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Show Summary
Are you planning to take the LSAT or the GRE before you apply to law school? Are you dreading it? Well, there’s a new option that includes a course and a test, and is accepted by 25% of all law schools. The JD-Next is an eight-week online course that simulates a real law school contracts class and trains students on the skills necessary to be successful in law school and as practicing attorneys. In this episode, Linda Abraham sits down with David Klieger, Program Director for JD-Next at Aspen Publishing to discuss the course that was developed to provide individuals with a preview of what law school is like before making the commitment, as well as to better prepare them for success in law school and possibly replace the LSAT and GRE.
Show Notes
Welcome to the 562nd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me today. Are you preparing to apply to your dream law schools? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted’s law school admissions quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/law-quiz, take the quiz, and you’ll not only get an assessment of your chances, but tips on how to improve your qualifications. Plus, it’s all free.
Let’s move on to our interview and fantastic guest. Our guest today is David Klieger, Program Director for JD-Next at Aspen Publishing. His work in admissions includes successfully leading efforts to make the JRE widely recognized for use by law schools. David practiced law after receiving his JD from the University of Pennsylvania with Carey Law School. He then earned his PhD in Industrial Organizational Psychology, specializing in psychometrics and statistics from the University of Minnesota. David has worked in the assessment and training field for more than 20 years. His published work has appeared in leading publications, such as Harvard Business Review, The International Journal of Testing, and the Journal of Applied Psychology. He’s given interviews to The Wall Street Journal and NPR about his work to innovate law school admissions. Of course, he’s just continuing to move up the ladder by joining us on Admissions Straight Talk.
David, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. I’m delighted to speak with you today, and again, congratulations on your new position with JD-Next. [2:09]
Thank you very much, Linda. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Let’s start with a really basic question. What is JD-Next? [2:19]
JD-Next is an innovative eight-week online asynchronous course which essentially simulates a real law school contracts class. In it, one is exposed to what a real law school class would be like. One is trained on the skills that are really important to being a successful law student, as well as a successful practicing attorney. At the end of the course, there is a final exam.
Why was it developed? Why have this pre-law school course, if you’re ultimately going to go to law school? [3:01]
Well, the back story is multiple. First, there was a desire to provide a way of giving individuals a preview of what law school is going to be like before they make the actual commitment, which can be obviously quite expensive and time-consuming. Law school can be quite a stressful experience at times.
In addition, it was an opportunity to get people better prepared for success in law school. There actually is research that shows that, by participating in JD-Next, people will perform better in law school. It’s very important to perform well academically in law school because it’s really determinative of employment opportunities.
The other really important aspect of JD-Next is that there’s research that does show that the score gaps that you can see, in terms of different demographic groups, for other kinds of assessment, really you don’t see nearly to the same extent for JD-Next. It does actually provide equity and fairness in a way that’s rather innovative and unique.
When you talk about people taking the course and actually doing better in law school, is that a little bit better or a lot better? Do you have that kind of data? [4:26]
It’s .2 of a grade point, which in law school, can make an actual significant difference in how prepared one is and how one looks to employers.
Are you talking about a lack of disparity among different ethnic groups of different socioeconomic groups in terms of the test and scores? [4:52]
The research particularly looked at race and ethnicity and looked at the traditional majority group, vis-a-vis traditionally underrepresented groups. It was shown that, if there’s any difference in the average score across these groups, it’s smaller than what you otherwise tend to see in the admissions process.
It’s smaller than in the LSAT or the GRE? [5:24]
It is smaller, based on the research.
Are there other benefits to JD-Next, as compared to the LSAT or GRE? Both to law schools and to law school applicants. There are other things that it does that the other two tests don’t do. [5:30]
It’s a different type of product. It’s actually a preparation course for law school. It provides the preview benefit as well as the preparation benefit, which is really a different kind of product. There is a final exam at the end of the course, which can be used for making admissions decisions. But it is a different and more comprehensive kind of product.
Even if somebody is taking the LSAT or is required to take the LSAT, they may benefit from JD-Next because of its preparatory qualities, is that correct? [6:19]
Correct.
From the law school admissions perspective, law schools have relied on the LSAT, and, more recently, on the GRE because of their predictive qualities. Can you talk about the predictability of the JD-Next, from an admissions perspective? [6:31]
We have conducted that research, and it clearly shows that the final exam for JD-Next is just as predictive of success academically in law school.
Do schools get the actual score on JD-Next, or do they just get pass, fail, or something like that? [7:10]
There is a specific score that’s provided.
