Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The LSAT + Grades Approach Is the Worst One for Screening Potential Law Students, Except for All the Others

Some profs. at UC Berkeley are studying junking the LSAT + grades (often combined mathematically to create an “index score”) formulation for law school admissions and replacing it with an alternative that would deemphasize cognitive abilities and put weight on behavioral traits and attitudes. Why?

Definitions of “merit” and “qualification” have become too narrow and static; they hamper legal education’s goal of producing diverse, talented and balanced generations of law graduates who will serve the many mandates and constituencies of the legal profession.

A thought:  I’ve never come across anyone --white, black, Hispanic, Asian, or other; male or female; young or old; straight or gay; poor, rich, or in between-- who wanted to be represented by a lawyer with less-than-stellar “qualifications,” and I’m pretty certain I never will.

Another thought:  Can there be any doubt that a new testing regime would highly value adherence to statist political beliefs (or in academic lingo "a strong commitment to social justice”)?

(Warning: Website at above link quite buggy, at least in IE8.)

(Hat tip: George Leef at Phi Beta Cons blog.)

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