreover, African-American students reported spending more hours working for pay than any other group.⁽⁹³⁾ The average amount of time African-American and white students reportedly spent working fell between the one to five hours and six to ten hours.⁽⁹⁴⁾ African-American students reported financing significant percentages of their second-year law school expenses with their earnings from jobs held during their first year of law school.⁽⁹⁵⁾ "[A] higher percentage of [African-American] men than students from any other group reported first-year law school earnings as a source of funding for the second year of law school."⁽⁹⁶⁾

Almost two-thirds of the students in the LSAC Study held law-related summer jobs, of which most were paying jobs.⁽⁹⁷⁾ Moreover, gender and ethnicity caused the statistics to vary with regard to what type of job students held following their first year of law school.

Law-related summer work is independent of gender for every group except Asian[-]Americans, where a significantly higher percentage of women than of men held such a job. A smaller percentage of [Latino-American] students than any other group held law-related summer jobs and a smaller percentage of [Latino-American] women than any other group of women held such jobs. The highest percentage of volunteer summer jobs was held by Asian[-]American women and the lowest percentage by [African-American] men.⁽⁹⁸⁾

Approximately seventy-nine percent of both African-American men and women reported working at law-related summer jobs for pay.⁽⁹⁹⁾ Both Asian-American men and women reported the lowest percentages of paid law-related summer jobs: fifty-eight percent of Asian-American women, and sixty-three percent of Asian-American men held such jobs.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾

4. Race- and Sex-Based Discrimination

The respondents were asked whether they experienced discrimination due to their race, ethnicity, or gender.⁽¹⁰¹⁾ Approximately thirty percent of Asian-American and Latino-American students reportedly experienced discrimination due to their race or ethnicity.⁽¹⁰²⁾ However, sixty percent of African-American women and fifty percent of African-American men reportedly experienced discrimination due to their race or ethnicity.⁽¹⁰³⁾ Interestingly seven percent of white students reportedly experienced discrimination due to their race.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ With respect to gender discrimination, "approximately one third of women in each ethnic group reported discrimination or adverse treatment due to their gender."⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ In looking at these students' experiences during their first year of law school, African-American women reported experiencing both greater race-based discrimination and gender-based discrimination than any other group.⁽¹⁰⁶⁾

5. Cultural Factors

As mentioned earlier, law school performance is strongly influenced by students' socioeconomic status.⁽¹⁰⁷⁾ Of the women who performed better than predicted, twenty-nine percent fell into the upper socioeconomic status group, twenty-four percent into the upper-middle socioeconomic status group, nineteen percent into the middle socioeconomic status group, and twenty-eight percent into the lower-middle socioeconomic status group.⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ Of the men who performed better than predicted, twenty-three percent fell into the upper socioeconomic status group, thirty-one percent into the upper-middle socioeconomic status group, twenty-seven percent into the middle socioeconomic status group, and twenty percent into the lower-middle socioeconomic status group.⁽¹⁰⁹⁾ Thus, the majority of the students who performed better than predicted were in the upper-middle to upper socioeconomic status groups.

Likewise, students who performed worse than predicted were predominately in the lower-middle to middle socioeconomic status groups. Of the women who performed worse than predicted, forty-four percent fell into the lower-middle socioeconomic status group, twenty-one percent into the middle socioeconomic status group, eleven percent into the upper-middle socioeconomic status group, and twenty-four percent into the upper socioeconomic status group.⁽¹¹⁰⁾ Similarly, forty-six percent of the men who performed worse than predicted fell into the lower-middle socioeconomic status group, nineteen percent into the middle socioeconomic status group, fourteen percent into the upper-middle socioeconomic status group, and twenty-two percent into the upper socioeconomic status group.⁽¹¹¹⁾

There is also a relationship between students' socioeconomic status group and ethnicity.⁽¹¹²⁾ This relationship is especially significant for the African-American and Latino-American groups because, while the distribution among socioeconomic groups did not deviate greatly for Asian-American and white students, fifty percent of African-American students and forty-nine percent of Latino-American students were in the lower-middle socioeconomic group.⁽¹¹³⁾ While approximately fifty percent of Asian-American and white students were in the upper-middle to upper socioeconomic status groups, only thirty-one percent and thirty-six percent of Latino-American and African-American students, respectively, were in these status groups.⁽¹¹⁴⁾ The large percentage of Latino-American and African-American students in the lower-middle to middle socioeconomic groups plays a large role in these two ethnic groups' relative underperformance in law school. The above LSAC Study findings provide quantitative support for Derrick Bell's statement that: "Many instructors provide what they consider the basic instructions required to succeed on their exams. This advice is seldom provided in sufficient detail, and assumes a writing style only infrequently found in persons whose school, home and community background is not upper-middle class."⁽¹¹⁵⁾ This cultural barrier may also cause some of the perceived discrimination experienced by multicultural law students.⁽¹¹⁶⁾

Some scholars have used this relationship to justify replacing race-based affirmative action programs with programs based on socioeconomic status.⁽¹¹⁷⁾ The recent LSAC Study on the impact of abandoning race-based affirmative action, however, indicates that, had law schools used class-based affirmative action instead of race-based affirmative action with respect to the entering class of 1991, not only would fewer multicultural students attend law school, but also, for all ethnic groups, the student pool would have lower credentials than those who actually entered law school that year.⁽¹¹⁸⁾ Another problem with class-based affirmative action is that it ignores the differences in life experiences that multicultural individuals undergo in this country, based solely on their being a member of an ethnic "minority" group, and without regard to their socioeconomic status or class. Professor Malamud's view is supported by others:

The problem is that we see blacks as a mass [unit]. It is unfortunate. We can't tell the difference between a black pimp and a black mailman. When I look at a white man, I can tell what social class he is, but if he is colored, I can't tell.⁽¹¹⁹⁾

Legions of articles have been written in the past few years discussing the continuing racism some middle-class multicultural people, primarily African-Americans, experience.⁽¹²⁰⁾ These articles portray a starkly different picture than that painted by proponents of replacing race-based affirmative action programs with class-based programs because "undeserving" middle-class multicultural people benefit from existing affirmative action programs.⁽¹²¹⁾

6. Social Isolation

As many legal scholars have noted, multicultural students are subject to social isolation in law schools.⁽¹²²⁾ These students often adopt a "mask" to appear acculturated into the dominant culture, while trying to hold onto the values that they brought into law school.⁽¹²³⁾ As Professor Mari Matsuda noted:

Women and people-of-color often feel alienated in law school classrooms as they struggle to achieve academic success while simultaneously questioning the legitimacy of ethnocentric and androcentric legal institutions. It is amazing that anyone with this dual agenda manages to obtain a law degree. Finding . . . an article by a feminist or a member of their own group, even if the purpose of inclusion is to invite classroom critique, can be a life preserver in a sea of irrelevancy for many students.⁽¹²⁴⁾

Reading about the social isolation facing multicultural law students reminded me of my law school experiences. During my first year of law school, not only was I presented with new concepts, but I was also faced with values that conflicted with the strategies and values that had worked well for me prior to entering law school. I knew that it was important to understand how to "think like a lawyer,"⁽¹²⁵⁾ however, I did not want to abandon those previously successful strategies and values that seemed to conflict with that learning. I consciously developed what I considered to be a split personality. I would use my "new" knowledge in law school, while continuing to use my old strategies in "real" life. At the time, I thought this was a strategy of my own invention. I have since learned, however, that this strategy is quite common, especially among multicultural law students. As two legal scholars recently wrote:

[After a time law] students begin to behave in a manner consistent with the conventions, tacit understandings, and principles of the community, although they may be unable to articulate them. During this process, novices respond by either: (1) assimilating new information into an existing schema; (2) accommodating new information by modifying an existing schema; or (3) developing a separate schema while also maintaining the existing schema.⁽¹²⁶⁾

In addition, multicultural law students often feel invisible in law school classrooms.⁽¹²⁷⁾ They feel that their concerns are of little or no importance.⁽¹²⁸⁾ This social isolation not only hinders multicultural students' acclimation to law school,⁽¹²⁹⁾ and, subsequently, their self-confidence,⁽¹³⁰⁾ but also cuts off these students from channels of information networking systems.⁽¹³¹⁾ These factors may, therefore, result in multicultural students not performing up to their capabilities.

III.  Study Smarter, Not Longer

Having identified some of the problems facing multicultural law students, this Article now turns to potential solutions. This Part addresses ways of teaching multicultural students to study more effectively. A preliminary step in developing better study skills is for students to learn how to learn.

A.  Learning Theory

Since the 1980s, scholars have explored both the learning theory and critical thinking theory.⁽¹³²⁾ These theories, however, have been studiously ignored by law teachers.⁽¹³³⁾ Nonetheless, these theories have slowly gained acceptance by legal scholars.⁽¹³⁴⁾ This section discusses how these theories can be applied to improve multicultural law students' academic performances.

Professor Wangerin identifies three study objectives, or "informational products that derive from study activities."⁽¹³⁵⁾ The first informational product, "verbatim knowledge," is the ability:

to learn and remember what is specifically said in class or specifically written in reading assignments. Although many law school professors insist that they have no interest whatsoever in helping students develop verbatim knowledge, possession of such knowledge is, in fact, extremely important in virtually all law school classes because verbatim knowledge serves as the foundation for all other learning.⁽¹³⁶⁾

This skill is also useful in those courses, such as most first-year courses, in which it is important to memorize elements of rules of law.

Wangerin labels the second kind of informational product outcome as "interpreted knowledge," and defines it as the ability: "to paraphrase information and state the general point or rule of materials read."⁽¹³⁷⁾ In other words, during this interpretation students translate "information from one form to another."⁽¹³⁸⁾ Professor Wangerin observes that "[i]n law school, students develop interpreted knowledge when they learn how to state the rule or holding in a particular case, or when they try to describe in somewhat different words the essence of a particular statute."⁽¹³⁹⁾ Law students utilize this interpretation skill in first-year legal writing courses, as well as in the classroom, when they respond to a professor's request to discuss a case.

The third informational product, "constructed knowledge," is the ability to understand:

the relationships that exist between seemingly unrelated bits of information. This kind of knowledge is by far the kind that most law school classes try to develop. However, it is the kind of knowledge that most law students have a difficult time developing--perhaps because their undergraduate educations placed little or no emphasis on this kind of knowledge.⁽¹⁴⁰⁾

In order to effectively utilize these skills, students must understand which of the skills are required for specific courses and then apply the appropriate skill. This ability, called "performance capabilities" has three manifestations.⁽¹⁴¹⁾ The first performance capability is the ability to "`recogniz[e] already learned'" skills.⁽¹⁴²⁾ "This capability plays an important role in law school classes in which professors emphasize issue spotting on examinations."⁽¹⁴³⁾

The second performance capability is the ability to "`produc[e] already learned'" skills.⁽¹⁴⁴⁾

This capability plays a particularly crucial role in courses in which professors give closed book examinations. In such exam situations, students must produce informational products from memory. Regardless of how many issues they [can] recognize, students will not do well on law school exams unless they [can] also produce substantial amounts of information. The third kind of performance capability is `generalizing'. . . . [I]t requires students to apply learned information to wholly new factual situations. Students in virtually all law school courses will succeed only if they are capable of generalizing about informational products already learned. This is so because law school exams rarely ask students simply to recognize or recall information learned.

