Jennifer Rosato Perea
Managing Director
Dear Section Members:
Throughout my career in legal education (over 30 years!) I have pursued work with purpose and passion. Those passions include improving law schools, legal education, and the legal profession. I have spent much of my career furthering these passions at individual law schools as a professor, dean of students, and a dean at three different law schools.
My new role as Managing Director of the Section furthers all of those passions on a broader scale. In legal education and the legal profession, we face complex issues – old, new and evolving – that will require us to work together collaboratively and creatively. These issues include academic freedom; diversity, equity and inclusion; AI; online education; and preparation for admission to the bar and legal practice. I look forward to working with all of the law school stakeholders, affiliated organizations, the courts, and bar associations on all of these issues (and more) in the coming years.
As I begin my work at the Section, I am guided by its Mission:
“To be a creative national force in providing leadership and services to those responsible for and those who benefit from a sound program of legal education and bar admissions; and provide a fair, effective, and efficient accrediting system for American law schools that promotes quality legal education.”
Consistent with this mission, the Section serves a number of important roles as a leader in legal education, including as an:
- Accreditor
- Educator
- Collaborator
As an accreditor, we are addressing some of the most important issues facing legal education and the legal profession today by imposing minimum requirements on law schools through the Standards. For example, Standard 206 (previously titled “Diversity and Inclusion”) has gone out for Notice and Comment: the revisions comply with existing law while ensuring access to legal education and the legal profession as well as enhancing a supportive learning environment for students. Standard 405 (previously titled “Professional Environment”) also has gone out for Notice and Comment: these revisions provide for security of position for faculty members to ensure academic freedom and attract and retain a competent faculty. Revisions to Standards related to Learning Outcomes will come before the ABA House of Delegates in February 2025: those revisions, recently approved by the Council, will enhance programmatic learning outcomes, require regular reviews of those outcomes, and impose course-level learning outcomes related to knowledge, skills, or competencies that students need to demonstrate. The new standard on Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression, Standard 208, requires law schools to have written policies addressing these issues in place by the end of academic year 2024-2025.
And this coming year, the Standards Committee is considering whether revisions to Standards may be needed to make graduates more prepared to practice, or revisions to Standards should be revised to permit a fully online law school seek ABA-approval. Affiliate organizations have and will share their views on fully online law schools during the August and November Council 2024 meetings.
As an essential part of the accreditation project, we collect data for a variety of purposes, especially to determine law schools’ adherence to the Standards and to provide consumer information. To serve these purposes, we administer the Annual Questionnaire (AQ), the Bar Admissions Questionnaire (BAQ), the Employment Questionnaire (EQ), and the Site Evaluation Questionnaire (SEQ) for schools undergoing site visits. The Council’s Data Policy Committee approves these questionnaires annually and sets the agenda for the year.
Highlights for this upcoming year include an assessment of the AQ to align it as closely as possible to the Standards and need for consumer information. This year the AQ contains a question to help ascertain the first-generation status of law students. We are also holding a roundtable in early October to discuss whether the 509s should include publication of the median LSAT and/or median UGPA. We have advisory groups (with law school representatives) for the AQ and EQ who provide valuable thought leadership. For the second year, we are having the law schools distribute a survey to all 1L students that will provide additional information about race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+ status, and disability. More generally, we are considering ways to improve our data collection and analysis as well as to reduce redundancies in the data collected on law students and graduates.
As an educator, our Section’s committees provide resources to our members. For example, our Adjunct Faculty Committee put out a survey this year on adjunct faculty practices, which was shared with the law schools; and the Outcomes and Assessments Committee will provide helpful information to Section members and law schools after the Learning Outcomes revisions are final (they will be implemented no earlier than the 2026-2027 academic year). Workshops are also another way that we provide resources to law schools; New Deans, Deans, and Development workshops this year have and will provide a wealth of information to law school leaders, as well as an opportunity to share ideas and build community. The Council’s AI Working Group will be considering how best to serve as a convenor and leader on AI in law schools and the legal profession, complementing other efforts such as the ABA Task Force on Law and Artificial Intelligence.
As a collaborator, the Section works with affiliated organizations, law schools, judges, and bar associations to improve the quality of legal education and transparency – each of us has a special role to play in ensuring that lawyers are effective, ethical, and responsible. This year I am reaching out to many of these constituencies as part of my “listen and learn” tour, including affiliated organizations, bar associations, and other stakeholders. And we are continuing to participate in the proceedings of the Committee on Legal Education and Admission Reform (CLEAR) as it examines the critical issues of access to justice, bar admissions, and preparation for practice.
Overall, I hope to continue to make the work of the Section and Council more efficient, more transparent, and more of a resource to law schools and other constituencies as a leader in legal education. The challenges in legal education require us all to do our part consistent with our mission and values, and to work together in a spirit of collaboration and good faith. Please reach out with any questions or concerns, or just to introduce yourself! I look forward to doing the Section’s work with purpose, passion, and joy.