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The following is the complete text of graduating student Heather Stern’s address at The Colleges of Law 2023 commencement ceremony.

At a recent law school residency, my 11-year-old daughter had the opportunity to meet one of my classmates who playfully told her, “Your mother’s a talker. She doesn’t let the professors speak!” I guess it’s fair to say I wasn’t shy in class. Fortunately, the ability to make bold assertions in law school is recognized as a valiant effort to analyze and question the law. In legal writing, we learned it’s not how much you say; it’s what you say that counts, and our wise remedies professor taught us, “Every word matters. That’s how you win a lawsuit.” I have found my calling.

It’s said it takes a village to raise a child. I say it takes a village to get through law school, especially when you enter this journey later in life with an established career or a full-time job, children, a spouse, or being a single parent: tons of responsibility. None of us would be standing up here without all of you sitting down there, and for that, we thank you. 

We have all entered law for different reasons. This is a collective story about how my peers, professors, and I arrived in law school.

One of our most beloved professors did so in the most like lawyerly way: by process of elimination. She was greatly impacted by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” and was inspired to change the world for the better, working in public interest. After studying at Yale, she considered graduate school, medical school or getting a Ph.D., but it was working on Wall Street, at a major New York law firm where she decided to become a lawyer, then our professor. She brought her Ivy League pedigree to The Colleges of Law and drilled legal rules into our brains until we could recite them in our sleep.

Two of my study mates entered law school to be the voice of others. They saw issues in our country and local communities they didn’t agree with and wanted to affect change.

One of them read an ad: “If you don’t like the way something is being done, get up and do something about it. Go to law school.” A mother of four, she doubted she could afford to go, but her boss wisely nudged her, “You cannot afford not to follow your dream.”

My other study partner, a former schoolteacher, witnessed the painstaking confusion and vulnerability of parents with students who had special needs. Some children lost services they not only had a right to but desperately needed and were denied access to education. As a future attorney, she plans to give kids an equal opportunity to succeed.

Many standing before you found their way to law because either they or their loved ones suffered unconscionable, inconceivable injustices.

One student who could no longer afford to for pay legal services lost custody of her child because she couldn’t combat false allegations, and just like that ad, she went to law school and committed her future to doing something about it.

I am that student.

Growing up privileged, I was oblivious to the “justice gap” and demographically insulated from injustice altogether. But after seven years in a long, drawn-out custody battle, I got a first-hand education. Inspired by the words of Justice Ginsberg — “If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers” — I enrolled at Colleges of Law.

Through my studies, reading voluminous cases, I realize my story is just one of countless injustices that take place in our country every day. I personally represent 71% of our population needing legal assistance but unable to retain or sustain access. As an attorney, I plan to fight for fair judicial outcomes, so the dream of “justice for all” can be available to all, not just the few that can afford it.

Colleges of Law taught me no case is black or white, and the marriage of law and facts provides more than one outcome. In our first semester, a professor said law and logic sit in different rooms. This was a hard reality to swallow, but, fortunately, Colleges of Law has a strong faculty—beacons of light, really—who have been willing to engage with us on a personal and professional level, to share their experience and hope of how we will use the intricate tools of law to do good. 

One of our deans, who decided she wanted to go to law school when she was only 12 years old, was drawn to represent the truth and has made it her goal to shape us into the “reasonable person” she was in law. She firmly reminds us that a carefully crafted argument and well-planned strategy can get you the same result without having to compromise being good lawyers and good, reasonable people.

Colleges of Law is a diverse student body reflective of its roots. Founded in 1969, during a time of profound social change in our country, its founders looked to elevate society. It was their dream to provide affordable legal education to people from all walks of life, their mission and vision to pioneer and modernize legal education by emphasizing opportunity, academic excellence, and committed community engagement. All pillars that have not been lost on this wonderfully eclectic and motivated graduating class of former pharmacist, forensic psychiatrist, teachers, bankers, police officers, technology experts, and artists. We are committed to Colleges of Law’s values and will go forth to skillfully practice law.

My name is Heather Stern. I am one of five students, all remarkable women, who made it through an accelerated, 32-month, hybrid Juris Doctorate program*. Against some very sound advice to take law school slow, this group of ladies and I committed to a rigorous speed of legal studies, and we persevered. I am proud to be among them and all of the 2023 Colleges of Law graduates.

Congratulations, class. We did it!

*The 32-month accelerated hybrid J.D. program mentioned is no longer available. However, the 40-month program is still available.

Despite efforts to diversify the legal profession, there is much work left to do.

The results of the State Bar of California’s report on Diversity of 2022 California Licensed Attorneys were stark but not surprising. The survey showed that white people made up 39% of California, but two-thirds of the almost 200,000 licensed attorneys in the state are white. Conversely, Latinos make up 36% of the state’s population but only 6% of its attorneys._.