 . . . [S]tudents must study differently depending on the studying outcomes sought . . . . [S]tudents who wish primarily to develop verbatim know must go over their class and reading notes again and again. This is the only way memorization can occur. Conversely, students who wish to primarily develop constructed knowledge must constantly look for relationships between seemingly unrelated bits of information. Likewise, students who anticipate exam questions that principally require recognition of learned information, and recall of similar information from memory, must study differently from students who anticipate exam questions that require generalizations from learned information.⁽¹⁴⁵⁾

Clearly, therefore, students must determine which of the foregoing skills is required in each of their courses. "For example, property courses frequently require students to learn a lot of specific and ancient rules entailing a great deal of memorization."⁽¹⁴⁶⁾ Conversely, contracts courses require memorization of only a handful of basic rules and emphasize instead the application of these rules to different factual situations."⁽¹⁴⁷⁾

The skills required for a given course is also affected by the teaching styles of the professor.

[D]ifferent professors may teach the same course in very different ways. For example, some professors place great emphasis on particular rules of law while others place great emphasis on the policies behind the rules. [In addition,] [a]lthough most law teachers place great emphasis on the ability to spot issues when grading exams, some teachers pay that skill little mind. Furthermore, while some law teachers expect students to engage in elaborate discussions of policy issues on exams, others find such discussion worthless.⁽¹⁴⁸⁾

Thus, students must determine "what a particular teacher expects students to learn and what value the teacher places on particular skills."⁽¹⁴⁹⁾ Obviously, the best way of achieving this is to attend class regularly, with this purpose in mind.

Students must also take into account their own personal traits when developing their study strategies.

For example, law students with very good memories need not devote as much time to developing verbatim knowledge about particular rules and laws. Conversely, students with poor memories should spend more time drilling themselves on rules. Law students whose undergraduate experience involved lengthy reading assignments may be able to breeze through law school reading assignments. Conversely, students whose undergraduate backgrounds principally involved courses in scientific or technical areas may need initially to spend more time plowing through reading assignments. [S]tudents with more undergraduate experience with essay exams will have to devote less time to developing that skill and can devote more time to other skills.⁽¹⁵⁰⁾

Furthermore, students who have taken some time off before entering law school may initially need to spend time honing all of these skills, and later reviewing their results to narrow their focus to one or two of these skills.

This may be especially important to multicultural students, who, as a group, tend to be older than white students. Of the respondents to the LSAC Study,⁽¹⁵¹⁾ only twenty percent of the white students were twenty-five years of age or older.⁽¹⁵²⁾ On the other hand, forty-four percent of the Latino-American students, forty percent of the African-American students, and thirty-three percent of the Asian-American students were twenty-five years of age or older.⁽¹⁵³⁾ Additionally, twenty percent of the African-American, fourteen percent of Latino-American, and eleven percent of white and Asian-American students fell into the thirty or older age group.⁽¹⁵⁴⁾ In comparing the students who performed better than predicted by their undergraduate grade point averages, with those who performed worse than predicted, the LSAC Study data did not indicate that the groups differed significantly by age.⁽¹⁵⁵⁾ However, approximately fifty-five percent of the women and twenty-eight percent of the men who performed worse than predicted were thirty years of age or older; whereas, forty-five percent of the women and twenty percent of the men who performed better than predicted were thirty years of age or older.⁽¹⁵⁶⁾

Moreover, there are some generalities that apply to the "typical" hypothetical which is based on the closed book essay examination given in law schools that relate to learning theory. For example, the examiner usually ascertains:

(1) the student's knowledge of the subjects;

(2) the accuracy of the student's recall of the knowledge and his understanding of it;

(3) how effectively and accurately this knowledge can be communicated;

(4) how skillfully and efficiently this knowledge can be applied to particular circumstances; and

(5) how rapidly these functions can be accomplished in an exam situation.⁽¹⁵⁷⁾

These factors tie into Wangerin's "constructed knowledge" and "performance capabilities" categories in determining how to succeed in a first-year law school examination.⁽¹⁵⁸⁾ Thus, students who wish to improve their academic performances should incorporate learning theory into their study strategy.

B.  Developing Effective Study Skills

As mentioned earlier, students who performed better during their first year of law school than predicted by their undergraduate grade-point averages had more accurate expectations about the time required for particular law school related activities than those students who performed worse than predicted by their undergraduate grade point averages had predicted.⁽¹⁵⁹⁾

The first step in developing effective study skills is to provide sufficient information to multicultural students to allow them to form more accurate expectations about the first year of law school.⁽¹⁶⁰⁾ The next step is to hone the time management skills of multicultural students. As a legal scholar Wangerin has stated: "research shows that students who carefully prepare written schedules of their time and the conscientiously stick to those schedules, study more efficiently than students who study with a catch-as-catch-can approach. Not surprisingly, these students also seem to get better grades."⁽¹⁶¹⁾

Wangerin suggests that students prepare two kinds of schedules: weekly schedules and semester-long schedules.⁽¹⁶²⁾ Weekly schedules allow students to plan out blocks of time for particular courses, while semester-long schedules allow students to "set aside large blocks of time for writing a paper, extensive review, or for taking . . . practice exams."⁽¹⁶³⁾ Wangerin provides technical advice for creating these schedules:

Students beginning to work with schedules like this should initially block out class time and necessary time for commuting, lunch, supper, etc., and for any absolutely necessary employment. . . . Students should keep three things [clearly] in mind when they prepare weekly study[ing] schedules. First, time away from study must be scheduled. Thus, students should not set aside long uninterrupted periods of time for studying, but rather students should schedule several short blocks of studying time--blocks of one hour--in which you study for 50 minutes interrupted by short scheduled breaks--of ten minutes. Students should also schedule long breaks . . . particularly breaks that require students to be involved in strenuous physical activity, actually seems to do students more good than uninterrupted studying. In short, studying in this manner is more efficient than studying continuously. Second, students should block out large amounts of time on their schedules, usually on Friday or Saturday nights, or both nights, simply as times entirely away from studies. . . . Third, students should always block out on their weekly schedules several blocks of `emergency' time--time that can be used to make up for missed time on other parts of the schedule. Emergencies, of course, do not occur according to schedules. However, emergencies always occur and always take time away from scheduled studying activities. If an emergency should occur, students who have built emergency time into their schedules can simply make up for missed studying time during the emergency blocks.⁽¹⁶⁴⁾

Students should also block out time in their schedules to review their studying strategies for effectiveness, modifying the schedule when necessary.⁽¹⁶⁵⁾

C. Improving Critical Thinking Skills

Two legal scholars have defined critical thinking skills in a way that includes the following skills:

(1) seeking out evidence and giving evidence when questioned;

(2) suspending judgement [sic] when there is insufficient evidence;

(3) logical reasoning abilities;

(4) recognizing ambiguity in reasoning;

(5) distinguishing reason and fact from opinion;

(6) distinguishing what is relevant from what is irrelevant;

(7) identifying contradictions in arguments;

(8) identifying and evaluating assumptions underlying beliefs, ideas, and values, including one's own;

(9) transferring ideas and concepts to new contexts and situations; and

(10) making interdisciplinary connections and using insights from one subject to illuminate other subjects.⁽¹⁶⁶⁾

D. Improving Legal Writing Skills

There are two tasks in improving students' legal writing skills. One task, improving basic writing style and grammar, is accomplished by reading one of any number of grammar textbooks.⁽¹⁶⁷⁾ The other task, to improve students' skills in legal analysis and the effective presentation of that analysis, however, is much more difficult. The basic first-year legal writing course exists to assist law students in developing their legal writing skills. There are, however, legal writing guidebooks, offering straightforward explanations of many of the required legal writing tasks, which students may want to read prior to entering law school.⁽¹⁶⁸⁾

IV. Conclusion

As previously discussed, it appears that although the first year of law school is more difficult than most law students anticipate, the expectations of multicultural students vary more significantly than those of white students, with respect to the amount of time needed for study and the difficulty of the work.⁽¹⁶⁹⁾ One key to improving the academic success of multicultural students is to provide a more realistic picture of law school. Hopefully, this Article will assist in that process.

Summer programs, such as The Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO) Summer Institute, as well as law school Academic Support Programs, can go a long way in preparing students for the first year of law school.⁽¹⁷⁰⁾ However, CLEO has experienced financial difficulties because of the loss of several funding sources.⁽¹⁷¹⁾ Additionally, as law school programs for multicultural students face increasing scrutiny, some schools have, to the extent that these programs initially contained a component designed to help multicultural students adjust to the dominant culture of "white maleness" prevalent in law schools, diluted the effectiveness of these programs for multicultural students by making these programs available to other groups of students.⁽¹⁷²⁾ Multicultural bar associations and multicultural law student groups have stepped in to provide tutoring and mentoring programs for multicultural students. Ultimately, however, multicultural students, themselves, must ensure that they have the information necessary to acclimate themselves to law school. Hopefully, this Article will assist them with this process.

* B.S. New York University; M.B.A., New York University; J.D., Fordham University School of Law; Director, Minority Recruitment and Minority Student Affairs at Hofstra University School of Law; Instructor, Legal Writing and Appellate Advocacy. Thanks to my research assistant, Gilbert Serrano (`98), Hofstra University School of Law, for his invaluable assistance.

1. 116 S. Ct. 2581 (1996).

2. This Article uses the term "multicultural" as an inclusive term that covers the following ethnic groups: African-American (including Caribbean Islanders of African descent), Asian-American and Pacific Islanders, Latino-American, and Native Americans. This Article will not go into a detailed discussion of whether race-based affirmative action programs are still legally viable post-Hopwood. However, the position taken is that race-based affirmative action programs are still desirable. An upcoming Law School Admissions Council study verifies that law school diversity cannot be achieved without race-based affirmative action policies. See generally Linda F. Wightman, The Threat to Diversity in Legal Education: An Empirical Analysis of the Consequences of Abandoning Race as a Factor in Law School Admissions Decision, 72 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1 (1997); Chris Klein, Law School Diversity Hinges on Race Policy, NAT'L L.J., Jan. 27, 1997, at A1.

3. Obviously many multicultural students have achieved, and continue to achieve, academic success in law school. One of the goals of this Article is to examine what can be done to improve the overall academic performance of multicultural law students.

4. Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Law School Exams and Minority-Group Students, 7 Black L.J. 304-05 (1981).

5. See infra Part II.A.

6. Wightman, supra note 2, at 37-38; Klein, supra note 2, at A26. Listed below are the bar passage rates for multicultural law students who entered law school in the fall of 1991 under an affirmative action program:

See id. The bar passage rate for white students who entered law school that year was 96.6%. See id.

7. See Philip C. Kissam, Law School Examinations, 42 VAND. L. REV. 433, 436 (1989).

[T]he immediate function of law school grading practices is to establish a highly disaggregated class ranking system. This system is an efficient device, or at least a rational one, for sorting students in ways that serve the hiring purposes of many law firms. This system screens prospective employees for those employers who place a substantial premium on an individual's promise of productivity and self-learning. These employers most likely are the larger corporate law firms, which can provide specific on-the-job training for new associates and can more easily absorb or compensate for mistakes that are made in the training and hiring of new lawyers.

