UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

JAMES E. ROGERS COLLEGE OF LAW

AUGUST 14, 2024

Greetings,

New law students are arriving on campus this week for orientation – a week before the main university fires up its classrooms. As new faces begin to fill our classrooms, this week’s newsletter features the innovative LSAT alternative JD-Next, which helps to level the playing field for the coming generation of legal scholars.

Until the footnotes,

Marc

FEATURE

How U of A Law Faculty Came Up with an LSAT Alternative

The Law School Admission Test – more commonly known as the LSAT – is so well known that it has made a name for itself in popular culture.

But several studies have found that the LSAT, like other standardized tests, has significant disparities in mean scores by race and ethnicity. A 2019 study using data provided by the company that runs the LSAT confirmed that the average score for Black students who took the LSAT was 142 out of 180; the average score for Asian and White students was 153.

A law-school admissions program created by experts in the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law has emerged as a widely acknowledged new test for determining whether students are ready for law school, without the disparities of the LSAT.

The program, JD-Next, was licensed last year by Aspen Publishing, one of the leading legal education publishers in the country. It is now used at 57 of the 196 law schools in the United States, with more law schools joining every few months by applying for approval from the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

Much of the JD-Next coursework was nearly ready to go when University of Arizona Law experts began designing the program. Curriculum and lecture videos from the college’s bachelor’s in law program were used in the JD-Next course materials.

“I was both delighted and I have to admit quite proud when Dean Miller approached me about using the lectures and assessment tools I had developed for our BA in Law program core course in contracts as part of the foundation for the JD-Next course,” said Regents Professor, E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Chair, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program Robert Williams, whose work in the BA in Law program helped formed the basis of JD-Next. “It’s both incredibly exciting and satisfying for me personally and professionally to see how JD-Next has now been widely accepted by so many law schools around the country as an alternative to the LSAT with all its disparities, biases and faults.”

Over the past six years, thousands of students from law schools across the country have enrolled in JD-Next, and their schools agreed to participate in data collection to assess how well the program prepared them for law school – in other words, whether the test was a valid and reliable predictor of their law school performance in accordance with American Bar Association testing standards.

Analysis of that data, now published in peer-reviewed studies, found that JD-Next was valid and reliable. A separate study found that the JD-Next course improved average GPAs of first-year law students – regardless of their race – by .20 points. See JDNext Legal Education Administrators: Science of JDNext & Validity | Aspen Publishing.

To learn more about the evolution of JD-Next, and University of Arizona Law’s role in the changing landscape of legal education, see the full article here.

AROUND THE COLLEGE

Legal Writing Team Shines at National Conference

University of Arizona Law’s #8 nationally-ranked legal writing team recently returned from the 40th Biennial Conference of the Legal Writing Institute, where team members were active in conference leadership, presentations and more:

The Biennial marked the end of Director of Legal Writing and Clinical Professor of Law & Distinguished Public Service Scholar Susie Salmon’s two-year term as President of the organization. She will continue on the organization’s Board as Immediate Past President until 2026.

Associate Clinical Professor of Law Diana Simon presented, helped facilitate a scholars workshop, and spoke on a panel. Diana’s books and overall scholarly activity have made her a rising star in the discipline and a role model for newer legal-writing scholars.

Associate Professor of Legal Writing & Assistant Clinical Professor of Law Joy Herr-Cardillo co-presented on how team-based learning can facilitate formative assessment in the age of generative AI, served on the Bench & Bar Committee and had a high-visibility role at the registration table. She is part of a core group of leaders in using team-based learning in the legal-writing classroom and frequently fields questions about that pedagogy and about University of Arizona Law’s Escape Room review session.

Assistant Vice Provost, Native American Initiatives; Assistant Director, Legal Writing; Clinical Professor of Law Tessa Dysart, although she could not attend, served as a Conference Co-Chair and Registration Chair in the two years leading up to the conference.

