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Building the Future of the Legal Profession | AI and Technology in Legal Education | The Clinic As Classroom | Reimagining the JD | Building the Bar
Opening Doors to the Profession
Access, Pipeline, and Belonging
The legal profession has a long-standing fundamental tension: the law affects everyone, but legal education has historically been accessible to only a slice of society.
The following honorees are working to change that by building programs that reach prospective students before they ever apply, supporting those who might otherwise be overlooked once they arrive, and creating pathways for people who had been told, explicitly or implicitly, that the profession was not for them.
Indiana University Maurer School of Law created the Maurer Vision Program (MVP) to address a problem that begins long before the LSAT: many talented students never consider law school because they cannot envision themselves belonging in the profession. The program is a multi-stage, statewide pipeline initiative beginning as early as fifth grade and extending through law school and legal careers in Indiana.
Its components include Outreach for Legal Literacy, a student-led initiative bringing mock trials and legal career exposure to local grade-school students; Law 101, a six-week hybrid program for Indiana high school seniors; and the MVP Scholars Program, which pairs undergraduates with Maurer law student mentors for individualized advising and LSAT preparation throughout the academic year.
During the 2025-26 cycle, the Scholars Program received approximately 100 applications and enrolled between 20 and 24 scholars. As Dean Christiana Ochoa has noted, many students are not merely seeking advising, they are seeking connection. To see and hear from people who shared their experiences and succeeded.
Fordham University School of Law’s Empowering Every Mind program addresses a different but equally important access challenge: Once neurodiverse students arrive in law school, many find the environment was not built with them in mind.
Launched at the start of the 2024-25 academic year, the program offers individualized academic support, specialized tutoring, assistive technologies, and regular check-ins through coaches and peer mentors, alongside monthly community meetings and specialized support for navigating the complex bar accommodations process.
A 2024 Bloomberg Law survey found that approximately 25% of law students identify as neurodivergent—and Empowering Every Mind is designed to ensure those students have the support they need to flourish. The program has grown to 32 participants, with much of that growth driven by student-to-student referrals.
Purdue Global Law School’s Foundations for Law School Excellence (FLEX) program addresses a challenge unique to online legal education: how to expand access for students with lower admissions predictors without compromising academic rigor or institutional integrity.
FLEX is an eight-week pre-admission program in which applicants complete structured work in core legal skills before being offered admission to the JD program.
The results have been striking: among those who then entered the JD program, second-term persistence rates exceeded those of higher-scoring students who entered without taking FLEX, at 77% versus 67%. Third-term persistence rates for FLEX students reached 89%, compared to 60% for non-FLEX students—even though non-FLEX students had admissions scores averaging seven points higher.
The program has made it possible for more students from socioeconomically underserved communities to enter and succeed in law school without the school lowering its standards.
Saint Louis University School of Law’s (SLU Law) Accessing the Legal Profession (ALP) Mini-Camp reaches prospective students before they begin to apply. The free, fully virtual four-day program demystifies the law school admissions process for first-generation and underrepresented prospective students, covering LSAT preparation, application strategy, personal statement development, and financing a legal education.
Because the program is virtual, participants from across the country can attend live or access recorded sessions on their own schedule.
Now in its fifth year, ALP has attracted more than 250 registrants each summer. Of the 107 individuals who attended at least one live session in the most recent summer, 15 ultimately applied to law school, with two planning to enroll at SLU Law this fall and 39 more indicating plans to apply in the upcoming cycle.