Id. Professor Kissam further states that "student interpretations of the [law school essay examination] experience have three dimensions. The most obvious is to interpret law school grades and class rank as indicators of a student's general employment opportunities. . . . The consequences of this focus on the employment dimension, however, are unfortunate." Id. at 480-81. Finally, Professor Kissam concludes that "[t]he present . . . system serves mainly corporate law firms and their clients, and it may serve these interests in less than optimal fashion." Id. at 504.

8. See infra notes 17-130 and accompanying text.

9. See LINDA F. WIGHTMAN, WOMEN IN LEGAL EDUCATION: A COMPARISON OF THE LAW SCHOOL PERFORMANCE AND LAW SCHOOL EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN AND MEN, LSAC RESEARCH REPORT SERIES (1996) [hereinafter Wightman, LSAC Study] (using data from a longitudinal sample of students who entered law school in the Fall of 1991, as well as other data files maintained by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) concerning these students).

10. See id. at 6. "Approximately one-half of the students selected for the longitudinal study are . . . [multicultural], the other half are white." Id. at 6. The multicultural students were selected from those "students who identified themselves as Asian American, black, Hispanic, and white." Id.

11. See id. at 7.

12. See infra notes 107-31 and accompanying text.

13. See infra notes 132-58 and accompanying text.

14. Paul T. Wangerin, Learning Strategies for Law Students, 52 ALB. L. REV. 471, 491 (1988).

15. See infra notes 159-72 and accompanying text.

16. See infra notes 132-72 and accompanying text.

17. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 80 tbl.39, 119 tbl.77.

18. See id.

19. See id.

20. See id. (evidencing the best result among all ethnic groups except white students).

21. See id.

22. See id.

23. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 80 tbl.40, 119 tbl.77.

24. See id.

25. See id.

26. See id.

27. See id. at 80 tbl.40.

28. See id. at 119 tbl.77.

29. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 79.

30. See id. at 115 n.3; see also infra Part II.B.5 and accompanying notes for further discussion of this relationship.

31. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 40-41.

32. See id. at 41, 42 tbl.19.

33. See id. at 42 tbl.19. The difference is statistically significant only for white women and Asian-American women. See id. On average, all groups reported studying between ranges of 11-15 hours and 16-20 hours. See id. at 43.

34. See id. Asian-American men reportedly spent approximately the same amount of time attending class as white men. See id.

35. See id. White women reported spend slightly more time studying than Asian women. See id.

36. See id.

37. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 44-45 tbl.20.

38. See id. at 44-45 tbl.20.

39. See id. 44-45 tbl. 20, 48. In every category, except making and studying outlines, African-American men reported spending the second highest amount of time on the study-related activity in question. See id. at 44-45 tbl. 20. In preparing outlines, Latinos reported spending more time than African-American men. See id. The difference between the time reported by African-American women and men was statistically significant only in the following categories: briefing cases, making and studying outlines, and attending special classes on first-year courses. See id.

With some exceptions, for each of these study-related categories, every group of multicultural men and women reported spending more time than their white counterparts in the activity in question. See id. The exceptions are: (1) Asian-American women and men reported spending less time briefing cases than any other group except white men; (2) Asian-American men reported spending less time making and studying outlines and participating in study groups, than any other group except white men. See id. White women and Asian-American women reported spending the same amount of time making and studying outlines; (3) Asian-American women reported spending less time reading hornbooks or nutshells than any other group, except for white men; and (4) Of all the groups, Asian-American men and women reported spending the least time discussing course-related problems with friends. See id. Only Asian-American men and white men reported spending less time than Asian-American women on this activity. See id.

40. See id. at 46-47 tbl.21. Both African-American men and white women reported spending slightly more time reading cases during the second semester than African-American women. See id. However, all groups reported spending less time reading cases during the second semester than during the first semester. See id. at 44-45 tbl.20, 46-47 tbl.21.

In general, all of the groups reported spending less time on the following activities during the second semester than the first semester: reading cases, briefing cases, and attending special classes on first-year courses. See id.

In general, all of the groups reported spending more time on the following activities during the second semester than in the first semester: making and studying outlines, reviewing assigned material and class notes, and reading hornbooks or nutshells. See id. The amount of time spent on the remaining activities was approximately the same for both semesters. See id.

41. See id. at 44-45 tbl.20, 46-47 tbl.21.

42. Id. at 48.

43. See supra note 36 and accompanying text.

44. See supra notes 11-21 and accompanying text.

45. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 44-45 tbl.20, 46-47 tbl.21, 48.

46. Id. at 98.

47. Id. at 137.

48. See id. at 98, 137.

49. Wangerin, supra note 14, at 492.

50. WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 39.

51. Id.

52. See id. at 40 fig.8.

53. Id. at 40.

54. Id. at 96; see also id. at 135.

55. See id. at 100, 140.

56. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 52 tbl.23. "[P]rior to law school women perceive themselves to have less difficulty with writing skills than do men." Id. at 51.

57. Id. at 51; see also id. at 52 tbl.23. When "asked to rate how difficult they found writing to be when they were in high school[,]" across the board men found writing more difficult. Id. at 51; see also id. at 52 tbl.23. Among groups of men, African American men reported less difficulty in writing than any other group. See id. at 52 tbl.23. Among the groups of women, Latino-American women reported having the most difficulty. See id. Even so, Latino-American women still reported having less difficulty than even African-American men. See id.

58. See id. at 52 tbl.24.

59. See id. "[T]here was no difference between women and men within any of the groups in terms of difficulty in organizing their written products." Id. at 51.

