Overview
The legal profession is one of the least diverse professions in the United States. The demographics of the profession are a direct reflection of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in legal education access and bar exam outcomes.
The Professionals in Legal Education Developing Greater Equity (PLEDGE) fellowship is an 18-month professional development program and intervention-based research project, launched in June 2022 as a partnership between AccessLex Institute and the Southern Education Foundation. The fellowship targets experienced law school administrators, faculty members, or other similarly situated and experienced professionals.
Teams of two fellows will undertake intervention-based research projects, called Capstones, focusing on one of the following three strands:
- Admission and Access: must center on testing methods and strategies for fostering the successful law school enrollment of people from underrepresented racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds by measuring the impact of a related program or intervention
- Academic Performance: must center on testing methods and strategies for fostering the law school academic success of students from underrepresented racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds by measuring the impact of a related program or intervention
- Bar Exam Performance: must center on testing methods and strategies for fostering bar exam passage among students from underrepresented racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds by measuring the impact of a related program or intervention
The 18-month fellowship is divided into six 3-month stages. Across the stages will be twelve fellowship meetings: five 2-day in-person meetings and seven 90-minute virtual meetings. Meetings will take place roughly every 6 weeks, amounting to two meetings per stage.
Fellowship teams will receive the following funding and support premised on enhancing the feasibility and quality of their work:
- Capstone budget: up to $25,000 for research activities
- Stipend: $5,000 per Fellow
- Access to Capstone design expertise
- Access to DEI professional development coaching
By the end of the fellowship, each fellow will be knowledgeable of:
- Statistical trends pertaining to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity among law school applicants, law students, and the legal profession
- Concepts and issues relevant to the fostering of diversity, equity, and inclusion in organizations
- Foundational concepts of program evaluation and assessment
Please feel free to send questions about the fellowship to PLEDGE@accesslex.org.