Associate Clinical Professor of Law Sylvia Lett served as Chair of the Bench & Bar Committee and led the first-ever LWI Bench & Bar Day, a full day of programming at the conference designed to share research and best practices with practicing lawyers and judges. The event attracted dozens of local Indiana law students, lawyers and judges, and Sylvia’s work and leadership were a major reason for its success.

Associate Clinical Professor of Law Bryan Schwartz served as Assistant Registration Chair — helping troubleshoot registration and conference-app issues before and throughout the conference — and served on the Program Committee. Bryan also presented on materials he is creating to help prepare students for the NextGen Bar.

The Legal Writing Institute is the largest organization of legal-writing academics in the world, with well over a thousand members, including members from almost every ABA-accredited law school in the United States.

New Book Teaches Children About the Supreme Court

Assistant Director of Legal Writing & Clinical Professor of Law Tessa Dysart’s new book, “The Supreme Court Counting Book,” was published in July. The children’s book marks a new genre for Tessa, who previously has written and edited books on appellate briefing, online teaching and judicial clerkships.

“When my son was born in 2018, I realized that there were not a lot of law-related children’s books, especially ones related to my area of expertise—appellate practice. I started working on an A, B, C book focused on appellate practice. However, I struggled with finalizing the text,” said Tessa. “A few years later, my daughter was born. As she reached toddlerhood, she struggled with counting to five. One day it struck me that I should pivot and write a counting book. The Supreme Court was a perfect subject for the book, since many of the numbers between 1 and 10 relate directly to the Court’s work.”

The book features a character named Lucky the Tortoise and includes text appropriate for young readers as well as information about the Supreme Court for older children.

The book has been featured on legal podcast Advisory Opinions and will be carried in the Supreme Court Historical Society Store.

IPLP Joins Global Advocacy Groups in Supporting Indigenous People in Congo

The Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy program (IPLP) recently joined major international advocacy groups Forest Peoples Programmes, Rainforest Foundation UK and Amnesty International in signing on to a statement in support of the Batwa Indigenous people of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The statement was issued following a decision by the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights. In a decades-long case, the commission found that the DRC violated the rights of the Batwa people in displacing them from their native land to create a national park.

IPLP has been directly involved in support of the Batwa Indigenous Peoples in the DRC and in this precedent setting case. Recognition alongside these international human rights organizations is a testament to the global impact of IPLP.

IN THE NEWS

Capital One-Discover antitrust concerns may be overblown

Payments Dive, featuring Barak Orbach

Experts say Musk’s antitrust lawsuit against advertisers holds water

The Globe and Mail, featuring Barak Orbach (subscription required)

Do You Have News?

Your success is the college’s success and we want to celebrate with you! If you have landed a new job, received an award or recognition, stepped into a leadership role or have good news in general, let us know.

Share Your News Here

Instagram, @arizonaalumni

In February 2016, Arizona Law became the first U.S. law school to accept the Graduate Record Exam, or GRE, as an alternative to the LSAT for JD admissions. Now any U.S. law school can use the GRE as an alternative, and well over half do.

But then, and since, we were challenged to create a new exam entirely that would reduce or eliminate the racial and wealth differences that have long been recognized for the legacy tests.

With a different testing theory, significant support from the AccessLex Foundation and the ETS Foundation, strong faculty leadership, including the brilliant vision and powerful teaching from Rob Williams, and research design and implementation from Chris Robertson (now at Boston U) and Jess Findley – and literally the commitment of dozens of law schools and a cast of thousands of students – we met that challenge with JD-Next.

JD-Next is still in its early years as an actual high-stakes admission exam, and in its parallel role in preparing law students for early law school success. It is of a piece with our efforts over the past dozen years to expand access to the legal profession, and the parallel goal of expanding access to legal services. These real, substantial, science-based innovations should be a source of great pride for our College and the (once again and always) U of A.

Warmly,