9:00 am – 10:30 am
Plenary I
David Pogue, New York Times Technology Columnist
10:45 am – noon
Concurrent Sessions—Select One
Future of Law School Rankings–What Do
Applicants Know That We Don’t?
As consumers, prospective students want answers
to questions about law school. Like it or not, an
ever–growing number of applicants rely on
rankings to answer those questions. This session
will explore whether law school rankings in general
remain relevant and the impact rankings have.
How can admission professionals use substantive
information gleaned from rankings to inform and
recruit students, and what else can law school
administrators do to improve the situation? Are
candidates aware of the drawbacks and limitations
of the U.S. News & World Report rankings? Are
there other methodologies, resources, or ranking
systems available that offer candidates better
comparative data? A law professor and the author
of a book comparing law schools will offer their
thoughts on the future of rankings.
Moderator:
Monica Ingram
Presenters:
Paul Caron, Richard Montauk
Future of Rankings1 (PDF)
Future of Rankings2 (PDF)
Future of Rankings3 (PDF)
Ethics in the Internet Age
Applicants who Google us find not only our
websites but message boards discussing our law
schools. Often, the information on these pages is
not only inaccurate, but fictitious. This session
will consider whether admission officers have a
role in correcting bad information on these sites.
Applicants share their admission profiles, offers,
and scholarship decisions online with other
students, but may not think about the
implications of having this information in the
public domain. The applicants of this generation
have their own webpages, blogs, and MySpace
pages. Legal employers have begun Googling
applicants for useful hiring information. Should
we be doing the same? This panel will wrestle
with the ethical questions of how we handle new
Web information available to us in our everchanging
Internet culture. Join us for a lively
discussion, with lots of audience participation.
Moderator:
Cristina Gapasin
Presenters:
Michael Boylen, Hollis Kulwin, Michael J. States
Speaking Out
Members of the GLBT subcommittee have met
with LGBT students from several law schools to
explore in greater depth the issues raised in the
law school survey it conducted to gauge campus
climate. Their conversation continues with this
session that features LGBT law students talking
about the law school search process, admission
matters, campus life, and careers. Time will be set
aside for the audience to join in the conversation.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn directly from
students how they chose a law school and what
they have experienced as students.
Moderator:
Brietta Clark
Presenters:
Virginia Goggin, Kristian Maul, Ali Vassigh
New Issues in Financial Aid:
Back to the Future
The future of how law students finance their legal
education has changed—again. Legislation passed
last year has resulted in dramatic federal loan
program changes. While some of those changes took
effect in July 2006, the last change takes effect in
July 2007. This session is designed to inform
admission professionals of the new federal financial
aid loan programs and policies so that participants
will have the information necessary to discuss
financial aid with candidates knowledgeably. Topics
to be covered include the Stafford Federal Student
Loan Program, the Federal Graduate PLUS Loan
Program, federal loan consolidation, and differences
between the Federal Graduate PLUS Loan
Program and private educational loans.
Presenter:
Gisele Joachim
New Issues in Financial Aid (PPT)
1:15 pm – 2:15 pm
Concurrent Sessions—Select One
High School Pipeline Programs
For several years, LSAC has been focusing on
programs that provide opportunities to minority
students in middle school, high school, and
college. Law schools are increasingly seeing these
programs as a source of more potential law
students. This session will explore three high
school models—one led by a federal judge, one
formed by a collaboration of law schools, and one
that is a collaboration of a law school and school
of education at a university. After presenters
provide an overview of their programs, there will
be an opportunity to ask questions about the
design and results of each program.
Moderator:
Kent Lollis
Presenters:
La Shonda Hunt, Elizabeth Rindskoph Parker, Gary R. Williams
High School Pipeline Hunt (PPT)
Looking Ahead to Retirement
Are you spending so much time advising others on
their life plans that you neglect your own plans?
It is never too early or too late to begin your
retirement planning. In this session, noted
economist Larry Kotlikoff will suggest some
strategies that you can implement now. Included
will be reasons why conventional financial advice
may not be the best advice.
