Lawyers Are people Too:

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       Florida State University’s Law community is welcoming and inclusive, focused on helping the community of Tallahassee and giving back FSU while helping train the next generation of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It also has its own set of divisive issues. I investigated the community to find out more.

       I am involved with the Law community here at FSU through the Bryan Hall Living Learning Community mentorship program with Dean Benavidez. As a small group of less than a dozen, we learn firsthand about how law school works, the life of lawyers, and the goings on of the University’s law school and its students. We attend meetings and are introduced to various topics that we should know about law school. It was in one of these meetings introduced to one of the largest issues facing the law community. I was told about how over the next few years students like me could be looking at applying to law school in a very different way than students had for decades.

        An immediate issue involved the Law School Admissions Test. The LSAT has for decades been the required test to apply to any law school, however due to the ever-decreasing amount of potential applicant Law Schools across the nation are deciding whether to begin accepting the Graduate Record Examination, (GRE). The relevance of this is that now for the first time, people have the potential to enter law school not based on the values and traits, such as logical thinking that will be useful in law school, but the values that graduate schools look for which might include more arithmetic and sciences. 

In recent years applications to law schools nationwide have dropped dramatically . (Bronner, 2013)This has led to schools such as Florida State University to hand out financial aid and scholarships to more students in an effort to compete with other law schools. (Benavidez, 2018) The downside to this is that less qualified students are being intensified to apply to law schools. The overall interest in law school is dropping and in the fight for students, the quality of students is dropping too. In previous years extremely high scores and GPA would be required to land a prospective student any financial aid. Currently, a student with a relatively lower GPA of 3.5 or above and similarly lower LSAT scores could net financial aid packages. This is beneficial to the students, but several schools have attempted to one up another by not just offering financial aid for lower grades but by changing the field entirely by no longer requiring students to sit for the Law School Admissions Test. The schools are acting so competitive they’ve actually removed standardized tests that measure student’s likelihood to succeed in law school. It would be as if the musical school communities were so short on perspective musicians they simply decided if you can pay you can join.

       By removing the LSAT schools open themselves up into uncertainty, will these students who get in from the Graduate Record Examination be successful in law school without the training the others used, will they be less likely to pass the bar? And the ethical questions remain, by lowering the bar and accepting students in without a background in or being tested in the skillsets required for law are students being set up for failure while accumulating massive debts? The competition of law schools may be drawing in more students but at the cost of quality in students and the law schools overall standing. A student who has consistently had lower overall grades stands to possibly lead a law school to fall in its own scores such as GPA, Bar passage rate, and employment percentages. “The real problem is lack of applicants, there has been real a drop in people interested in law school from, say, five to ten years ago,”  says Dean Benavidez, Dean of Student Affairs. Schools have to decide if they want to broaden their horizons and accept more students with more varied backgrounds, such as STEM or art majors who typically would not be geared to the LSAT  and get in with the GRE  who otherwise wouldn’t have been interested, or to let those people go.

       The LSAT measures “comprehension of complex texts with accuracy and insight, organization and management of information, ability to draw reasonable inferences from texts, ability to think critically, and analysis and evaluation of the reasoning and arguments of others.” (Law School Admission Council, Inc.) These skillsets are tailored to the law field and reflect what is required to be a successful law student. According the Educational Testing Service the GRE measures a broader area, including some mathematics that have no relevance to law or reasoning. Law schools across the nation have been deciding whether or not to accept solely the LSAT or to take on the GRE. Arizona State University was the first to announce they would be accepting the Graduate Record Examination in 2016. Since then Georgetown and Northwestern Universities have followed suit. Just this year Harvard announced they would be accepting applicants without the LSAT for fall 2018. These schools are well accredited, well known, and well respected, which gives sway to other law schools to start accepting GRE. Interestingly enough however, the Law School Admissions Council, (the governing body in charge of admissions processes for law schools) and the Federal Bar Association have not weighed in on whether or not this is permitted. 

       The concern for the law community here at Florida State is to accept GREs in place of LSAT for some students in order to remain competitive and draw in new students while risking taking an action that may eventually be found invalid or lose a competitive edge while staying within the established rules. 

      While researching the LSAT and interviewing Dean Benavidez, I was introduced to another issue within the community. The community is currently deciding on the possibility of renaming the B.K. Roberts Hall. The hall is central to the law community, but controversy is swelling over the namesake of the hall. B.K. Roberts was a Florida Supreme Court Justice who presided in the 1960s and is still remembered fondly by some members of Florida State’s law community. Justice Roberts was also a proponent of segregation and refused to admit an African American student named Virgil Hawkins to the University of Florida’s law school. On one side of the dispute, members of the community remember a kind Justice who served for a long period of time and helped create the current law community here in Florida, but others see a racist who defied the supreme court’s rulings to allow an African American to attend Law School. People feel very strongly on both sides. It is difficult to decide if the man who helped build the law community of Florida should have a legacy of greatness or of shame. In order to settle the dispute, President Thrasher himself has put together a special renaming committee. The President's Advisory Panel on University Names and Recognitions will determine if B.K. Roberts should remain the namesake of the building here at FSU.