60. Id. at 51 ("Only the difference [between white and Latino-American] women is statistically significant with regard to difficulty of analysis for legal briefs, with [Latino-American women] finding the task more difficult.").

61. Id. at 73.

62. WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 100; see also id. at 140.

63. Bell, supra note 4, at 308.

64. WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 102, 142 (footnote omitted). But see, e.g., Kurt M. Saunders & Linda Levine, Learning to Think Like a Lawyer, 29 U.S.F. L. REV. 121, 142 (1994) ("When novice students enter a new domain, they experience a significant breakdown of their existing skills and lose their self-confidence.").

65. See Bell, supra note 4, at 305-06 (discussing in detail how law school exams differ from other exams); see also infra notes 159-68 and accompanying text (discussing the nature of law school exams).

66. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 102, 142.

67. Id. at 102; see also id. at 142.

68. See id. at 102, 142. Of the African-American students in the Study, only 38.96% of the men and 40.21% of the women entered law school with no undergraduate debt. See id. at 33 tbl.14. On the other hand, 65.75% of white women and 62.54% of white men entered law school with no debt. See id.

The percentages of Asian-American and Latino-American students who entered law school with no undergraduate debt are as follows: 49.87% of Latino-American women; 43.09% of Latino-American men; 58.78% of Asian-American women; and 56.79% of Asian-American men. See id.

69. Id. at 32.

70. Only white men expressed less concern than Asian-American men about their ability to pay off these debts. See id. at 68 tbl.35. White women expressed less concern than any other group of women about their ability to pay off educational loans. See id. White women also expressed less concern than both African-American and Latino-American men. See id. Only white men and Asian-American men expressed less concern than white women. See id.

71. See id. at 68 tbl.35. African-American women expressed more concern about their ability to pay off their educational debt than any other group. See id. African-American men reported the next highest level of concern about their ability to pay off educational debts. See id.

72. See id. at 70-71 tbl.36.

73. WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 69.

74. See id. at 70-71 tbl.36.

75. See id.

76. See id.

77. See id.

78. See id. at 70-71 tbl.36.

79. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 70-71 tbl.36.

80. See id. at 94, 133. Sixty-two percent of the women students who performed better than predicted and 47% of the women students who performed worse than predicted entered law school with no undergraduate debt. See id. at 94. Similarly, 62% of the men students who performed better than predicted, and 47% of the men students who performed worse than predicted, entered law school with no undergraduate debt. See id. at 133.

81. See id. at 93 tbl.56, 132 tbl.94.

82. See id. at 105, 145.

83. Id. at 107 tbl.71, 147 tbl.109.

84. See infra notes 133-50 and accompanying text (discussing the Wangerin article).

85. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 72-73.

86. See id.

87. See id. In each ethnic group, men spent significantly more time in leisure activities than women. See id. White men spent the most time on leisure activities of all of the groups. See id. However, Asian-American women spent slightly more time relaxing and recreating than white women. See id. Latino-American students were second to African-American students in the least amount of time spent on leisure activities. See id.

88. See id. at 97 tbl.60, 136 tbl.98 (showing that these differences were statistically significant).

89. See id. at 92 tbl.155, 131 tbl.93.

90. See id. at 97 tbl.60, 136 tbl.98. The difference in the number of hours worked was statistically significant only for the women. See id.

91. WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 97.

92. See id. at 131, 136.

93. See id. at 42 tbl. 19. The difference between the number of hours worked by African-American men and women is not statistically significant. See id. It should be noted, however, that Asian-American students worked significantly fewer hours for pay than any other group. See id.

94. See id. at 42 tbl.19, 75 n.5.

95. See id. at 70 tbl.36.

96. Id. at 69.

97. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 65.

98. Id. Of the Asian-American students in the study, nearly 30% women and 26% men reported doing volunteer or pro bono law-related summer jobs. See id. On the other hand, only 16.67% of African-American men and 17.65% of African-American women held such positions. See id.

99. See id.

100. See id.

101. See id. at 60, 60 tbl.29.

102. See id.

103. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 60 tbl.29. The difference in the experiences between African-American women and men is statistically significant. See id.

104. See id. More white men, 8.91%, than white women, 3.61%, reported experiencing race-based discrimination. See id. The author of the LSAC report posits two explanations: (1) these "white men [students] might reflect perceptions of reverse discrimination"; or (2) these students "might have been demonstrating a refusal to treat this question with respect." Id. at 60.

105. Id. at 60. Approximately 3% of Asian-American and Latino-American men, and 6% of African-American men reportedly experienced gender-based discrimination. See id. at 60 tbl.30. Approximately 7% of white men reportedly experienced gender-based discrimination. See id.

106. See id. at 60 tbls.29, 30.

107. See supra notes 80-83 and accompanying text.

108. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 80 tbl.39.

109. See id. at 120 tbl.78.

110. See id. at 80 tbl.39.

111. See id. at 120 tbl. 78.

112. See id. at 115 n.3.

113. See id.

114. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 115 n.3.

115. Bell, supra note 4, at 306. Professor Bell further states that

an assistant dean at Harvard, has found that students from upper income groups, generally, are far more likely to make law review than those from lower income groups. Since most minority students [especially, as shown in the LSAC Study, African-American and Latino-American students] come from less than upper-class backgrounds, . . . the cultural barrier of exams is likely to have a disproportionate effect on [these groups].

Id. at 307.

116. See id. at 306-07. Professor Bell also discusses the effect on multicultural students whose legal writing is evaluated based on cultural reference points that are not shared by these students. See id.

