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The 4-hour gatekeeper: A law school exam

-- By TobinKassa - 18 Feb 2023

I am privileged to be a first-generation Black immigrant and the first in my family to pursue a career in law and public service. Few students like me, who are of underrepresented backgrounds, have made their way to law school. Even fewer have had the opportunity to attend an ivy league institution and champion legal advocacy. Yet, the institutional barriers continue to persist beyond admissions.

Law school exams, especially those for black law letter classes, actively work as tools of impediment for underrepresented groups’ access to the legal profession. As a general matter, the fact that law school grades are usually based on one exam increases the chance that random factors can impact a student’s performance. Students can be sick on the day of the exam or might be unusually anxious. Others could be facing life crises and emergencies around the time of the exam that can impede their performance. But the arbitrariness of these exams particularly works against the success of underrepresented minorities. Law school exams are more accurately a reflection of a random factors, language barriers, and typing abilities.

Randomness enhanced

Communities of color, individuals of low-income households, and first-generation students are likely to experience random factors at a higher rate. Often times, these students face a host of issues that their privileged peers can ignore or can compartmentalize. A low-income student may not have the luxury of a quiet office space because they live with their family or multiple roommates who may not appreciate the gravity of law school exams. Likewise, a first-generation student may not be adequately prepared because they did not have access to resources such as tutors or outlines, that would have equipped them as well as their privileged peers. Communities of colors are additionally known to be collectivistic – familial obligations always take precedence. If there is an issue with the family, particularly related to finances, there is a high probability that it is the law student who will be called to solve the problem. If these issues are arising around exam time, this added stress or weight of responsibility, is only going to adversely impact the student’s performance on the exam.

Language barrier

Research suggests that language literacy has a significant influence on students’ success in course assessments. The way students interpret and respond to elements of an exam or fact patterns are mediated by linguistic and cultural factors, such as home language and prior educational experiences in their home country. This gap in understanding forces non-native English speakers to separate themselves from familiar ways of thinking, shift their mental framework, and reorient themselves – all during the time of the exam, taking away precious time from actually responding to the questions. Writing a coherent sentence does not always come as effortlessly as it does for native English speakers. It requires a lot of brain power; it involves recalling words or common phrases, rewording sentences, wordsmithing, and restructuring long-winded arguments. As a non-native English speaker, I can attest it generally feels like battling yourself trying to articulate things you know you fully understand but simply cannot naturally translate into words on a paper, especially not under a 4-hour time constraint.

English is my third language. I did not learn English in school until I was in the sixth grade. Although I always recognized this language barrier, it was not until I was applying to law schools that I noticed how it could impede my access to the legal profession. My first LSAT score was at the 73rd percentile – a score that most top ranked schools would not accept. This score, which was based on a 4-hour exam, did not reflect my performance in undergrad or my capabilities as a prospective law student. I graduated from college with distinction recognition and subsequently worked at a law firm on par with staff attorneys helping litigate high-stakes federal class actions. I am fortunate enough to have been seen beyond arbitrary numbers and accepted into a prestigious institution. However, the same way my LSAT score initially prohibited me from attending quality institutions, law school exams can serve as barriers to non-native English speakers from accessing law firms and organizations that require high exam performances.

Typing test

At its core, the 4-hour law exam is a typing test. Students are asked to spend 18 weeks silently absorbing materials and, at the end of it, asked to regurgitate all they have learned in a 4-hour setting. And because only a limited number of students can get high ranks, they are told the more you can argue in the alternative, the more points you can collect. Accuracy is important, but generally your chances are higher if you throw as much at the wall to see what sticks.

This puts underrepresented students at a huge disadvantage. First, as aforementioned, if there is a language barrier, the non-native English speaker’s time on the exam is even more limited. Second, white students more likely to have access to typing lessons. Predominately white primary and secondary institutions have typing lessons as part of their curriculums. This is not the case for most historically minority schools and international institutions. Many students who attend the latter institutions moreover come from low socio-economic backgrounds and therefore are not able to afford private typing classes. Without access to typing lessons at a young age, racial minority students are already at a disadvantage compared to their white peers who can type at 70-80 words per minute. This is critically exacerbated by time-constraints. Students of racial minority backgrounds often note that they either did not finish the exam or were nowhere near the word limit. By of an example, the model answer for my Constitutional Law exam was 7-pages long. If a student cannot type at 70-80 words per minute, all factors held constant, they would not even be in the same category as the model answer. Allow for random factors and language barriers to be considered, the student would be lucky to get an average grade.

Your points may be correct, as logic certainly suggests. Decades of experience lead me to somewhat different conclusions, which have if nothing else the observation of several thousand students to go on. We can discuss if you would find it useful what I've learned over the years. I would expect that conversation to determine how to revise this draft.

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