Minutes, February 11, 2001
Members Present:
Eileen Crane (BYU), Trey DeLoach (SMU Law), Joel Goodman (Western State Law),
Janet Hein (Dayton Law), P.J. Jorgensen (New England Law), Mariella Mecozzi (U.
of Michigan), Melanie Nutt (Wake Forest Law), Karen Severn (Texas A&M),
Forrest Stanford (Denver Law), Heather Struck (Binghamton U.).
Not able to be
present: Rick Poland (Flagler College) and Susan Meyer (UC-Davis)
The work group
convened to plan the national recruitment calendar for the fall of 2002. The group first reviewed the set of events
on the 2001 calendar and designated the type of event and event planner for
each. A copy of this compilation will
be made available to the Work Group and, when the final calendar is
distributed, to all law schools and prelaw advisors.
Each representative
of a regional APLA reported on its group’s participation in planning events for
2001, and discussed the APLA’s reaction to the decisions made by the Work Group
last April.
Heather Struck
reported that event planners had coordinated all of the upstate New York
events, and that they have decided to regularize the law fair at each school on
a particular weekday. She indicated
that a person or school committed to an event in Philadelphia must be
identified in order to plan it for 2002.
She will contact the prelaw advisor at Penn and the admission
professional at Villanova to solicit ideas as to who might take charge of a
Philadelphia law fair. Heather reported
on the difficulty of coordinating Rhode Island schools, since so many law
schools create their own events at Brown just after the New York forum. Attempts will be made to tie recruiting
fairs at several small Pennsylvania schools to the Penn State date. All of these coordinating activities will
continue next year.
Mariella Maccozzi
requested that we correct the error on the website that places the state of
Missouri erroneously in SAPLA. Since
many of the schools on the MAPLA caravan are large state schools, there is
often difficulty in reserving venues for law fairs which forces a
less-than-ideal travel schedule for law school representatives. Many schools wish to be part of the caravan,
but all cannot be accommodated. They
are planning the same number of events each year, but scheduling is always
difficult. They plan to continue
linking the caravan and the annual MAPLA meeting to the LSAC Chicago
forum.
Karen Severn
reported that the schools included in the SWAPLA caravan are determined by the
fact that only a small number of schools in Texas send a large number of
students to law school. While other,
smaller schools wish to be included, the reality is that law schools will
continue to focus on the larger universities.
All SWAPLA events are open to students from other regional colleges and
universities. This well-established
caravan will continue to be coordinated by Texas A&M.
Eileen Crane
reported that the WAPLA caravan continues to grow. WAPLA identified an underserved student population in Oregon and
helped to plan and conduct a law fair at Portland State last fall. That event will continue to be a part of the
well-established caravan that includes schools in Utah, Colorado and Arizona. Even though Eileen Crane will be president
of PLANC for the next two years, she will continue to coordinate the WAPLA
caravan.
Anne Brandt reported
that this second meeting of the Work Group would be the last sponsored by LSAC,
since it was originally intended that the prelaw advisors would appropriately
assume the coordinating role and LSAC will continue serving as the calendar
clearinghouse. On the subject of
whether and/or when PLANC will resume the coordinator’s role for the National
Recruitment Calendar, Eileen reported that PLANC will meet in Philadelphia in
March and again at the NAPLA/SAPLA conference in June and this topic will be on
the agenda. Eileen indicated that one
of the original functions of PLANC was to coordinate APLA events so that there
would be no conflicts and the calendar might be a logical extension of that
service. However, there is not
universal support for PLANC undertaking this and other leadership
activities. It would be ideal if PLANC
had a person who would volunteer to coordinate the calendar for the group, but
PLANC has no funds to pay anyone to do the website/listserv/calendar
coordination.
The group discussed
how to resolve date conflicts on an ongoing basis and how changes could be
reported to law schools. One of the
ideas was to put the calendar on the LSAC or PLANC website and issue updates
regularly.
Since the LSAC forum
dates cannot be planned during a specific weekend each year, the APLAs have to
be flexible in their planning. LSAC
will make very effort to finalize dates and locations for forums 18 months in
advance.
Anne will create an
email distribution list for this work group and we will communicate among
ourselves by replying to messages on this list.
It was suggested
that many prelaw advisors do not get enough information about PLANC activities
and that a regular column in PLANC Points
and posting the minutes of meetings on the PLANC website would be helpful. It was also suggested that PLANC operate a
listserv for prelaw advisors.
P.J. raised the
issue about the need for coordination of regional events among colleges, and
urging small schools to furnish transportation to LSAC forums rather than
holding separate events on their campuses.
Law schools are experiencing difficulty in attending all the law fairs being
offered, but are reluctant to prevent even small groups of students from having
the opportunity to speak with representatives of law schools. One example is the Maine caravan-- three
schools on two days--, none of which draws a significant number of
students. If the schools would provide van
service to the Boston forum, then law schools could reduce their travel time
and expenses, and the students would have access to more than 100 law
schools. It was suggested that LSAC
have a session at the annual meeting to discuss recommendations on these
matters and that the 6 law school members of this work group serve as panelists
for this session.
Anne Brandt
explained the difficulty of asking LSAC to provide transportation to forums for
these students as it does for groups from HBCU and HACU schools. A percentage of LSAC revenues are dedicated
by Board policy for activities of the Minority Affairs Committee. There is no such fund to sponsor similar
activities for other schools.
Additionally, it was noted that most schools could afford transportation
for the small number of their prelaw students to attend forums.
It was recommended
that we solicit three additional pieces of information in the future when we
distribute the form that places an event on our recruitment calendar. We will include on the form the following:
the type of event, the sponsor, and whether it is open to students from other
colleges and to all law schools. The
recruitment calendar will only list non-exclusive events, open to all law
schools and students. An article about the
calendar should appear in the Law Services Report and in PLANC points and APLA
newsletters.
Anne Brandt reported
that law schools would be able to download registration forms to recruiting
events if the sponsors send us an electronic copy in pdf format. Through this service, law school recruiters
may go to the LSAC website and retrieve registration materials from this one
source to all the events that choose to offer their forms to LSAC.
It was suggested
that LSAC do a survey asking schools how much they spend on registration fees,
travel costs for recruiting, how many events they attend each year, how many
staff participate in recruiting and how many weeks a year are spent on
recruiting. Results of the survey can
be posted for admission professionals and on the prelaw advisor listserv.
A short discussion
was held on whether prelaw advisors are beginning to plan spring recruiting
events.
The group
accomplished its main goal of creating a template for future recruiting
calendars, and for cooperation between law school representatives and prelaw
advisors in resolving policy issues.
The calendar for 2002 was partially set, and APLAs will claim recruiting
weeks as LSAC forum dates are finalized.
Following are the
dates for fall, 2002 recruiting events:
September
13-14 New York Forum
20-21 Chicago Forum
23
U. of Wisconsin
24
U. of Illinois
25
Indiana U.
26
U. of Michigan (or
Sept. 30)
30
U. of Rochester
October
1
Cornell
2
Binghamton
3
Syracuse
4
Albany
7
Florida
14-18 WAPLA
21-25 SAPLA
28-
Ohio Caravan
November
1
BC/BU Day
(tentative)
2
LSAC Boston Forum
5
Davidson/Wake Forest
6
UNC
15-16 LSAC Los Angeles Forum
18
Oakland Forum
(tentative)