Diversity plays an important role in the legal educational process. Law schools actively recruit a diverse range of students including minorities, foreign students, and students of various socio-ecomic backgrounds. Law schools value diversity as a diverse environment can challenge students to think critically about their own beliefs, to question and challenge them. Diversity enhances students’ ability to see problems from different perspectives. It teaches students how to represent clients who are different from them; and prepares students to succeed in the increasingly diverse world in which they will practice.
Many law schools have instituted programs and initiatives to attrach a more diverse pool of applicants and to support minority groups through mentorship programs and a strong social networks. Most law schools also have active student organizations representing the diversity found on campus.
The following bar associations and organizations are some of the many organizations that provide support and resources to a diverse student body:
- American Bar Association
- American Indian College Fund
- American Indian Law Center, Inc.
- Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
- Council on Legal Education Opportunity
- Hispanic National Bar Association
- Law School Admission Council
- Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
- Minority Corporate Counsel Association
- NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
- National Association of Women Judges
- The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA)
- The National Bar Association (NBA)
- The National Native American Bar Association (NNABA)
- North American South Asian Bar Association
- Practicing Attorneys for Law Students
- The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF)
- Sidley Prelaw Scholars Initiative