Since its founding in 1969, The Colleges of Law has made inroads toward diversity. “Our college was started specifically to serve working adults,” says Dean Jackie Gardina, J.D. “The evening hours made it possible for working women or women who were primary caretakers of children to attend law school. Now those women are in positions of power. They’re judges; they’re elected officials.”

With the creation of the first hybrid J.D. program in California, The Colleges of Law further broke down geographic barriers to attendance. Within California, the African American population is 6%, but within the Hybrid J.D. program, it’s 12%. Dean Andrea Funk says, “I have been in legal education for 26 years and have never seen the kind of diversity that we have in the Hybrid J.D. program.”  

The Colleges of Law’s efforts to enroll women of color align with efforts by the State Bar of California to diversify the legal profession. Expanding the geographic boundaries of access and affordability to a broader range of people allows African American women from across California to access legal education more easily. And these efforts have gained statewide recognition, as the college has been selected as a DEI Leadership Seal Silver tier recipient in the first cohort of the state bar’s DEI Leadership Seal program for its efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and in the legal profession.

A common theme among current students and recent graduates of the Hybrid J.D. program who are women of color is that many came from the professional realm after deciding to pursue law degrees to enhance what they were already doing professionally.

Why the law as a profession?

When she was 4 years old, Nicole Wilson told her father that she wanted to be an attorney “to help people,” even though she didn’t know what an attorney does. In high school, Wilson was on the speech and debate team and the mock trial team, and she took classes toward a legal certificate. She planned to go to law schooI and even worked a series of jobs in law-related fields, but it wasn’t until she was pursuing a master’s degree in educational leadership and policy studies that she realized she could marry her love of higher education with her love of the law by augmenting her professional training and experience.

Erica Lemon, J.D., was well established in her professional career. Based in Dallas, Texas, she works with Veterans Administration and Department of Defense hospitals in 16 states. Following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the subsequent protests and calls for justice, she felt compelled to do more and looked to the legal field as an effective area to make an impact. However, her work required her to travel four days a week, making a commitment to an in-person law school difficult.

Janine Mitchell, J.D., intended to pursue a career in broadcast journalism until she took a criminal justice class in college and fell in love with the law. She wanted to go to law school but had her first daughter during her sophomore year. Mitchell became a paralegal instead. She still intended to go to law school, but most of the programs were not designed for students who work full-time and are single parents.

Why a hybrid J.D.?

Being able to study during the week at her own pace and then travel to Ventura once a month to have the in-class experience and in-person access to teachers and fellow students worked well for Wilson. “The program has far exceeded my expectations,” she says.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person residencies ceased and courses were held via Zoom, Wilson, as a young mother, appreciated the ease of working from home. “The benefit of a hybrid program is that you are able to do your work throughout the week at your own pace. Additionally, you have access to your professors online, while also having a classroom experience, once a month. Having multiple ways of access is important,” she says.

When Lemon learned The Colleges of Law Hybrid J.D. program combined remote course work with visits to the Ventura campus four weekends per term, she saw an opportunity. “I travel to California frequently for work,” Lemon said, “so getting there wasn’t hard.”

Because of COVID-19, she was unable to travel to The Colleges of Law during her first years of the program, but when she did, she found a diverse population. In addition to the significant presence of Latino students, Lemon says she remembers about 10 Black students. “It sure was a lot different from the pictures on the wall,” she said of the portraits that adorn the hallways of professors and presidents of the college in previous generations.

For Mitchell, the goal was to find a program that would allow her to raise her daughter and continue to work full-time. “I stumbled upon The Colleges of Law Hybrid program,” she says. “It really impressed me that they considered nontraditional students in creating the program. I applied for the program and was fortunately accepted.”

 Challenges for women of color

To counter the discrimination that women of color experience, Wilson is proactive about identifying mentors. “If there are a lot of closed doors that you’re encountering, all you need is one open door,” she says. “I’ve been able to find people that advocate for me and that have been able to mentor me, whether it’s my workplace or at The Colleges of Law,”

As her knowledge of the law expanded through her studies, Lemon learned that that injustice toward people of color extends beyond policing and the criminal justice system. “There are also issues surrounding property, the lack of estate planning and wills,” she says.

Mitchell says she still gets comments like, “Oh, are you the paralegal? Are you the assistant?” She spent three weeks at a trial in San Bernardino County and didn’t see a lot of people who looked like her. “There is pressure to exceed expectations for myself just to show I belong here,” she says.

She currently works at a law firm founded primarily by African American attorneys, some of whom later became judges. “There are people that look like me in this field, and there’s this program that’s accessible for me as a non-traditional student,” Mitchell says. “Both of those two factors played into my decision to choose The Colleges of Law.”

Opportunities for those who are entering the field

“I’ve been fortunate at the firm that I’m with,” Mitchell says. “I had worked for them as a paralegal in the past. Less than two months into my practice, I tried a case. We practice elder abuse and neglect cases, and not many firms do that on the plaintiff’s side. It’s a very specialized area of law. I see myself really just growing here, continuing to try cases, and becoming just a great trial attorney.”