Can you go into a little bit more about what is actually taught in the course? Is it taught legal reasoning, legal writing, analyzing cases, what? [7:23]
There is a context here for what’s being taught. It’s a contracts law class. But you could argue that it could be a tortes class, it could be a civil procedure class. What JD-Next was originally intended to do, and it still does, is to teach those really important underlying skills that are important for success in law school, regardless of what the content area is.
It’s legal reasoning. The ability to provide an answer is what a lawyer would do. The ability to provide the breakdown of the case, to analyze a case, to remember the pertinent facts, to remember the holding of the case, the main conclusion of the case. To do what law students are really being trained to do. That makes them prepared to be successful attorneys.
How much time does it take to complete the course? How long is the actual test? Is it a three-month course? What is it? [8:41]
The course is eight weeks. The exam takes a little over three hours to complete, between three and four hours. That’s really key because that’s about as long as the average law school exam. If you’re going to try to prepare people for what the reality of law school is going to be like, it’s good to have that exam really simulate the length, as well as the content of what people are going to be expected to do.
Is the course weekly? Is it biweekly? Is it every night? Can you go into a little bit more detail on the course content? [9:17]
It’s asynchronous, so you don’t have to necessarily do it on the same exact schedule as everyone else. But there are multiple activities every week across the eight weeks.
It sounds like the test is teaching various skills. Then, testing the skills. It’s not an aptitude test at all, really. [9:42]
You really have to have those underlying skills, those analytical skills, to be able to do that successfully. Again, the idea is to try to teach generalizable skillsets, not just the content of contracts law to the people who are participating.
How’s the JD-Next test scored? I assume there’s a percentile score. Is there also a raw score? [10:15]
There’s a scaled score, and then we provide percentiles as well.
What’s the pass rate for those who take the course? [10:27]
We don’t consider it a pass, fail kind of deal. In the sense of a traditional standardized test, you don’t generally get a pass, fail, you just get a score.
What does JD-Next cost? [10:48]
It’s $299.
It’s asynchronous, but it’s an eight-week course. I guess you have to complete it within the eight weeks, but when do you have to complete it within the eight weeks? Is it up to students? [10:56]
You would need to be on a certain timetable to an extent, but it’s asynchronous. It’s not like you have to show up exactly at a certain time on a certain day for all of it, like you would with many traditional law school classes. It does provide flexibility that people would like.
But there are, I assume, benchmarks along the way that you have to meet? [11:26]
Yeah.
When will JD-Next be offered in preparation for the 2024-25 application cycle? [11:35]
On February 5th, the course was opened to people who want to participate. There will be three sessions. Those are shown on the JD-Next website. You can choose any of the three you’d like to participate in. There’s also a great amount of information, and background information there for any questions people may have.
How many people have taken the test already? [12:08]
We’ve had several hundreds of participants in the high stakes use of the course. We also had a period of time prior to that, when people were participating outside of that high stakes context as well, when the course, the product was elsewhere. But it’s part of, in Aspen Publishing, in a high stakes context, we’ve seen many hundreds of individuals participate. We also see the interest rates on a steep increase as well.
What is a “high-stakes context”? Are you saying the interest is more from applicants or from schools? Or both? [12:44]
Both. There’s a lot of interest from both. High stakes just basically means it’s being actually used and situated where the final exam could be used in making an admissions decision. Whereas previously, when the idea of JD-Next was first getting off the ground, the idea was just to get things running and going before the final exam would have that kind of use.
Was it originally designed as a law school prep course that went into an admissions function, or was it the other way around? [13:16]
When JD-Next first came about, it was actually the result of a Bachelor of Law course that had been designed, and then it was repurposed and modified to be appropriate for this new context.
Do you have any tips for participants taking the JD-Next course? How can they make the most of it? Both from a law school preparation perspective and an admissions perspective. [13:50]
I would recommend to anybody who’s interested in JD-Next that they really put their heart and soul into it. This is really important because you really want to know whether law school is for you or not for you, and you really want to be as prepared as possible if you do go on to law school. Because it really is a competitive environment, and being very knowledgeable and very skilled, it’s critical. It’s a high stakes profession, being a lawyer, so law school really tries to prepare students for that kind of profession.
I would also say take the final exam very seriously because not only does it give you a sense of how much you really learned in the course, but also it can tell you if this is the kind of thing you want to do. Because you’re going to get a lot of other exams down the road, if you do wind up going to law school, this is how people get evaluated. Also, there are law schools that are using the JD-Next final exam to make admissions decisions, so obviously, it has a high-stakes component to JD-Next as well.
