ETS Establishes Legal Education Advisory Council to Expand and Create New Pathways in Legal Education

PRINCETON, N.J. (November 15, 2021) — As ETS continues to pursue its vision of expanding and creating new pathways to and through legal education that prioritize fairness and equity, the organization has announced today the establishment of the Legal Education Advisory Council (LEAC) to help deliver on this vision.

As the pathway from considering law school attendance to obtaining legal employment continues to encounter demands for innovation, legal education — and thus ETS — bears a heavy responsibility to reevaluate how law school aspirants, students and graduates are recruited, prepared, assessed and licensed. The GRE^® test has brought an innovative approach to law school admissions that has enriched law school communities and has the potential to improve diversity access for years to come. The members of LEAC will play a critical role in helping shape the future of legal education.

“Meaningful innovation in legal education requires the active engagement of all relevant stakeholders, including those centrally involved in the recruitment and admissions pipeline, student services and career strategy professionals, faculty and senior administrators, and employers,” said Alberto Acereda, Associate Vice President of Global Higher Education at ETS. “I am thrilled to have these 10 esteemed members of the legal community join us as we form this new council to further innovation and access in the law school space.”

The Council is being established with 10 initial members but will continue to expand. Those who have joined LEAC include:

Robert Ahdieh, Dean and Anthony G. Buzbee Endowed Dean’s Chair, Texas A&M University School of Law

Jane Aiken, Dean and Professor of Law, Wake Forest University School of Law

Eulas Boyd, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Brooklyn Law School

Amarillys Garcia-Perez, Director of Pre-Law Advising and Professor, Florida International University

Andrew Guzman, Dean and Carl Mason Franklin Chair in Law, and Professor of Law and Political Science, University of Southern California Gould School of Law

Michael Madison, Professor of Law and John E. Murray Faculty Scholar, University of Pittsburgh School of Law

John Pierre, Chancellor, Vanue B. Lacour Endowed Professor of Law, Southern University Law Center

Maureen Reilly, Assistant Dean and Executive Director, Office of Career Strategy, University of Pennsylvania, Carey School of Law

Dan Rodriguez, LEAC Chair, ETS strategic advisor and Harold Washington Professor and former Dean, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Cherina Wright, Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Suffolk University Law School

“ETS is hard at work creating value for law schools, and with this terrific team and institutional leadership, we have very high hopes for exciting collaborations with law schools and legal education stakeholders,” said Rodriguez.

Each member of LEAC will serve a three-year term with the goal of helping ETS’s Global Higher Education team drive the direction of its strategic activities. These activities include recruitment to law school, law school admissions, legal education, preparation of law students and graduates to practice law, and the licensure and employment of law school graduates.

“In today’s environment, the law continues to evolve in ways that demand diversity, leadership, and character in thought and identity by those who are educated to advance justice,” said Aiken. “I look forward to serving as a part of this exciting board as we think about the needs of legal education and new and different ways to ensure diverse and talented legal professionals of the future.”

About ETS

At ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, and by conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a nonprofit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL^® and TOEIC^® tests, the GRE^® tests and The Praxis Series^® assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide. www.ets.org