Volume 5 Winter 2011 Number 2 - Charleston Law Review

SCHULZE FINAL.doc1/20/2011 6:14PM2011] Law School Academic Support1. Pre-Law School Academic Support MethodsPre-law school academic support methods usually includeprograms that occur prior to the regular law school orientation.These programs introduce students to the various concepts theywill face in the near future: how law school classes are conducted,how legal problems are analyzed, how legal reasoning isachieved, etcetera. 26 Studies of these programs show mixedresults. Shorter pre-orientation programs usually show littleevidence of impact on students’ law school grades. 27 Moreexpansive programs, by contrast, such as the CLEO SummerInstitute, 28 show better results. 29 Regardless of any impact upongrades, these programs often have intangible yet important,consequences such as community-building, easing theapprehension of starting law school, providing a substantive26. See Cabrera & Zeman, supra note 12, at 210; see also Jean Boylan,Crossing the Divide: Why Law Schools Should Offer Summer Programs for Non-Traditional Students, 5 SCHOLAR 21, 27–30 (2002) (describing the types of inhousesummer programs as: (1) those focusing on legal skills; (2) those includingsubstantive classes; and (3) those providing mini-introductions to the law schoolenvironment).27. See Kristine S. Knaplund & Richard H. Sander, The Art and Science ofAcademic Support, 45 J. LEGAL EDUC. 157, 172–73 (1995) (“[T]he summerprogram [at one law school] clearly ha[d] no important effect on the academicperformance of students after their first semester of law school . . . .”).28. See What Is CLEO, CLEO SCHOLARS, http://www.cleoscholars.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=498&parentID=482&nodeID=2(last visited Oct. 22, 2010). CLEO was founded in 1968 “as a non-profit projectof the ABA Fund for Justice and Education to expand opportunities for minorityand low-income students to attend law school.” Id. CLEO offers a six-week,Pre-Law Summer Institute at a number of law school campuses. Id. TheSummer Institute is described as follows: “[d]esigned to evaluate the student’scapacity for learning the law while simultaneously acclimating them to the lawschool process, the curriculum is taught by full-time law professors andsimulates the rigors of the first year of law school.” What Is CLEO?, A.B.A.,http://www.abanet.org/cleo/whatis.html (last visited Oct. 22, 2010).29. Eulius Simien, The Law School Admission Test as a Barrier to AlmostTwenty Years of Affirmative Action, 12 T. MARSHALL L. REV. 359, 383–84 (1987)(focusing on law school graduation rate of CLEO alumnae as indicative of itssuccess). But see Knaplund & Sander, supra note 27, at 183 n.65 (suggesting,based on data admittedly lacking statistical significance, that the CLEOSummer Institute did not provide measurable academic improvement toparticipants).279