Wilson is interested in pursuing educational law and corporate law after she graduates. In the meantime, she wishes to pay forward the benefits she’s received from those who have helped her. “I’m passionate about student success, ” she says, “so I am going to be a mentor starting in the fall for incoming 1Ls.”

Advice for aspiring lawyers

“My advice would be to just get involved in any way you can,” Mitchell says. “Put yourself out there. Don’t feel that just because not a lot of people look like you and your surroundings that you kind of have to keep to yourself. Become involved in as many activities as you can, push yourself as far as trying to get internships, externships, and networking. Put yourself out there and know that you’re good enough, you belong here.”

While she was attending The Colleges of Law, Lemon was among those pressing the faculty and administration to better support students in preparing for the bar exam. Many of their recommendations were adopted. Lemon says preparing for the bar exam is key, and she urges students to take advantage of the bar exam prep app AdaptiBar, visit BarEssays.com to review essays written for past bar exams, and take as many practice tests as possible.

Wilson stresses the importance of mentors. “If you have an area of law that you’re interested in, find someone who can mentor you. In my experience, attorneys are looking for someone to mentor,” she says. “If you’re not sure what area of law you are interested in, do an internship, volunteer, expose yourself to different types of law, so you can figure out what area you’re interested in practicing. Find someone that you can emulate and that can walk beside you in the journey, because you will face obstacles. You will face barriers, but that doesn’t have to stop you.”

The Colleges of Law is setting a new standard for pro bono work to better prepare students to serve their communities.

The Colleges of Law has long recognized a lack of accessibility within the legal industry. There are costly barriers to law school and to accessing essential legal services. In response, the college has focused on developing lawyers who not only care about their education but fully accept the responsibility of their degree. Through the pro bono requirement, students learn to take initiative, practice their legal knowledge in the field, and realize that social responsibility should be the priority of their career.

Pro Bono Requirements in Legal Education: Serving the Needs of the Community

Pro bono comes from the Latin phrase “pro bono publico,” which means for the public good. Doing good for the betterment of all is core to The Colleges of Law’s mission.            

The Colleges of Law adheres to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) standard of requiring 50 hours of nonprofit legal services within their law school. Students must work under a supervising attorney or judge, but neither party may receive compensation for their time.

Students intern at a variety of organizations, from nonprofits to free legal aid clinics; the Santa Barbara Teen Legal Clinic and Ventura County Legal Aid are popular options.

The internship is an experiential learning opportunity, much like a medical residency. However, finding an internship appropriate for pro bono experience requires students to be proactive in their search. For alumna Lauren Nicholson, J.D., a family law attorney at Nicholson Law, the internship experience set her up for success.

Nicholson currently volunteers in her spare time at the Conejo Free Clinic, assisting the navigation of family law services. “It was good training for being an attorney because you constantly juggle things,” Nicholson explains. “You learn to to prioritize. If you want to be somebody who does do pro bono work, you have to consciously make an effort at it.”

The Colleges of Law partners with local organizations to help students fulfill their requirements and close service gaps within the community. For example, the colleges have partnered with the local organization, Conflict Resolution Institute (CRI) in Ventura County, supplying volunteers for their mediation program.

Students complete 30 hours of instruction to become certified mediators, an undeniably crucial skill within the legal profession. After becoming certified, students volunteer their mediation services at the Ventura County small claims court.

Nathan Peterson, the Executive Director of CRI, is beyond grateful for the partnership with The Colleges of Law. “We want to provide as much support to the courts as possible, and sometimes it can be hard to fill volunteer spots,” Peterson says. “This pipeline from The Colleges of Law is great because it provides support and services to the community.”

The mediation program allows the court to resolve conflict among parties and provides key field experience for the students. They learn mediation skills such as active listening, integrative bargaining, and thoughtful questioning—skills essential to their careers in law.

Peterson said it’s also common for student interns from The Colleges of Law to exceed what’s expected—many remain at CRI to help out even after their internship has ended.

The pro bono requirement helps students understand the gravitas of their role within the profession. They fill an important community need while meeting a standard of excellence set by The Colleges of Law.

Pro Bono Work Within the Legal Industry

Even though pro bono work is expected for lawyers, it may not be a priority within the field. The ABA states that every lawyer sworn in accepts a responsibility to “promote justice and to make justice equally accessible to all people.” Although the ABA recommends 50 hours of pro bono work per lawyer yearly, it does not require it.

According to a report by the Pro Bono Institute, pro bono hours represented 3.32% of total client billable hours in 2021, which is a 20% drop from 2020. However, students at The Colleges of Law are working to improve those stats.

Joseph Jones, an adjunct professor and graduate of The Colleges of Law, has a deep admiration for his students who, he says, share a common goal for pursuing a law degree.

“Each of them—and this is true of every student I’ve had in the nine years I’ve been on the faculty—each of them takes their education very seriously. Many are first-generation [students] or first in their family to graduate high school, and they wish to bring their law [experience] back into their community and represent marginalized populations.”

