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50 Hum. Rts. 16 (2024-2025)
Educating Pioneers: The Plight and Promise of Today's First-Gen Law Students

handle is hein.journals/huri50 and id is 134 raw text is: Educating Pioneers: The Plight and Promise of Today's First-Gen Law Students By Anthony E. Varona lthough efforts to diversify the legal profession across racial and ethnic axes have been stub- bornly slow in producing results, the Law School Admission Council reports that law schools recently admitted the largest cohort of first-generation students in history -24.2 percent of the nationwide entering class. First-generation (first-gen) students are defined as those without at least one parent who graduated from a four-year college. Many of these students are multiply minoritized not only as first-gen but also as students of color, LGBTQ+, immigrants, veterans, and other minorities within minorities. The Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) reports that students of color from every racial group are more likely than White students to be first-gen. Fifty-three percent of Hispanic/ Latinx students and 40 percent of Native law students who completed LSSSE's survey were first-gen, compared to 21 percent of white respondents. These new first-gen students enrich our classrooms with important perspec- tives and experiences. Seattle University School of Law Professor Jeffrey Minneti says: They tend to think outside the box because they have not come from the box. They offer fresh, new ways of approaching problems and set an example for other students. Today's first-gen law students also come to us with an unprecedented array of challenges that require the attention of legal educators and practitioners alike. PSYCHOSOCIAL First-gen students are celebrated for their resilience and tenacity. Many overcame significant obstacles-including severe poverty, immigration challenges, and dif- ficult childhoods. Their tenacity, courage, and adaptability will serve them well as attorneys. But the harshness of some of their backgrounds makes it unsurprising that many first-gen students come to us with a high prevalence of stress-related disorders and mental illnesses. First-gen students tend to engage in more outside work while enrolled in law school. They usually must balance more demands on their time, with fewer hours to devote to their studies, not to mention exercise and rest. These students assume much more debt in order to finance their studies and are much more susceptible to financial distress. Some first-gen students must financially support and physically care for family members. Often the pride of their parents as embodiments of the American dream, first-gen students are loathe to share academic struggles with their parents-who may be ill-equipped to help anyway. Many, then, are left without a safe space to turn for refuge. They face alienation and margin- alization at school and a lack of support at home. First-gen law students can suffer from social obstacles as well, including feelings of isolation and marginalization. These emotions magnify the imposter syndrome that often befalls first-gen and minoritized students. Many first-gen students also en- counter bias, not only because of their first- gen status but also due to their interlocking minoritized statuses. We are fortunate to live in a nation where upward class mobility-especially in the form of elevation through education- is possible. But the upward trajectory of first-gen students is often so turbulent that a disorienting vertigo weighs them down as they continue to climb. INFORMATIONAL First-gen attorneys often reflect on how, while in law school, we did not know cer- tain things that had long been inculcated into our non-first-gen peers, who entered law school with the wherewithal and situ- ational awareness passed down to them by college- or law school-educated relatives. Growing up with college-educated parents can come with countless aca- demic advantages-from home libraries to broadening recreational travel, from summer camps to paid tutors. First-gen students may have been deprived of rich dinner table conversations that prepare young minds for academic excellence. Seattle University Law alumna Jenny Goak characterizes another first-gen disadvan- tage as observational: Many of us did not have the opportunity to learn corpo- rate or professional etiquette by observa- tion of our parents as we grew up. College-educated households tend to have a higher prevalence of family mem- bers who are attorneys, able to advise law students about the importance of early and effective 1L course outlining, the value of law review and clerkships, and profession- al networking. First-gen students ordinari- ly do not have these built-in mentors. In a twist on the old Spanish refrain El que no tiene padrino no se bautiza (one without a godparent will not get baptized), this lack of mentors can be vexing in an academic and professional environment. Much of the time, first-gen students learn about the importance of certain law school activities or practices too late- well after such knowledge would have been helpful. I did not become fully aware of the value of moot court and law review, for example, until well after I graduated. Although I was a working-class, immi- grant, first-gen student who had to work through much of law school (sometimes with two part-time jobs at once), I likely would have made different choices if I had key information at the time. This information gap continues to be prob- lematic for many first-gen students. PEDAGOGICAL Given their psychosocial and informa- tional challenges, it is no wonder that first-gen law students can take longer to acclimate to the unique demands of law school, especially during the unreason- ably impactful 1L year. LSSSE reports that first-gen students have law school admission test (LSAT) scores on aver- age three points lower than their peers. Although imperfect, lower LSAT scores correlate with academic struggles in law 16 humanrights Published in Human Rights, Volume 50, Number 5, March 2025. © 2025 By the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.