117. See generally Deborah C. Malamud, Class-Based Affirmative Action: Lessons and Caveats, 74 TEX. L. REV. 1847 (1996) (discussing class-based affirmative action). Professor Malamud concludes that any move toward class-based affirmative action should not be used as a proxy for race-based affirmative action. See id. at 1890-94. But see generally RICHARD D. KAHLENBERG, THE REMEDY: CLASS, RACE, AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION (1996) (discussing that the division in American society is not a racial division between black and white people, but rather a division based on class). Richard Kahlenberg proposes that affirmative action should be class based. See id. at 83-88.

118. See Wightman, supra note 2, at 26.

119. Malamud, supra note 117, at 1893 (quoting JONATHAN RIEDER, CANARSIE: THE JEWS AND ITALIANS OF BROOKLYN AGAINST LIBERALISM 85 (1985)).

120. These articles portray experiences from such "daily annoyances" such as not being able to get a cab, to disparate treatment of African-American and white job hunters. Professors Luke Harris and Uma Narayan comment that:

In 1985, independent studies by the Grier Partnership and the Urban League revealed striking disparities in the employment levels of Blacks and whites in Washington, D.C., an area that constitutes one of the `best markets' for Blacks. Both studies cite racial discrimination as the major factor that accounts for this difference. A 1991 study by the Urban Institute examined employment practices in the Chicago and Washington, D.C. areas by sending equally qualified and identically dressed white and Black applicants to newspaper-advertised positions. The testers were also matched for speech patterns, age, work experience, physical build and personal characteristics. The study found repeated discrimination against Black applicants, discrimination that increased with the level of the advertised position, and revealed that whites received job offers three times more often than equally qualified Blacks. A 1991 segment on ABC's `Primetime Live' followed two young, identically qualified, and visibly middle-class college graduates, one Black and one white, around St. Louis, Missouri. It graphically captures on camera the strikingly different treatment the two men receive, and the profoundly different outcomes that ensue, as they negotiate tasks as disparate as applying for jobs, attempting to rent an apartment, purchasing a car, and shopping in a store. The entire range of racially marked experiences they encounter is crystallized in the concluding shot of the show, in which, standing just a few yards away from each other, the two men attempt to hail a cab. The cab drives past the young Black man and stops to pick up his white counterpart.

Luke Charles Harris & Uma Narayan, Affirmative Action and the Myth of Preferential Treatment: A Transformative Critique of the Terms of the Affirmative Action Debate, 11 HARV. BLACKLETTER J. 1, 6 (1994) (citations omitted).

Professor Theresa Glennon notes that:

This discrimination transcends economic class; middle-class African-Americans face constant prejudice and discrimination. Numerous distinguished African-American authors have come forward with their own stories of the daily, wearing confrontations with racism. For example, Cornell West talks about being turned down by cab drivers and being regularly stopped without cause by the police. Ellis Cose documents the barriers to success and negative racial stereotyping that face members of the black middle class.

Theresa Glennon, Race, Education, and the Construction of a Disabled Class, 1995 WIS. L. REV. 1237, 1297 (1995) (citations omitted). See generally ELLIS COSE, THE RAGE OF A PRIVILEGED CLASS (1993); JOE R. FEAGIN & MELVIN P. SIKES, LIVING WITH RACISM: THE BLACK MIDDLE-CLASS EXPERIENCE (1994); CORNELL WEST, RACE MATTERS (1993).

121. Professors Harris and Narayan observe that:

Given the evidence for the continued persistence of unequal treatment based on race, the view that middle class status functions to insulate African Americans from the structural and personal effects of racial discrimination constitutes either willful denial or blind hope, but in any case, it is a utopian fantasy.

Harris & Narayan, supra note 120, at 6-7.

122. See infra notes 126-31 and accompanying text.

123. See, e.g., Margaret E. Montoya, Mascaras, Trenzas, y Grenas: Unmasking the Self While Unbraiding Latina Stories and Legal Discourse, 15 CHICANO-LATINO L. REV. 1, 22-23 (1994).

124. Mari Matsuda, Affirmative Action and Legal Knowledge: Planting Seeds in Plowed-Up Ground, 11 Harv. Women's L.J. 1, 7 n.24 (1988) (citing DUNCAN KENNEDY, LEGAL EDUCATION AND THE REPRODUCTION OF HIERARCHY: A POLEMIC AGAINST THE SYSTEM (1983)).

125. See generally Saunders & Levine, supra note 64, at 121 (discussing the learning theory and the evolution of eight law students' perceptions of "thinking like a lawyer").

126. Saunders & Levine, supra note 64, at 142 (citation omitted).

127. See, e.g., Linda R. Crane, Forum, Colorizing the Law School Experience, 6 WIS. L. REV. 1427, 1428-30 (1991) (comparing her experiences as a law student with those as a law professor). "While my presence in the law school classroom as a student was important to me personally, and perhaps to my few fellow minority classmates, I only rarely felt that it made any impact on the class overall. The fact is, by and large, I felt invisible." Id. at 1429.

128. See id. at 1429.

129. See Cathaleen A. Roach, A River Runs Through It: Tapping Into the Informational Stream to Move Students From Isolation to Autonomy, 36 ARIZ. L. REV. 667, 675 (1994). Assistant Dean Roach observes that:

If the problem [of social isolation] now seems undeniable within the general student population, it is doubly more difficult for many of the black, Hispanic, older, and other non-traditional law students, for whom isolation in all facets of life is a much more pervasive problem. Minority law students experience acute isolation, which in turn, produces serious psychological and academic ramifications.

In fact, there are indications that psychological and academic ramifications may fall disproportionately on students of color. For example, there is an added psychological strain experienced by black law students who enter an environment dominated by whites with resulting high degrees of alienation and estrangement. One author reports that the `LSAT overpredicts first-year performance for minority students' but not for majority students, which suggests cultural barriers exist within the law school.

