LEGAL EDUCATION ACCESS PROGRAM (LEAP)

PROGRAM MISSION: The Legal Education access Program (LEAP) was established in 1990 to promote diversity, create a positive, welcoming environment for minority students, and ensure that students from minority racial and ethnic backgrounds have a fair and equal opportunity to achieve a high level of success in law school.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: LEAP consists of a four-week summer program during which entering minority students develop the crucial study and exam skills required for success in law school. All entering minority students are invited to attend this voluntary program, which is conducted in the evening and is offered free-of-charge to participants. The LEAP Summer Program is followed by academic year teaching assistant sessions conducted by highly successful upper-division minority students who serve as mentors to first year students and help them develop their study methods and test-taking ability. LEAP offsets the overt and subtle barriers to success often encountered at predominantly white law schools by fully qualified minority students, the most significant of these barriers being the difficulty a minority student often encounters obtaining necessary information from other students about the academic demands of law school and methods for achieving success in law school.

PROGRAM RESULTS: Partly because of the positive and supportive atmosphere for success created by LEAP, minority students at the Law Center achieve academic success equivalent to the academic success of other students, and excel in their leadership roles at the Law Center. Minority students represent approximately 25% of the student body, and in most years have received more than 25% of the awards given to graduating students at graduation. Three of the last seven Editors-in-Chief of the Touro Law Review were African American students. The founding Editor-in-Chief of the Touro Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity, established last year, was an African American student. During the last six years, three of the six winners of the Law Center’s prestigious Bainbridge Moot Court Competition were African American students. Many other minority students play leadership roles in various student organizations, and this year’s president of the Student Bar Association (effectively, the student body president) is an African American student. In addition, the LEAP Alumni Association now has more than 640 members, each of whom is a minority lawyer who entered the Law Center after LEAP began in 1990.

CONTACT INFORMATION: For additional information about LEAP, please contact LEAP Faculty Director Doug Scherer, at (631) 761-7140 or dougscherer@optonline.net, LEAP Student Co-Director Paula Ladd, at (631) 775-0130 or paladd01@aol.com, or LEAP Student Co-Director Daniel Jimenez, at (631) 880-3322 or daniel_631@hotmail.com.