Presenter:
Laurence J. Kotlikoff
Got Portal? Cyber–marketing the 21st
Century Law School
Blog this! Flash that! Does thinking about eyeballs
creep you out? The next generation of American
lawyers is increasingly relying on the Web to decide
where to attend law school. Can virtual tours
replace walking a campus? Can online personal
profiles be truly personal? Do online status–checkers
increase or decrease telephone calls? How
have law schools responded to the marketing and
recruiting challenges and opportunities of the
Internet? Panelists will survey the new and rapidly
shifting landscape of law school admissions in the
Information Age, cataloging and thinking about
various approaches to marketing on the Web.
Explore the ways that plotting bloggers, chatting
mods, and unfettered trolls use the Web to connect
with prospective students. Be there, or be pwn3d!
Presenters:
Todd Morton, Don Rebstock
Got Portal (1-12) (PPT)
Got Portal (13-24) (PPT)
Got Portal (25-35) (PPT)
Effective Communicating
How do you stay fresh when you’ve just been
asked the same question for the hundredth time
(and it’s not even a good question)? How do you
remain engaging and enthusiastic when the
questioner is less charming than one might hope?
Or when the tone of the question is grating? How
do you communicate effectively with groups of
different sizes, and then switch to effective one–on–one communication? Communications expert
Tim Keogh will help us meet the challenges of
staying positively engaged in interactions with a
variety of audiences.
Presenters:
Tim Keogh
Eff Com Keogh (PPT)
2:30 pm – 3:30 pm
Concurrent Sessions—Select One
Reading Comprehension Variant for June 2007
This session will provide further and more detailed
information about the new Reading Comprehension
variant, Comparative Reading, which is the first
substantial modification to the format of the LSAT
since 1991. Topics covered in the session will
include the research history for Comparative
Reading (Skills Analysis Study, classroom
observations, field tests), a discussion of the
construct and face validity of the variant (including
reading tasks in law school that require multiple
texts), the statistical reasons for adding
Comparative Reading to the LSAT (statistical
characteristics such as difficulty, discrimination,
and the results of factor analyses), and the expected
benefits of adding this variant of Reading
Comprehension to the LSAT. The session will
conclude with a question–and–answer period.
Moderator:
Richard Adams
Presenters:
James Lorie, Ken Olson, Gil Plumer
Admissions Administration 101
Law school admission offices are notoriously busy.
With a variety of competing constituencies–
including applicants, parents, donors, faculty, and
law school administrators—managing an
admission office requires a variety of special skills
and talents. Both new and experienced law school
admission professionals will discuss the challenges
of recruiting diverse students, demanding travel,
supervising personnel, and handling budgets–all
while being responsive to the needs and interests
of the various constituencies. Consisting of both
“war stories” as well as human resource
management principles, the discussion will present
a variety of perspectives and styles, which will be
of interest to existing as well as aspiring
admission office administrators.
Moderator:
Rey Valencia
Presenters:
Noe Bernal, Yvonne Cherena-Pacheco, Traci Howard
Misconduct Issues and Admission
Procedures for the Future
Applicant misconduct shows no signs of
disappearing in the future. Accordingly, as our
admission offices become even more technologically
advanced, it is important that the procedures we
set up to review admission applications also allow
us to identify and handle misconduct issues as they
arise. Our program will look at admission office
procedures that each of us can establish so as to
enhance the likelihood that misconduct issues are
identified and handled satisfactorily. Specific topics
covered will include training admission staff
members to recognize misconduct issues,
establishing guidelines for the internal handling of
potential misconduct matters, educating faculty
members on admission committees as to the
importance of misconduct, and dealing with
possible dean’s office reluctance to refer matters to
the LSAC Misconduct Subcommittee. To make sure
that everyone, including new admission
professionals, has a basic understanding of the
misconduct process, we will begin the program with
a brief overview of the role of the LSAC Misconduct
Subcommittee before focusing on establishing
good admission office procedures for identifying
and handling misconduct issues in the future.
Moderator:
David Swenson
Presenters:
Shannon Davis, Yvonne Tamayo, Vincent Thomas
Finding an Extra Hour Every Day
Do you ever feel like 24 hours in a day isn’t
enough? Does a 40–hour work week seem like an
impossibility? If so, join Randy Dean, the selfdescribed
“Totally Obsessed Time Management
Guy,” for a fun and practical session on time
management that will leave you feeling as if
you’ve found an extra hour every day. Randy’s
goal is to help stressed-out performers learn
several new and immediately useful strategies for
finding a few minutes here and there, leading to
at least an extra hour of productivity every day!
Presenter:
Randy Dean
