Antiracist Gateways to the Legal Profession

Developed in collaboration with the Antiracist Development Institute at Penn State Dickinson Law, Antiracist Gateways to the Legal Profession is a hands-on guide to designing and scaling up pathway programs that bring diverse students to law schools and the legal profession.

This edited volume critiques entrenched biases in law-school teaching, faculty hiring, admissions, and mentoring while proposing transformative, replicable pathways to expand access. It walks readers through how to develop, design, and assess an antiracist program aligned with a law school’s vision and mission; how to select and train participating faculty; how to recruit partners, sponsors, funders, and students; and how to convert participants into matriculating law students. This book also addresses gateway programs for faculty, staff, and administrators that bring diverse candidates into selection pools and prepare candidates for the job market.

Grounded in antiracist principles and practices, Antiracist Gateways to the Legal Profession is a go-to resource for administrators, mentors, and admissions and hiring committees who are seeking concrete guidance in building equitable systems to transform the legal profession.

Carla D. Pratt is Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Chair in Civil Rights and Justice at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and coauthor of The End of the Pipeline: A Journey of Recognition for African Americans Entering the Legal Profession. She served as Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe from 2012 to 2018.

Angela Winfield is Vice President and Chief Impact Officer at the Law School Admission Council. She previously served as Associate Vice President for Inclusion and Workforce Diversity at Cornell University.

Contents
 

Introduction: Using Systems Design Theory to Build a More Inclusive Legal Profession

Carla D. Pratt
 

Part I. Building Antiracist Pathways to and Through Law School

1. Bursting the Yale Bubble: A Law School Pipeline Program Rooted in Community

Kayla Vinson and James Forman, Sr.

2. Reengineering Law School Admission and Transfer in a Post Affirmative Action Environment

Carla D. Pratt

3. Systematizing US Law School Pathway Programs

Angela C. Winfield

4. Mentoring—Guiding the Next Generation to Success

Alireza Nourani-Dargiri

5. It Takes a Law School

Dorothy H. Evensen
 

Part II. Designing Institutions for Antiracist Outcomes

6. Complicit Bias and the Antiracist Law School

Renee Nicole Allen

7. Tyranny of the Minority: Building Antiracist Law Schools Through Changing Law Faculty Hiring Practices

Nancy Chi Cantalupo

8. Building Transformative and Replicable Pipelines: The JD-Next and BA in Law Programs at the University of Arizona

Jess Findley, Keith Swisher, and Marc L. Miller

9. Broadening the Pipeline: Supporting and Retaining Students

Deseriee A. Kennedy  

10. The Meritocracy Myth: Performance-Based Admission Programs as Antiracism

Demetria Frank

11. Law School and Athletics: An Innovative Pipeline Program

Nickey Woods 

Conclusion: Designing a More Just Pathway Forward

Angela C. Winfield and Carla D. Pratt
 

Suggested Readings

Contributors

Index

Volumes in This Series