A 2020 pilot survey by Professor Sarah Schendel asked Black graduating law students whether their bar preparation and career plans were affected by the pandemic and the racial justice turmoil that sent millions of protesters into the streets that summer.
Her paper describing the results of the survey, "Listen! Amplifying the Experiences of Black Law School Graduates in 2020," 100 Nebraska Law Review (2021), offers first-person accounts of more than 120 law students from across the country. In the thick of the pandemic, nearly 1 in 5 law school graduates in 2020, many of them Black, opted out of taking the bar exam that summer.
"Bar studiers who had hoped to spend the summer in the library were instead stuck at home with multiple generations of family members and unreliable Wi-Fi interrupting lectures," Schendel writes. "Graduates hoping to swiftly start careers as attorneys instead faced cancelled interviews and delayed first paychecks. And for Black law school graduates, there were additional, devastating stressors as the country faced a swell of anti-Black police brutality, and protestors took to the streets.”
One of Schendel’s survey respondents said: "I had only planned financially for the summer and was forced into distress by the delay ... I had two family members contract Covid. … This has been the worst possible time to study because there is no space where I can be alone."
Schendel hopes the survey responses will be taken into consideration by decision-makers as many states reassess the efficacy of the bar exam and the lack of diversity in the legal profession.
Image by Michael J. Clarke
By Michael Fisch
Law Briefs
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By Michael Fisch
LAW BRIEFS
A 2020 pilot survey by Professor Sarah Schendel asked Black graduating law students whether their bar preparation and career plans were affected by the pandemic and the racial justice turmoil that sent millions of protesters into the streets that summer.
Her paper describing the results of the survey, "Listen! Amplifying the Experiences of Black Law School Graduates in 2020," 100 Nebraska Law Review (2021), offers first-person accounts of more than 120 law students from across the country. In the thick of the pandemic, nearly 1 in 5 law school graduates in 2020, many of them Black, opted out of taking the bar exam that summer.
"Bar studiers who had hoped to spend the summer in the library were instead stuck at home with multiple generations of family members and unreliable Wi-Fi interrupting lectures," Schendel writes. "Graduates hoping to swiftly start careers as attorneys instead faced cancelled interviews and delayed first paychecks. And for Black law school graduates, there were additional, devastating stressors as the country faced a swell of anti-Black police brutality, and protestors took to the streets.”
One of Schendel’s survey respondents said: "I had only planned financially for the summer and was forced into distress by the delay ... I had two family members contract Covid. … This has been the worst possible time to study because there is no space where I can be alone."
Schendel hopes the survey responses will be taken into consideration by decision-makers as many states reassess the efficacy of the bar exam and the lack of diversity in the legal profession.
Image by Michael J. Clarke
Return to Table of Contents
Suffolk Law Professor
Sarah Schendel