In addition to teaching at The Colleges of Law, Jones volunteers at a free legal aid clinic, providing legal advice to families.

How The Colleges of Law Closes the Accessibility Gap

The Colleges of Law has long recognized the barriers to a legal education. The school was founded on the priority that a legal education should be within reach of anyone. So, they offer flexible class schedules, online internships, and professors who accommodate their students’ busy and committed lives.

For Lauren Nicholson, her education from The Colleges of Law delivered on all its promises. “The Colleges of Law gave me an affordable J.D. and provided me with lots of local connections.” She even remains in contact with her supervising attorney from her first internship and landed her first job through a local connection. Most impressively, “The school prepared me to pass the bar on my first attempt.”

The Colleges of Law provides an education that is accessible to both its students and its communities. Students not only become equipped with practical legal skills and knowledge but understand how their education influences the world around them.

“Our students find themselves enthusiastic after the internship process, regardless of where they serve,” says Kryztofr Kaine, the Sr. Manager of Institutional Advancement and Community Relations at The Colleges of Law, “They come out the other side excited about helping those in need of legal services.”

The legacy of The Colleges of Law pro bono requirement has made a palpable impact on the students, professors, and the legal field itself. It goes above and beyond a simple education requirement and reaches into the hearts of its participants for life.  Professor Jones put it best when he said, “I could talk about The Colleges of Law forever.”

To learn more about the J.D. program at The Colleges of Law, fill out the form below.

Focusing on D.C. isn’t enough. State and county legislators are taking aggressive action to erase the LGBTQ+ community, ban books, undermine public education, and limit voting rights.

I have always believed in the power of our federal constitution and the fundamental rights it protects. I came of age when the U.S. was starting to move toward the more perfect union imagined at its founding. Both the federal government and Supreme Court were flexing the power of the equal protection and liberty clauses of the federal constitution to order school desegregation, require equal access to public accommodations, prohibit discrimination in the workplace, and to provide women (some) bodily autonomy.

Recent events, however, have made me increasingly aware of the power of state legislatures to undermine these rights and stall forward momentum, or, in some cases, to turn back the clock decades. From book bans and educational gag orders to abortion bans and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, state legislators are asserting unchecked power to enact legislation contrary to what voters want and, in some cases, what the constitution requires.

On the SideBar podcast, Mitchel Winick, dean of Monterey College of Law, and I have dedicated several episodes to highlight the importance of state legislatures and the power they wield. We started the podcast to educate people about basic constitutional rights and to bring attention to the varied ways in which they are influenced and undermined. With the media laser focused on Congress during the midterm elections, we decided to turn our attention to the states.

In our first episode, It’s the Statehouses, Stupid!, David Pepper, author of “Laboratories of Autocracy,” spoke about the dangers of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing electoral district lines to benefit a particular political party or disenfranchise a group of voters. On the state level, gerrymandering has led to significant partisan bias in maps and allowed one political party to capture supermajorities in the state legislature. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, for example, in 2018, Democrats in Wisconsin won every statewide office and a majority of the statewide vote, but thanks to gerrymandering, won only 36 of the 99 seats in the state assembly. Once a party has captured a supermajority, there is little to no accountability, and legislators are able to impose an agenda that often runs counter to the majority of voters.

Our second guest, Rutgers Law School professor David Noll, J.D., provided examples of the dangers of supermajorities to pass legislation that undermines fundamental rights. In “Vigilante Federalism,” Noll discussed how states are deputizing private citizens to surveil and police the most intimate aspects of other people’s lives. These laws create a private right of action that allows individuals to file a civil lawsuit against the groups that the laws target. Texas’ SB8, for example, authorizes any person to file a lawsuit against an abortion provider or a person who aids another in obtaining an abortion. Some states have passed bills allowing librarians to be held civilly liable for allowing certain books to remain on the shelves or for parents to sue school districts for what is taught in the classroom. These laws have an immediate and chilling effect on conduct. Although Texas passed SB8 when abortion was still a constitutionally protected right, abortions fell 60% in the month after the law was passed.

Book Bans and Religious Freedom

Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, joined SideBar to discuss the growing number of states that have passed laws banning books. In the episode “Book Bans and Democracy: Can They Coexist?,” we explored what was driving the rapid expansion of book bans across the country. PEN America maintains an index of state bills and found that more than 30 states have passed one or more laws prohibiting access to books in public schools and libraries. The Missouri House of Representatives proposed eliminating funding for all of its public libraries rather than allow certain books to remain on the shelves. These laws have passed even though the First Amendment places limits on a state’s authority to limit access to books.

Similarly, states have imposed educational gag orders on teachers and professors. The majority of these bills target discussions of race, racism, gender, and American history, banning a series of “prohibited” or “divisive” concepts for teachers in K-12 schools, public universities, and workplace settings. For example, Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill prohibits the discussion of LGBTQ+ issues in K-12 classrooms. A Texas bill requires educators to only teach the “positive side” of American history, which would seemingly preclude teaching about slavery, Jim Crow, or Japanese internment.