       The President's Advisory Panel will also be focusing on the removal of statues and the renaming of buildings, programs, and honors dedicated to Francis Eppes. The Eppes legacy on campus reaches far back to the beginnings of FSU’s precursor. Being the grandson of one of the original founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Eppes was a man of prestige  and modest wealth. Epps moved to Leon County and founded a cotton plantation in 1820s several years after moving to the region, he became mayor of Tallahassee. (Dobson, 2016) Much like his grandfather he had an interest in education, and when the Florida congress announced they would be establishing two seminary schools Epps fought hard to bring one to Tallahassee. He funded a new building, a $10,000 endowment, and a $2,000 a year budget for the school. After it’s completion he would serve as the president of the Board of Trustees. The school he helped create and fund would later develop into Florida State University.

      Over the years the university has recognized Francis Eppes’s contribution through many different honors. Francis Eppes Hall is the oldest educative building on campus, home of the college of criminology and criminal justice. The Eppes Professorship program grants $40,000 a year to Professors to use for “professional travel, stipends for graduate assistants or post-doctoral assistants, scientific equipment, materials used for research and creative activities.” (FSU Office of Research) The Jefferson-Eppes Trophy also bears the Eppes name, it’s the prize for football games played between Florida State and the University of Virgina, a university founded by Eppes’s grandfather Thomas Jefferson. The legacy walk here at FSU recognizes the various important buildings and statues dedicated to the University’s history and begins at a statue of Eppes outside Wescott Building. The walk symbolically starts with the statue of Eppes, as he started the school’s history and from there it meanders through the university showing that all of the great accomplishments of the school that began because of him.  

       The dark side of Eppes’s legacy is that the plantation he founded was based off of slave labor. He, along with most of Florida at the time, was a supporter of the Confederate States of America and sold his plantation to help raise money for the Confederacy. However, he also protested the mandatory conscription of many teachers and students in the University as the war progressed, and personally surrendered the city of Tallahassee to the Union when the army arrived.

      The issue to removed Eppes is not a new one, as I discovered. In 2016 Students for a Democratic Society gathered signatures to petition to remove the statue and rename Eppes hall. Florida State’s students from all colleges and majors voted to determine the fate of Eppes’s legacy, and elected to keep Eppes. The vote was 72 percent to 28 percent in favor of keeping the statue and building name. If this is any indication for the current climate, then it is likely the law community will also vote to keep B.K. Robert’s name as well.

        The issue over Eppes is by no means resolved however, I was surprised to find flyers all over campus and in the law center proclaiming, “Bring Him Down!” in bold red graffiti style letters strewn across an image of Eppe’s statue. The SDS is still determined to remove Eppes, and as they push for the renaming of B.K. Roberts Hall the law community is taking notice.

In the Bryan Hall mentorship we go through multiple meet and greets with current students and professors about different areas of law, each with their own perspective on law and the community here at FSU. It was in one of these meet and greets that I was introduced to Professor Paolo Annino who is the director of the Children’s Advocacy Clinic and co-director of the Public Interest Law Center here at Florida State. He set himself apart from the stuffy world of tight suits and expensive jackets. Instead, Professor Annino wore an old brown overcoat, simple slacks, and a vividly colorful goofy tie. He told me about how FSU students and alumni give back to the community. The professor recounted how in his early years as a student he was required to do a certain amount of pro-bono hours, and he did so by working on behave of the people of Tallahassee. In one such case he was working with an elderly African American lady, who was repeatedly denied access to the local elk club. “She wasn’t trying to do anything big.” he recalled “She just wanted to play bingo in there and they wouldn’t let her.” All the old white ladies would go in, but this woman wasn’t allowed in based on the color of her skin. He also mentioned how the elk club lawyers reacted when he confronted them, with their flashy suits and cigars. “When I brought up the case against them I expected them to fight back and deny it, but no they just went straight into offering a settlement, they told me ‘Well we just never got around to doing the whole desegregation and the people here just never got used to it.’ Well desegregation was supposed to happen a long while ago I don’t know how they just ‘never got around to it.’” He got that woman allowed into the club, and the club agreed to desegregate.

