LANSING, Mich. – On Oct. 22, Cooley Law School hosted the National Legal Mentoring Consortium’s virtual conference, “The New Era of Legal Mentoring,” where President and Dean James McGrath spoke on “The New Law School Admissions Landscape: Impacts on Diversity, Access, and Legal Mentoring.”
Speakers at the event addressed the impact of significant efforts aimed at law schools and their student populations as to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as the American Bar Association’s ability to continue accrediting law schools, and how mentoring leaders can respond to those efforts and prepare for the shifting makeup of the professional population.
“The demand for a legal education has never been higher, but the guardrails around diversity have never been weaker,” McGrath said during the conference. “We have more people knocking on the door than ever and fewer rules requiring anyone to open it wider.”
In the 2026 law school admissions cycle, McGrath noted there were 82,000 people nationwide who applied to law school – nearly an 8% increase since 2025; and 27% increase since 2024.
“The surge in applicants is not the same as the surge in access,” he said. “Cooley has always had an access mission. But when applications rise, the selective schools get more selective. The median LSATs tend to climb up and the applicants squeezed out first are going to be the first-generation working adults and career changers. So where do the qualified, but not elite applicants go when the pool tightens? They turn to schools with access missions and that’s exactly the reason why Cooley was founded back in 1972.”
McGrath shared that Cooley has a large and very geographical dispersed network of alumni who are natural mentors.
“I’m going to suggest that mentoring may be that hinge between access and success because admissions is just the beginning of the access problem not the end,” said McGrath. “Mentoring should start before 1L and continue through school and extend into the first years of practice. If the profession is committed to a pipeline that reflects the communities it serves, then hopefully practitioners will show up as mentors. We really want to make sure schools like Cooley are able to continue to do the work that will help diversify the profession.”
In addition to McGrath, guest speakers included U.S. Magistrate Judge John Acosta (U.S. District Court, District of Oregon); William Hubbard and Derek Black, the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law; Judge Doris Henderson Causey, Virginia Court of Appeals; Angela Winfield, vice president and chief impact officer, Law School Admission Council; and Justice Salvador Mungia, Washington Supreme Court, among others.
The National Legal Mentoring Consortium can be viewed online.