Committed to Diversity
Printer Friendly VersionAt a time when legal education is moving further out of reach for those with big career ambitions but small financial means, the NYU School of Law has expanded or created outreach and support programs.
Launched through a partnership of the Law School, Harvard Law School, and the Advantage Testing Foundation, the Training and Recruitment Initiative for Admission to Leading Law Schools (TRIALS) is a five-week summer residential program for socioeconomically disadvantaged students that offers rigorous preparation for the LSAT, lectures by legal luminaries, and opportunities to meet with and observe lawyers in the field. Harvard hosted the inaugural year of TRIALS this past summer, and NYU Law will host the program in 2010. “This is part of a comprehensive diversity effort,” said Dean Richard Revesz. “In a difficult economic environment, we are not scaling back our programs but are expanding our commitment through a targeted approach that does the most with each dollar.”
As part of this effort, the Law School has also joined forces with Legal Outreach, a college prep organization that uses the law as a tool to inspire and prepare urban youth to succeed in high school, college, and beyond. Legal Outreach’s four-year program begins the summer before a student’s ninth-grade year with an intensive criminal justice course, which was held at NYU this summer; almost every day an alumnus engaged students in discussions on compelling legal issues.
The Law School has also expanded its AnBryce Scholarship Program, founded in 1998 by Anthony Welters ’77, chairman of the NYU School of Law board of trustees, and his wife, Beatrice, to provide full scholarships and other support to outstanding students who are the first in their families to pursue a graduate degree. The program, which began with one student per year, is now fully funded and has 30 students—10 per class—annually. “When I was in school, I never considered the need to work a hardship,” Welters recently told Diverse Issues in Higher Education magazine. “But there were lots of opportunities I missed in law school because of the need to work. My wife and I facilitated these scholarships so that others could take advantage of the full school experience.”
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