       Members of the FSU law community do this sort of work all the time I was told in my interview with the head of Student Affairs Dean Benavidez, or as she is affectionately called by law students, Dean B. When I went to meet with Dean B I was surprised by the level of professionalism, though I really shouldn’t have. The Dean had her own secretary, who saw me come in and asked, “Bill?” I was offered a drink, and I nervously said no but later said yes to, as at the time I was still surprised by how fancy everything was. This was a whole different world from high school student affairs, not that I ended up there often. Once I was called in I asked Dean B what most stood out about the law community here at FSU. She told me about how when she first started here 18 years ago she went to an admittance event for new students and faculty. “I sat in the back because I wanted to hear how faculty members talk about the school and to see how the students explain the culture of the school. I thought that by sitting there, unobtrusively I’d get a feel of… if what I’d experienced while interviewing was similar to the culture and the environment of the average daily situation. I remember being struck by the faculty members on the panel, they were joking, they were extremely collegial, they seemed to really know about one another’s work. And I thought wow that’s so refreshing. The student panel talked about how the schools environment is competitive, they wanted FSU to be number one at everything, but it isn’t cutthroat. And I’ll never forget what one girl said, ‘I am sitting in class with people from all different educations and backgrounds from all over the country, but I recognize that they’re gonna be my colleagues, and after we graduate we’ll be working in business together or perhaps even these are gonna be future judges or lawyers, so its competitive, but not at the expense of the person sitting next to you.’” She says that 18 years later that the culture of the school is exactly what she experienced there, welcoming and competitive but genuinely concerned in helping one another.

        Being a part of the law community at FSU doesn’t end at graduation. The law school ranks number ten in alumni giving rate. With only 11,000 alums it shows how connected people remain with the school when compared with huge schools like Harvard or Arizona. Alums come back to hire FSU students, participate in mock trials, and mentor students. In fact, Dean B reached out to the alumni to see who would want to do a one on one mentorship with 91 current students and 93 alums volunteered. Florida State University’s law school is a continually changing ever developing environment, and there will always be new issues and new solutions as it matures. However, I found out one thing remains constant, the tightknit welcoming and competitive culture which compels students to give back and better their community.

 

 

Works Cited

1. Bronner, Ethan. "Law Schools’ Applications Fall as Costs Rise and Jobs are Cut."New York Times, January 31, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/education/law-schools-applications-fall-as-costs-rise-and-jobs-are-cut.html.

2. Benavidez, Nacy. Personal interview. 15 March 2018.

3. Annino, Paolo. Personal interview. 2018

            4. Byron Dobson. "FSU Students Reject Effort to Remove Francis Eppes Statue.", October 19, 2016, https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2016/10/19/fsu-students-hold-vote-removing-eppes-statute/92432296/.

            5. "About the GRE® General Test." Educational Testing Service., https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/.

            6. Byron Dobson. "FSU Students Reject Effort to Remove Francis Eppes Statue.", October 19, 2016, https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2016/10/19/fsu-students-hold-vote-removing-eppes-statute/92432296/.

 

 

 

 

Annotated Bibliography

Dolik, Helen. "Lsat 'Bias' Inspires Law School Caution." Calgary Herald (Alberta, Canada), December 5, 1993, pp. A3.

This source shows the flaws and potential biases of the Law School Admissions Test as it pertains to women, minorities, and those who are disadvantaged financially. I will be using this source to talk about how the LSAT could be a negative thing for the community, however I will have other articles to create a counter argument against this stance as well. This article was written by a college newspaper, giving it an interesting and useful perspective, that is relevant to the conversation.

Edwards, Pamela. "The Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development Presents: The Lsat, U.S. News & World Report, and Minority Admissions: The Shell Game: Who is Responsible for the Overuse of the Lsat in Law School Admissions?", vol. 80, 2006, pp. 153, https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edslex&AN=edslex0A4CA828&site=eds-live.

This source criticizes the overuse of the LSAT, and how it has essentially monopolized the admissions test for Law School admissions. It also goes into detail on how the LSAT allegedly disadvantages African American Students and other minorities due to the high cost of the LSAT and the low income of many underprivileged Americans. The usefulness of this source, however is somewhat limited due to its similarities with another source. This source does have enough separate and useful information for it to be useable in the paper.

Francis Ward, Stephanie. "Law Schools Examine Predictive Value of GRE, LSAT." ABA Journal, vol. 104, no. 2, 2018, pp. 15, https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=127730586&site=eds-live.

This article will be useful for the explaining the new test many law schools are beginning to use. This will be used to show how Ivy league schools such as Harvard University and Georgetown University have already started to accept the Graduate Record Examination, or GRE. This is the main controversy discussed in the paper that the Law community here at FSU is focused on. For many years it has been the LSAT, not the GRE to determine the applicant’s worth to the Law School, by introducing a different test schools are accepting more students, but they are less likely to know the skills required for law school.

