By Paul Janczewski
Legal News
The second annual Sophomore Pre-Law Summer Institute was a mere five weeks away when Cooley Law School officials learned that a portion of its necessary funding disappeared.
The program, at Cooley's Auburn Hills campus, is a month-long rigorous session for students of color, low-income, or otherwise disadvantaged in some way that presents obstacles for their continuing education. The session also exposes these students to a profession in law and hopefully persuades many into the field to help diversify the next generation of lawyers.
Last year, the inaugural summer institute was sponsored by the American Bar Association's Council of Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO), Cooley, and Oakland University. But while the final touches were being made, Cooley's Associate Dean John Nussbaumer learned that Congress had de-funded CLEO's Thurgood Marshall Scholars Program due to the budget-cutting going on in Washington.
It had been CLEO's main funding source for more than 40 years. And it provided about 35 percent of the money needed to run the Sophomore Summer Institute. And now, it was gone.
"At that point, we were in danger of having to cancel the program," Nussbaumer said. "When I first learned of the congressional cuts in funding, my heart sank, because we had already committed publicly to run the program again this year, and we simply did not have the funds to do so."
Nussbaumer said the entire program costs about $80,000. CLEO funding provided about $10,000 of that. Cooley and Oakland University, through its Provost Virinder Moudgil, are the largest contributors to the summer institute.
"We determined fairly quickly that we might be able to run a scaled-down version of the program with substantially reduced student enrollment, but that would require turning away deserving applicants," Nussbaumer said. "We only had about two or three weeks to make a final decision."
About $30,000 is used for expenses, and students who complete the program receive a $750 stipend. And the students who wanted to attend the program were well into the admission process, having presented essays, obtained recommendations and earned a high enough grade point average from the college or university they were attending.
And $50,000 in-kind funding, consisting of donated time for teaching the courses by faculty and the tireless work of the Cooley staff, and facility rental, was already in place. Plus Test Prep Services, which provides test preparation classes for the LSAT, was also committed. As part of the program, students take the LSAT at the beginning, and again at the end, to measure progress.
So with the clock running, and almost everything in place except for a portion of the funding, officials and students were left in a state of limbo.
But then, something wonderful happened. The legal profession came to the rescue. Law firms and bar associations became aware of the plight, and decided something had to be done to save the Summer Institute and what it stands for as a program. And they answered with enough cash to keep the entire program intact.
"It's a great testament to the commitment of the Michigan legal community to the principles of diversity and inclusion," Nussbaumer said.
In just a few short weeks, $12,000 was raised, surpassing the budget-cut deficit they had faced a month earlier. The law firms that contributed were Miller Canfield, Warner Norcross & Judd, Plunkett Cooney, and Jaffe Raitt. The Young Lawyers, Business Law, Law Practice Management and Health Law section of the State Bar pledged funds. And so did the Michigan Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Oakland County Bar Association, Straker Bar Association, the Hispanic Bar Association also led in contributions to the program. Others giving financial aid included the Arab American Bar Association, the Association of Black Judges of Michigan, the Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association for the Eastern District of Michigan, and the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan's Oakland County chapter.
"They all stepped up to provide financial contributions that saved the program," Nussbaumer said.
He added that money raised also allowed travel reimbursement for some who otherwise would not have been able to attend.
With all the behind-the-scenes work being done, the Summer Institute kicked off June 1 with a luncheon, highlighted by a speech from State Bar President Tony Jenkins. Which was a relief not only to Cooley and Oakland University officials, but also the students involved in the program.
The 20 students involved this year come from seven different states and Canada, and represent 16 undergraduate institutions. Twelve African-Americans, four Caucasians who are either low-income or first-generation college students, and one student each who are Arab-American, Native American, Asian and Fillipino-American round out the class of students. Collectively, they have a 3.40 grade-point average.
Over the next four weeks, they will complete a rigorous and intense program that includes nine hours of LSAT test preparation, 15 hours of legal writing instruction by Professor Tammy Asher, 42 hours of critical reasoning instruction from Professor Heather Dunbar, just over 17 hours of torts from Professor Linda Kisabeth, and 7.5 hours of mock trial instruction from Professor Lew Langham.
In other words, not your usual summer vacation. At least some can earn academic credit at selected universities for their work.
During the luncheon, Nussbaumer welcomed students and thanked the event sponsors and those who donated at a critical time. And also thanked Campus Director Audra Foster and Val Schnable, the Enrollment and Student Services coordinator.
"Sometimes I get credit for things I don't deserve," he said.
Jenkins told the students they will face obstacles and hurdles throughout life, but they should take advantage of people who are "willing to take a chance" on them. He offered three pieces of advice -- work hard at what you do, play by the rules, and take advantage of any and all opportunities.
Later, Jenkins spoke of the benefits of the Summer Institute, and said it would have been "very unfortunate" had it been cancelled because it's "an important tool for students from diverse" backgrounds.
Jennifer Grieco, president of the OCBA, said her organization was happy to contribute to the program, which furthers the association's pledge to diversity.
"We greatly believe that diversity and diverse membership is valued in our profession," she said.
After chatting with a few of the students involved, Grieco predicted they will become "excellent lawyers, and we're happy to help them."
E. Christopher Johnson Jr., who launched Cooley's Corporate Law and Finance program, told the students "this is going to be work."
"But you never want to be satisfied with less than the best," he said. "You have to define yourselves."
He said keeping programs such as this are very important in making the legal profession more diverse.
"The problem is getting diverse students to consider law school, and giving them the skills they need to succeed. This program is designed to do just that."
Two students in the program said they were thankful the legal community stepped up to give them this opportunity.
"There are a lot of good leaders here, and it will be challenging, but I look forward to learning from them," said Kurtis Davenport of Rochester Hills.
Sara Mohamed, an Egyptian-American student at Temple University, spent 18 hours traveling by bus just to be here.
"I think it will open a lot of doors to opportunity," she said.
And meeting new people also could also open other doors in the future. But the future of the program remains unclear.
"We're not sure...beyond this year," Nussbaumer said. "That will depend on whether Congress restores any funding, whether CLEO is able to find alternative funding sources, and whether the organizations and firms that stepped up so unselfishly this year are able and willing to do that again next year."
Published: Tue, Jun 14, 2011
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