African Americans represent a mere 7.9% of all law school students in the United States, well below the percentage of African Americans in the general population, which hovers near 12%. Lawyers of Color (LOC), an organization dedicated to supporting African American law students, is focused on providing ample information to prospective African American law students and increasing their presence in law schools.
For nearly a decade, LOC has ranked the “best” law schools for prospective African American students. However, according to Yolanda Young, the organization’s CEO, LOC now realizes that “such rankings undermine equity in the legal profession.” As a result, LOC will no longer rank law schools. Instead, the organization will present the American Bar Association (ABA) 509 filing data in a way that makes it easy to compare to other law schools, allowing students to make informed choices based on their personal needs and desires.
Young shared, “We are marking this as the end of the rankings era. Of course, “rankings” have their place, but it is alongside transparency and equity. Any data that is objective and verifiable is appropriate to report. Its significance should be left to the students to decide.” She added, “rankings have rewarded the wealthiest law schools that use admissions criteria that reward wealthier law school candidates.” Young is joined by many others across the nation calling for the end to college rankings of all types.
LOC wants to avoid the unfair and highly subjective process of using an opaque methodology to create a one-size fits all “ranking.” Young stated, “We don’t believe we are the ones to decide what should be the MOST important factors for any student.” Instead, LOC has taken data that is publicly available to everyone and converted the raw data into percentages to allow for accurate comparisons.
Key takeaways from the 2023 Black Guide to Law Schools are:
Howard University has the largest percentage of Black students of any U.S. law school at 78%. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) round out the top six law schools with the most Black students. Among other law schools, Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School had the most African American law schools (40%).
Three HBCUs are among the ten least expensive law schools, including the University of the District of Columbia, North Carolina Central University, and Florida A&M University. Among non-HBCU law schools, the University of Puerto Rico, the University of South Dakota, the University of Nebraska, and the University of Toledo have the lowest tuition.
With regard to grants & scholarships, Liberty University, The Pennsylvania State University, Florida A&M University, Campbell University, and the University of St. Thomas (MN) are the most generous with 10o% of their students receiving some type of financial support.
In terms of employment, The University of Detroit Mercy law school produces the most graduates who secure jobs at law firms with less than 25o people and Cornell University tops the list of law school graduates who secure jobs at law firms with more than 250 people. With regard to the production of graduates who land jobs in government or the public sector, the City University of New York law school excels. And the University of Chicago law school produces the most graduates who secure federal and state clerkships.
While most of the law school data was compiled from the ABA 509 required filings, Lawyers of Color added information related to major legal markets to the report. These markets were determined by the number of federal courts, legislative houses, major law firms, and Fortune 1000 company headquarters in the area surrounding the various law schools.
From CEO Young’s perspective, the Black Guide to Law Schools is even more important with the recent U.S. Supreme Court affirmative action case. She stated, “Public universities in Michigan and California [the location of major anti-affirmative action litigation or legislation] have already shown us what happens when affirmative action is abandoned.” She added, “The universities, knowing that diverse classes are essential for ALL students, spend hundreds of millions to recruit students of color with only so-so results.”
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