Id. (footnotes omitted); see also Charles L. Finke, Affirmative Action in Law School Academic Support Programs, 39 J. LEGAL EDUC. 55, 58 (1989).

130. See Roach, supra note 129, at 675. Assistant Dean Roach notes that:

The segregation felt by minority law students can affect motivation which in turn affects self-esteem and the necessary sense of confidence required to survive. A 1988 study of 667 law students at Boalt Hall discovered that women and people of color suffer substantially diminished self-esteem in comparison to white male students at Boalt. Moreover, in 1980, a Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund study reported that a lack of confidence can be a dominant cause of a student's academic problems. Additionally, a `message of incompetence' or failure can be telegraphed to the student in a myriad of ways, including actions by professors who have lower expectations of minority students. In short, it seems apparent that minority student isolation may be more extreme than that of traditional law students, with far-reaching effects on self-esteem and motivation.

Id. (footnotes omitted).

131. See id. at 675-76. Assistant Dean Roach comments that:

[I]n addition to psychological consequences, racial isolation also has academic consequences. Students of color are often excluded from important yet informal networking systems, which means that the student is "often shut off from the intra-institutional methods by which white students tend to acquire information about how to function in this new role, including advice from upper-class students and faculty members."

Id. (footnote omitted) (quoting Kevin Deasy, Enabling Black Students to Realize Their Potential in Law School: A Psycho-Social Assessment of an Academic Support Program, 16 T. MARSHALL L. REV. 547, 562-63 (1991)).

132. See Dannye Holley & J. P. Ogilvy, Critical Thinking and the Law, 1 INTER'L J. OF THE LEGAL PROF. 343, 344 nn.3-4 (1994) for a list of articles on these subjects.

133. See Wangerin, supra note 14, at 471 n.2, for a list of articles that discuss the "law school parochialism" toward learning theory.

134. See id.; see also Holley & Ogilvy, supra note 132, at 344.

135. Wangerin, supra note 14, at 482.

136. Id. (footnote omitted).

137. Id. (footnote omitted).

138. Id.

139. Id.

140. Id. (footnote omitted).

141. Wangerin, supra note 14, at 482 (footnote omitted).

142. Id.

143. Id. at 483.

144. Id.

145. Id. (footnote omitted).

146. Id. at 485.

147. Wangerin, supra note 14, at 485.

148. Id. at 485, 485 n.51.

149. Id. at 494. See Wangerin, supra note 14, at 494-95 for a thorough discussion on how to "teacher study."

150. Id. at 486.

151. See WIGHTMAN, LSAC STUDY, supra note 9, at 30.

152. See id. at 30 tbl.11.

153. See id.

154. See id.

155. See id. at 86, 125.

156. See id. at 86 tbl.47, 125 tbl.85.

157. Bell, supra note 4, at 305. See generally Kissam, supra note 7, at 433 for a detailed discussion of law school essay examinations, including the weakness of this type of examination and the impact these examinations have on law students.

158. See supra notes 140-50 and accompanying text.

159. See supra notes 84-100 and accompanying text (comparing actual time spent on these activities with students' time expectations at the start of law school).

160. See generally HELENE SHAPO & MARSHALL SHAPO, LAW SCHOOL WITHOUT FEAR: STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS (1996). The book was written by two law professors for their son when he was entering law school. The book discusses how to approach the first year of law school, and includes how to prepare for several doctrinal courses. See generally id. at 15-26, 46-60, 143-99.

161. Wangerin, supra note 14, at 492 (footnotes omitted).

162. See id. at 492-93.

163. Id.

164. Id. at 493 n.77 (citations omitted).

165. See id. at 493-94.

166. Holley & Ogilvy, supra note 132, at 344-45.

167. See generally RICHARD WYDICK, PLAIN ENGLISH FOR LAWYERS (3d ed. 1994).

168. See generally MARY BARNARD RAY & JILL J. RAMSFIELD, LEGAL WRITING: GETTING IT RIGHT AND GETTING IT WRITTEN (2d ed. 1993).

169. See supra notes 33-54, 84-100, 159-65 and accompanying text.

170. CLEO is a project of the ABA Fund for Justice and Education. CLEO is a consortium of undergraduate and law schools committed to increasing the number of multicultural law students. The CLEO Summer Institute is a six-week program that simulates the first year of law school.

Some law schools offer similar programs, some of which lead to admission to the school upon successful completion of the summer program. See generally Kristine S. Knaplund & Richard H. Sander, The Art and Science of Academic Support, 45 J. Legal Educ. 157 (1995) for a thorough discussion of Academic Support Programs.

171. See, e.g., Memorandum from Philip D. Shelton, Executive Director of LSAC to Deans of LSAC Member Law Schools (U.S.) 1 (No. 96-58) (Aug. 15, 1996) (on file with the New England Law Review).

172. See, e.g., Paul T. Wangerin, A Little Assistance Regarding Academic Assistance Programs: An Introduction to Academic Assistance Programs, 21 J. CONTEMP. L. 169, 178-80, 182-88 (1995) (book review) (recommending that law schools combine Academic Support Programs for multicultural students with "academic assistance programs" for other groups of students, including "privileged students"). Professor Wangerin defines "privileged students" as follows:

Privileged students are defined by three characteristics. First, they do not possess the traditional academic credentials which are necessary to gain admission to law schools. In other words, privileged students' scores on standardized tests and/or grades would normally cause schools to reject their admission applications. Second, privileged students might be the children of wealthy or prominent alumn[i] or the children of prominent or wealthy people generally. Or, these students themselves might be prominent or wealthy. Third, most privileged students are not from minority backgrounds.

Id. at 179.