The book bans and educational gag orders are closely tied to the political power of Christian evangelicals and the Supreme Court’s evolving freedom of religion jurisprudence. In the SideBar episode “Is Conservative Christian Now a Protected Class?,” USC Gould School of Law professor Nomi Stolzenberg provided a historical overview of how the Supreme Court has taken us from no prayer in school to prayer on the high school football field and the Ten Commandments in every public classroom.   

In the episode “Who’s Writing All These Crazy State Laws?,” University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Joel Rogers described how we reached this point. He chronicles the origins of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an organization that recognized the power of state legislatures and set out to influence them. The council, largely funded by business interests and conservative organizations, writes and distributes draft bills to state legislators to push through at the local level. Newt Gingrich describes ALEC as “the most effective organization” for conservative interests.

The ALEC is not the only national organization fueling state laws. Moms for Liberty, an organization that advocates for book bans and educational organizations under the guise of “parents’ rights,” also receives significant funding from conservative organizations. Although it claims to be a grassroots organization fueled by small donors and T-shirt sales, investigative reporting suggests the opposite is true.

Reclaiming Democracy

In the second part of our conversation with David Pepper, he walked us through steps we can take to counter these efforts. In “Reclaiming Democracy,” he urged everyone to get involved at the local level: show up at city council and school board meetings; support local, independent journalism; volunteer for a candidate you support; donate money; and participate in all elections—not just those focused on federal office.

We have seen the power of voter engagement. Kansas and Kentucky voters successfully rejected state constitutional amendments that would have banned abortion. Wisconsin voters elected Judge Janet Protasiewicz, who ran an unapologetic pro-choice campaign, to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Residents of Llano County, Texas, pushed back on the local commission’s decision to close its public libraries after a federal judge ordered it to return banned books to the shelves. More than 100 residents of Central Texas showed up at a commission meeting to voice their frustration with an attempt by local officials to lock library doors.

State legislators are also taking a stand against extreme views and undemocratic processes. Machaela Cavanaugh, a Nebraska state senator, filibustered every bill that became before the legislature to prevent anti-trans legislation from reaching the floor. The “Tennessee Three” brought attention to the Tennessee legislatures’ unwillingness to even debate gun control measures.

In today’s social media world, a single voice can make a difference. A 100-year-old widow of a World War II veteran went viral when she spoke out against Florida’s book bans.

These are just a few examples. Every day, there are individuals working tirelessly to stem the undermining of our democracy. It is up to all of us to hold state and local policymakers accountable, and we can’t do it sitting on the sidelines.

Jackie Gardina, J.D., dean and chief academic officer at The Colleges of Law, writes about reimagining a law school education in a changing market for legal services.

Over the last decade, the legal services market has gone through significant transformation driven primarily by technology. Yet legal education has failed to adjust. Law schools continue to prepare graduates for careers in a market where the traditional practice of law is shrinking, the business of delivering legal services is expanding, and states—hungry to address access to justice gaps—are considering allowing professionals other than lawyers to provide legal services. Legal education, like many sectors in higher education, is facing an existential crisis: how to remain relevant in a rapidly evolving ecosystem.  

Since 2007, the legal services market has steadily declined, shrinking by more than 10%. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal sector lost 60,000 jobs during the recession, and as of 2017 it had recovered only 10,000. To adjust to the new labor market realities, law graduates are turning to emerging job opportunities in business and compliance where a J.D. is an advantage but not a requirement. In addition, an increasing number of lawyers are working in the gig economy using platforms such as Lawyer Exchange or AdviseHub to find short-term projects. 

While the traditional legal services market is shrinking, the business of delivering legal services is expanding. Rapid advances to technology, including artificial intelligence, allows many routine legal tasks to be automated. The “other legal services” market, primarily dominated by technology companies, completes tasks that use to consume the billable hours of new attorneys, including document retrieval, e-discovery, full-service patent and literature search, and the filing of court documents. This new market will continue to chip away at every part of the practice of law that is not the pure provision of legal advice.  

Technology is also affecting how consumers seek legal advice. Law is moving from a pervasive one-to-one consultative legal service to one where technology enables one-to-many legal solutions. Platforms like Rocket Lawyer and Legal Zoom allow consumers to find lawyers and legal solutions at a significantly lower cost. Other technology companies have created solutions for consumers who don’t know if they need an attorney, such as Legal Risk Detector, or who can’t afford an attorney, such as Law Help Interactive. These tools are advancing the democratization of legal knowledge, allowing consumers direct access. 

Despite these advances, there is still a significant access to justice gap in the U.S. In a 2017 study, the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) found that 86% of low-income Americans with a civil legal problem received no or inadequate legal help. The National Center for State Courts echoed this finding when it reported that 76% of civil cases in the state courts had at least one self-represented party. These statistics expose a fundamental failure of our legal system. Access to justice is one its defining features. In Marbury v. Madison, the U.S. Supreme Court case that laid the foundation of the federal judiciary’s power, Chief Justice John Marshall said, “The essence of civil liberty certainly consists of the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws.”  