Really, it’s really a major life decision, deciding whether or not you want to go on for legal education and getting into law school, so it really is an experience I would really just invest your time, your resources, and your heart into.
How many schools are accepting it now, and how many do you think will be accepting it or the 2024-25 application cycle? [15:32]
There are 47 law schools that have received variance approval from the American Bar Association. That is currently the process for getting approval from the American Bar Association to use the JD-Next final exam to make admissions decisions.
Now, I would say that doesn’t mean that all 47 schools are necessarily, right now, currently using it to make admissions decisions. It’s up to the law schools independently to decide how they want to use JD-Next. But of course, JD-Next can be used also outside of that admissions context as well.
The exam is just one component of what is a larger, more comprehensive product.
What does the future hold for JD-Next? What’s in your crystal ball or your wish list? ABA approval, perhaps, for all law schools, or do you see it more in terms of marketing as a preparatory course? [16:23]
Well, I don’t think there really inherently should be any limits on the product. I think that certainly law schools should be free to use JD-Next as they see best. I think that it can be an extraordinarily valuable tool for making admissions decisions. I think it also obviously has that great value of preparing applicants to be more successful law students. Then, it has that preview piece, which is particularly helpful to those who are not sure if law school is for them.
I think all of those value propositions are extremely important. I think, again, there are these pieces that can be used together synergistically, or it can be used independently, depending on the greatest benefit to the applicant and the greatest benefit to the institutions.
What would you have liked me to ask you? [17:29]
Well, I think you asked a great question about how I see the long-term future of JD-Next and I can talk a little bit more about that.
I think JD-Next, right now, is trying to serve a very specific series of purposes, but perhaps one day, JD-Next will be covering other content areas with the goal of teaching those other content areas and not just the underlying skills. Then, there are skills beyond just the traditional skills that are important for being a successful law student or lawyer. There are motivational components. There are psychological components to being successful. There’s knowledge about the realities of law school that aren’t necessarily transparent. The realities of going on the job market, of the types of career paths people can seek. Also, it may be that JD-Next or the model might be used at other time points as well, to refresh people. Maybe students, they want to go back and independently brush up on a skill area, so maybe they could do that.
Right now, that’s not something that JD-Next is now doing, but it’s a thought for the long-term future. It’s a great model in the sense that people not only can see what they’re getting themselves into, prepare themselves, and also just know where they stand with that assessment at the end. I think that all provides value in so many different ways, across different skill areas, across different time points in the law student lifecycle.
It’s also very reasonable, in terms of the price. [19:11]
We certainly think so. It’s far better to learn what law school is like and one’s preparedness for it, under a $299 price point than a $70,000 price point.
Right. The other thought that occurred to me when I first heard about JD-Next is there’s just a certain logic, as opposed to putting up a barrier that somebody has to jump over, to say, “Okay, let’s try and prepare you, and see if you can prepare yourself. This is what you really want to do, let’s help you prepare yourself for your chosen goal.” [19:52]
I think the preparation piece for JD-Next is just an amazingly important innovation in helping people who are considering a law school experience and a legal career. I think that’s just critically important. A lot of people don’t necessarily know what they’re getting themselves into when they go down this pathway. They think they know what it’s going to be like, but they don’t necessarily. I think it’s just incredibly useful as a tool for both law schools and applicants.
I completely agree about testing out the legal field, if you will. Years ago, when I was considering graduate school, it was very common to hear, “Oh, my parents want me to go to law school because they consider it an excellent foundation.” Of course, it’s an excellent foundation – to practice law, but it’s not necessarily an excellent foundation for everything else in the world. I had some very unhappy friends with a lot of debt when they got out of law school. They had no desire to practice law, but they’d spent three years going to law school, largely in that case because, and I can think of several, parental pressure. If they’d had the opportunity to do something like JD-Next, they probably would have concluded it was not for them and done something that they would have liked more. It took them several years but they ultimately did find something, but it took them several years to do that. [20:55]
I’ll also add that there was a survey conducted by the American Bar Association, which showed that some of the highest debt levels were being experienced by traditionally underrepresented groups. There’s that additional fairness, equity piece to being able to have that JD-Next experience, rather than finding out after being in law school, whether or not it’s a good fit.
Relevant Links:
Relevant shows:
- Navigating the Law School Admissions Process, podcast Episode 550
- Is the University of Texas School of Law for You?, podcast Episode 546
- Is Boston University Law for You?, podcast Episode 539
- All You Need to Know About the New, Shorter GRE, podcast Episode 531
- Rejection and Reapplication to Target Schools, podcast Episode 523
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