Elon Law hosts regional pre-law advisors conference

College and university educators from across the South visited Elon Law this week for the first day of a three-day annual conference organized by a professional group that aims "to provide everyone in the law school admissions process with up-to-date information and expert guidance."

Members of the Southern Association of Pre-Law Advisors convened in Greensboro on March 13, 2019, for a program that had been rescheduled from September when Hurricane Florence forced its postponement.

Elon University School of Law is co-sponsoring the conference in coordination with Wake Forest University School of Law and Campbell Law.

As part of their visit to Elon Law to open the conference, members heard from Dean Luke Bierman on trends in legal education and how Elon Law has responded to the forces that are shaping interest in the legal profession: introducing an innovative, 2.5-year curriculum with an emphasis on experiential learning, with a fix program tuition that lowers costs for students.

Elon Law's approach is highlighted by its distinctive Residency-in-Practice Program, which places all students with a lawyer or judge for full-time work during the winter or spring trimester of their second year.

"I think we have done an awful lot to be responseive to the critique of legal educaiton here in the 21st century," Bierman said. "We haven't done everything that needs to be done, but we've doen a lot, and I think it offers guideposts for what legal education may look like over the next 10 or 20 years." 

An afternoon panel discussion included obversations on standardized testing by Lily Knezevich, senior vice president for learning and assessment at the Law School Admission Council, as well as administrators from regional law schools.

Bierman also served on the panel and emphasized that while the LSAT and other standardized tests have a role in law school admissions, Elon Law has found that the students’ academic record and a personal interview helps the school truly learn about an applicant and his or her potential for success in law school. 

That is why Elon Law is one of only a handful of law schools to interview applicants as a standard part of its admissions process, he said, investing hundreds of faculty and staff hours to get to know our applicants in this personal way.

SAPLA's conference included visits to Wake Law and Campbell Law on Thursday and Friday, respectively.

"We were very happy to have prelaw advisors from across the southeast with us today,” said Alan Woodlief, senior associate dean for admissions and an associate professor at the law school. “These advisors play such an important role in assisting their students consider law as a career and explore law schools, and we are excited to share information with them about Elon Law, so they can pass this along to their students."

About Elon Law:

Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, North Carolina, is the preeminent school for engaged and experiential learning in law. With a focus on learning by doing, it integrates traditional classroom instruction with course-connected, full-time residencies-in-practice in a logically sequenced program of transformational professional preparation. Elon Law’s groundbreaking approach is accomplished in 2.5 years, which provides distinctive value by lowering tuition and permitting graduates early entry into their legal careers.