Law schools have indirectly contributed to this growing gap. For decades, law school tuition has outpaced inflation. After adjusting for inflation, public law school is five times as expensive in 2019 as it was in 1985. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, law students graduate with an average debt of $145,500 and an average monthly loan payment of $1,656. Entry level attorneys who work for public service organizations that seek to help underserved communities have a median salary of $50,800. The low salary creates a nearly insurmountable debt-to-income ratio, making it difficult if not impossible for new graduates to help the underserved. 

States seeking solutions to the access to the justice gap are starting to explore alternatives to the traditional legal services model. Technology and market forces are undermining the premise that lawyers, and lawyers alone, can provide suitable legal services. Current laws and regulatory rules, however, hobble the innovation of lower costs meant to provide legal help to underserved communities. While laws criminalizing the “unlicensed practice of law” and ethical rules that bar attorneys from working easily across disciplines are intended to protect the public, they also hinder creative solutions to the current crisis.  

Washington was the first state to look to alternative legal service providers. It created a limited license legal technician, also known as a legal technician or an LLLT. An LLLT is licensed by the Washington Supreme Court to advise and assist people going through divorce, child custody disputes, and other family law matters in Washington. The LLLTs provide many of the same services as an attorney, consulting with and advising clients, completing and filing necessary court documents, and advising and participating in mediation, arbitration, and settlement conferences. They also help with court scheduling and support clients in navigating the legal system. While LLLTs must complete a defined educational program, it is significantly shorter and less expensive than a traditional J.D. 

Utah, New Mexico, Oregon, and California are also exploring changes to the legal and regulatory framework that governs the practice of law, opening the door to other professionals to provide legal services. The Utah Working Group on Regulatory Reform asked and answered the question, “Should room be made for people other than lawyers and organizations other than law firms to provide certain legal services?” with an unequivocal “yes.” The California State Bar created the Task Force on Access Through Innovation of Legal Services specifically to explore how the public interest could be better served by regulatory approaches that encourage innovation in the one-to-many legal solutions created by professionals from multiple disciplines. 

In this environment, law schools have an exciting opportunity to reimagine legal education, a task that hasn’t been done in 150 years. In 1870, Christopher Langdell, the dean of Harvard Law School, introduced the case method of instruction and a first-year curriculum of contracts, property, torts, criminal law, and civil procedure. At the time, no other law school in the country used that method or taught that foundational curriculum. Now it is standard in every American law school. While law schools have nibbled around the edges of innovation, introducing clinics, externships, and skills-based courses and creating upper-level electives in emerging fields of law, the core curriculum remains unchanged. Law schools continue to teach a 20^th century curriculum to students entering a 21^st century legal services market. 

Legal education reform takes equal parts courage, imagination, and deliberation. It requires legal educators to eschew precedent, an almost heretical statement in the law. It requires them to take risks, an action counter to their training. It requires them to rethink a business model that creates significant student debt with long-term consequences for their graduates. But by embracing this opportunity, law schools can help shape the future of the legal profession and legal services in the U.S. rather than simply reacting to the changes imposed. They can lead, rather than follow. 

To learn more about the Juris Doctor, the Hybrid Juris Doctor, or Master of Arts in Law program at The Colleges of Law, fill out the form below.

In the latest post in the Legal Currents and Futures series, Jeanne Eicks, J.D., discusses some proper uses of AI in the legal industry.

In the last two blogs, I discussed ChatGPT and its strengths and weaknesses as a tool for legal professionals. As discussed, these large language model AIs can demonstrate bias and a general lack of knowledge, and sometimes they fabricate an answer. How can the human using ChatGPT avoid these pitfalls or at least minimize them? The answer may be found in how the prompt interacts with the AI. In most cases, rephrasing or enhancing the prompt will return a more valuable response.

AI’s effectiveness relies heavily on the quality of writing prompts its users provide. Crafting well-written prompts can significantly improve the performance of AI-powered language models and maximize their potential in legal practice. Precise prompts with specific instructions and context generally provide the best answers. The utility of AI in the legal realm, especially when using advanced language models such as GPT-4, is directly proportional to the clarity and specificity of the prompts provided. Vague or ambiguous prompts yield imprecise or irrelevant responses, potentially causing confusion or poor outcomes for clients. Conversely, well-constructed prompts enable AI to produce the best information possible.

Suggestions for Effective Prompts

Leverage your legal expertise and experience to create a legally relevant and contextually appropriate prompt that guides the AI to provide valuable responses. Context, explicit instructions about the desired outcome, and clear and concise language within the prompt will generate the best AI responses. And if those techniques do not produce the desired result, rework the prompt, doubling down on context and specificity. Try to understand what went wrong, then rewrite the prompt to generate a better outcome. Remember to address potential bias in the AI’s response by directly stating the bias risks in the prompt. Most AI have guardrails designed to prevent biased answers, so offering the AI a lesson about bias in the prompt’s context should prevent the response from showing that bias. Finally, revise your prompt until your answer is satisfactory, or it becomes clear that the AI lacks the information necessary to respond helpfully.