Lamparello, Adam. "Legal Education at a Crossroads: A Response to Measuring Merit: The Shultz-Zedec- Research on Law School Admissions."Loyola Law Review, vol. 61, 2015, pp. 235, https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edslex&AN=edslexE3C239CF&site=eds-live.

This source is useful for defending the LSAT’s ability to accurately determine who is and who is not going to be successful in Law School. The article goes into detail on how those who score a certain level on the LSAT are often successful at Law School and in Law Practice beyond school, and that those who score below a certain level are most often than not failures in law school. The dangers, it argues is that if someone receives a poor LSAT score, is not good enough for law school, but enters in with a GRE risks racking up debt in school while getting no degree out of it or failing in the real world on the job.

Retka, Allison. "LSAT Exception: A Test of Fairness in Missouri Law Schools?" Missouri Lawyers Weekly, March 3, 2008.

This source highlights how some students are not required to take the LSAT exam or the GRE due to their transferring in from out of country. It increases the global diversity of the Universities, but at the cost of preferring foreign students to students from the United States. It shows how some see this as an injustice to those who study for months to take the admissions test. The limit of this article is that it is not immediately pertinent to Florida State University’s home law community, but it is useful in that it adds to the general conversation on the Law School Admissions Test. 

Heriot, Gail L. "Standardized Tests Under the Magnifying Glass: A Defense of the LSAT Against Recent Charges of Bias." Texas Review of Law & Politics, vol. 7, 2003, pp. 467, https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edslex&AN=edslexEA4CC841&site=eds-live.

This source will be useful to show the benefits of the Law School Admissions Test. It will serve as a counter argument to the push for the introduction of the GRE. Since this is a major issue in the Law= community at FSU, both sides of the argument will be examined. The article is useful for its points on how the LSAT may not disadvantage minorities and women, but instead is overlooked in its ability to remove bias. The LSAT instead actually demonstrates a very minimal gap between scores of African American students pursuing law and White students pursuing law.

 

Kilpatrick, Ryan. "You Don'T Need to Sit the LSAT to Get into Harvard Law School Anymore." Time.Com, 2017, pp. 1, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=122517361&site=ehost-live.

This source shows that some law schools schools no longer require the LSAT, and instead favor the GRE, Graduate Record Examination, to decide whether or not to accept applicants. Schools such as Harvard and the University of Arizona College of Law, now accept multiple entry methods in order to attempt to combat the expenses involved in the LSAT that may keep minority students from applying and entering into law school and the law profession.

Fernandez, Erika. "FSU Prioritizes Change to Controversial Named Symbols on Campus." WCTV News, Feb 7, 2018, http://www.wctv.tv/content/news/FSU-prioritizes-change-to-controversial-named-symbols-on-campus-473189033.html.

Another controversy in the FSU law community, several buildings including the main FSU Law studies building are up to be renamed. Buildings such as the BK Roberts Hall are in the midst of a debate. A naming committee assembled by the Law Community has been created to address it. I will be using this to show how there are more issues and ongoing interests that exist within the law community here at FSU. I will be elaborating on the reason for renaming the halls, such as why BK Roberts was looked upon fondly by some due to his work with the supreme court, and why others consider him a racist who refused to admit an African-American into the Law program.

Law School Admission Council, Inc. "The Law School Admission Test (LSAT).", https://www.discoverlaw.org/preparing/lsat.asp.

This will be used to define what the LSAT tests and how useful it is.

Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. "About the College.", 2018, http://criminology.fsu.edu/about/eppes-hall-timeline/.

The article will be used to demonstrate the use of Francis Eppes’s name on campus.

Florida State University Office of Research, "Research Foundation Grant Programs.", 2018, https://www.research.fsu.edu/research-offices/fsu-research-foundation/grants/.

Information on the Eppes Scholoarship.

Warber, Andrew. "Francis Eppes Statue.", Fall, 2006, http://myweb.fsu.edu/jkoslow/studentprojects/pubhisfall06website/eppes.html.

Information on Eppes Statue and the Life of Eppes.

"Francis Eppes Statue.", http://legacywalk.fsu.edu/eppes-statue/.

Used to show the life of Eppes.

Byron Dobson. "FSU Students Reject Effort to Remove Francis Eppes Statue.", October 19, 2016, https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2016/10/19/fsu-students-hold-vote-removing-eppes-statute/92432296/.

This source will be used to demonstate how the 2016 effort to remove Francis Eppes, founder of FSU, from all buildings and statues failed.

Dobson, Byron. "Thrasher Orders Review of FSU's Statues, Markers, Naming Policies.", September 5, 2017, https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2017/09/05/thrasher-orders-review-fsus-statues-markers-naming-policies/633538001/.

This source will be used to demonstrate that President Thrasher is currently forming a renaming committee and will talk about how this effects the law community at FSU.

 

 

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