Here are some examples of good prompts:

• Write a brief analysis of the potential legal issues in a product liability case involving a defective consumer product. This prompt is specific and clear, and it provides enough context for the AI to generate a relevant response.
• Write a brief analysis of the potential legal issues in a California product liability case involving a defective kitchen appliance, focusing on strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty claims under the California Civil Code. This prompt is even more specific than the first, and it provides even more context for the AI to generate a relevant response.
• Summarize the key points of the GDPR, focusing on the implications for data controllers and processors. This prompt is clear and concise, and it provides enough information for the AI to generate a relevant response; however, more context and specificity would enhance the prompt.  Summarize the key points of the GDPR, emphasizing the obligations and responsibilities of data controllers and processors under Articles 24, 25, and 32, and the potential consequences of non-compliance.
• Provide an agreement between a graphic designer and a small business for the creation of a logo. This prompt provides enough context for the AI to generate a relevant response, but the following prompt would improve the response by adding the jurisdiction and some specific terms of the agreement. Provide an agreement between a graphic designer and a small business for the creation of a logo. The agreement should include an appendix that describes the scope of work and delivery timeline. When the final designs are delivered, the payment of $5,000 is due in full. This is a work-for-hire agreement. The agreement will be governed by the laws of California. 

A legal professional’s knowledge and expertise are required to craft prompts that will generate valuable results. Contextualized, explicit, prompts that minimize ambiguity and address potential biases stand a better chance to generate accurate and valuable content. Legal professionals that master the art of prompt writing will be able to leverage the value of AI as a tool to enhance legal productivity and efficiency.

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Jackie Gardina, J.D., dean and chief academic officer at The Colleges of Law, discusses how higher education can adapt to support student success.

There is no doubt higher education needs to reimagine how it approaches teaching and learning. What is less recognized or accepted is that it also needs to reimagine the organizational structure needed to support student success. Over the last two decades, there have been urgent calls for higher education to redesign the content and delivery of its curriculum to respond to the needs of students and the 21^st century economy. While much of the discussion has centered around the transformative potential of technology, Clay Shirky diagnosed the issues in higher education differently, saying, “The biggest threat those of us working in colleges and universities face isn’t video lectures or online tests. It’s the fact that we live in institutions perfectly adapted to an environment that no longer exists” (Shirky, 2014). Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council of Education, echoed Shirky’s diagnosis when he wrote “[a] defining challenge for colleges and universities today is the fundamental mismatch in higher education between the historical structures of our institutions and today’s students” (Soarse and Choitz, 2019, p. vii).

What Shirky and Mitchell both identified is, in part, a mismatch between an undergraduate curriculum designed to meet the needs of an industrial economy and the curriculum necessary to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving knowledge economy (Selingo, 2013). The knowledge economy is less reliant on the production process and more reliant on intellectual capital (Powell and Snellman, 2004). It requires individuals to adapt to a work environment that evolves with the introduction of new technology and new information (Closing America’s Skills Gap, 2014). In addition to core foundational knowledge, employers need individuals who can think critically, solve complex problems, analyze data, work within teams, and communicate effectively (Closing America’s Skills Gap, 2014).

Unfortunately, business leaders report that postsecondary graduates lack the requisite skills. In one report, a “significant number of college graduates” lacked “the ability to use basic math, communicate effectively, read technical manuals, work successfully in teams, and engage in complex problem-solving (A Work in Progress, 2017). In 2019, nearly two-thirds of business leaders disagreed with the statement “higher education institutions in this country are graduating students with the skills and competencies that my business needs” (Wilkie, 2019).

The skills gap mismatch is coupled with a mismatch between the curricular design and the current student population. College students are no longer 18 years old, studying full time and finishing a degree within four years. The majority of college students today are older, attempting to balance work, family, and school, and seeking an education linked directly to employment. Given their responsibilities, many of these students are attending school part time (NCES, 2021), extending the time to completion, or interrupting degree completion entirely (Bombardieri, 2017).

The inability of higher education institutions to meet the needs of adult learners has led to alarming statistics. The U.S., once leading developed countries in college graduation rates, is now ranked 11^th among 28 countries (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2021), raising questions about the country’s ability to remain competitive in a global economy (Bok, 2017, Selingo, 2013). There are an estimated 36 million adults who have some college credit but no degree or other credential. The overall dropout rate for undergraduate students is 40% with one-third leaving before their second year. The cost of college and concerns about employment prospects after graduation are cited as prominent issues that cause students to leave. More than half of the students who leave college indicate that they were unable to balance work and school and 40% expressed frustration that “their classes weren’t worth what they’d had to pay for them” (Hanson, 2021). 

There is no shortage of ideas about what higher education needs to do to meet the identified challenges, but there is little sense of how to do it and achieve sustained success. The research regarding innovation in higher education is sparse (Brewer and Tierney, 2011), and the studies that do exist provide little direction on how to successfully implement innovative initiatives. Derek Bok (2017) in “The Struggle To Reform Our Colleges” laments that there is a “pervasive lack of knowledge about how to proceed” and “[w]ithout sufficient knowledge, even money and leadership will not succeed in achieving desired results” (p. 186). Adrianna Kezar (2018) echoed Bok’s theme in “How Colleges Change.” She started the book with a quote from the 2012 movie “Lincoln” questioning the value of a compass that points you north but provides “no advice about the swamp and deserts and chasms you’ll encounter along the way” (p. vii). Individuals in higher education recognize this gap in knowledge, often expressing frustration at the “swamp and deserts and chasms” that interfere with achieving the desired change. In my conversations across the higher education sector, I have heard about the obstacles to curricular innovation, including reticent faculty, institutional culture, accreditors, federal and state regulations, and lack of funding.

I hope my study can start to chart the swamps and deserts and chasms and map a path for higher education institutions to meet the needs of their students and the rapidly evolving knowledge economy. Stay tuned.

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Jeanne Eicks, J.D., associate dean of Graduate and Lifelong Learning Programs at The Colleges of Law, explores the limitations of ChatGPT when applied to the legal industry.

Readers who saw last week’s blog may recall the impressive list of ways the large language model AIs, such as ChatGPT, can support the work of legal professionals. In short, ChatGPT can draft legal documents, complete legal research, draft client communications, attribute sentiment to text, and predict legal outcomes. The latest version, GPT-4, claims the distinction of scoring better than 90% of humans on the Uniform Bar Examination. While ChatGPT primarily benefits legal professionals, it has shortcomings. For the unaware, ChatGPT’s flaws could erode confidence in the legal professional or lead to the commission of malpractice.

What are ChatGPT version four’s flaws and limitations? When asked that question, ChatGPT version four responds that it 1) lacks legal expertise; 2) has limited access to legal resources; 3) may demonstrate bias; 4) has no empathy; and 5) can be incorrect. ChatGPT also seems aware that it cannot represent legal clients. I’d add that ChatGPT has spotty knowledge of facts that happened after 2021, and it can hallucinate. Let’s consider these concerns with ChatGPT one at a time and how they may impact a lawyer’s use of the tool.

ChatGPT’s limited access to law (public domain law can be far too difficult to access for AI and the public) paired with its limited knowledge of occurrences after 2021 curtails the tool’s utility. Imagine an attorney attempting to address a woman’s access to abortion, which has been legally blocked in her state since the Dobbs decision. If an attorney seeks information from ChatGPT on women’s access to abortion following the Dobbs decision, ChatGPT would lack the necessary legal precedent to provide accurate guidance. When ChatGPT lacks the necessary information, it will result in fundamentally flawed legal research, analysis, and arguments. 

Compounding these limitations, ChatGPT may fabricate answers when it doesn’t know the correct response. ChatGPT presents these answers to its users without indicating that it had to guess. Computer scientists refer to this somewhat rare phenomenon as a hallucination. In a hallucination, the AI has tricked itself and cannot separate its created fact from reality. In short, it cannot assess the truth of its statement. ChatGPT hallucinations can cause significant doubt and have far-reaching consequences if a legal professional relies on these assertions.

Along with false assertions, ChatGPT may produce biased responses. ChatGPT has guardrails that will prevent it from supplying such a response when asked a question that directly attempts to assess bias. As noted in a paper by Timnit Gebru, the former co-lead of Google’s ethical AI team, large language model AI’s bias is more insidious. Large language models, like ChatGPT, use training data that contains decades, if not centuries, of discriminatory practices. Overwhelmingly this data presents a view of the world that embeds bias in its corpus of knowledge. Responses that arise from these inherently flawed training datasets will include bias. This biased perspective may impact legal professionals by providing results that reinforce biases in the legal system rather than encouraging legal professionals to question the foundations of laws that disparately affect minorities or underrepresented groups. In short, ChatGPT’s answers cannot help but reinforce the status quo and risk leading unaware reliant legal professionals down a similar path.

Finally, ChatGPT states that it lacks legal expertise and empathy. Legal professionals understand the complexities and nuances inherent in legal subject matter. Practicing attorneys combine that knowledge with experiential insight into a jurisdiction and specific courts to offer strategic advice. ChatGPT cannot provide legal judgments informed by human needs, an empathic understanding of local courts and judges, or other environmental and experiential factors that influence the best course of action.

ChatGPT has some critical limitations. Despite these limitations, legal professionals can still benefit from using ChatGPT. Staying informed about its constraints ensures responsible use of the tool. While ChatGPT can increase efficiency, it cannot replace sound judgment and empathic, human-centric advice. To truly supplant legal professionals, ChatGPT has significant hurdles to overcome.

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