Changing the Odds

By Cory Golden

Davis Enterprise staff writer

Only one in 25 lawyers are African-American, Latino, Asian-American or Native American, says a poster hanging outside the UC Davis School of Law outreach office.

"Pursue a career in law," it reads. "Change the odds."

During a week which saw Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, confirmed and sworn in, 34 college juniors and seniors worked inside King Hall to improve their own odds of law school success.

They took part in the month long King Hall Outreach  Program: an intensive - often grueling - law-school preparation program which readies students for the Law  School Admission Test, demystifies the admissions process, teaches writing, analytical and reasoning skills and gives students exposure to many facets of the legal professions.

To qualify, students must hold a 3.0 grade-point average or better, attend a four-year college and either be a first-generation college student or come from an economically disadvantaged family.

Most students in the program are both the first from their family to enter college and come from poor or working class homes, said director Cristina Gapasin.

"They all have the drive. They all have a compelling story. Some of them are the children of migrant farm workers, and maybe their first experience dealing with lawyers was with their parents' immigration status, a lot of them met in the (Equal Opportunity Program) or (the  federal) Upward Bound (program)," which aides first-generation or low-income high school students and students from rural areas.

"They're all bright students."

Though this year's group was all but non-white, a student's race is not part of the selection process. Gapasin is quick to point out that diversity "is not just about race: it's sexual orientation, it's religion, it's socioeconomic status - it's different life experience."

Each has a story

This year's crop of 18 seniors included:

* Felipe Garcia, a 29-year-old Los Angeles native who dropped out of high school to care for his

leukemia-stricken father, Pedro, driving him to chemotherapy. After doing jobs like building cabinets and roofing houses, Felipe followed in the footsteps of his mother, Guilda, and became a labor organizer.

He built a successful career standing up for janitors, then working for what is now United Healthcare Workers West. While assisting lawyers representing workers in arbitration, he came to realize that he could help more people if he became one of the attorneys he watched sign documents at the end of negotiations.

Garcia enrolled at San Joaquin Delta College but felt restless and was considering dropping out when a friend told him about King Hall's program. It inspired him to work harder and improve his grades, he said.

He later transferred to UC Berkeley, where he majors in sociology. He hopes to pursue a career in labor law or in public policy.

* Kristy Phillips, a 21-year-old Chico State University student from Palmdale, whose father, Mark, is a drywall contractor and whose mother, Robyn, is a stay-home mom.

Neither attended college, but they've already raised two sons with bachelor's degrees, one who now runs a parks and recreation department and a second who is now a computer technician after a stint in the U.S. Air Force.

Kristy, an English major working on a minor in political science, saw information about the King Hall program on a bulletin board.

When she took part in a mock trial at UCD during her first summer in the program, she was hooked. She's not sure what sort of law she'd like to practice - one path she envisions finds her an attorney in the military - but she hopes it will find her speaking in a courtroom someday.

* Sara Kohgadai, a 21-year-old UCD psychology and sociology major whose parents, Adib, a truck driver, and Mahnaz, who earns money babysitting, fled Aghanistan during the Soviet Union's invasion.

Sara found she had a knack for persuasive writing while in high school in Alameda, so information about the law school's outreach program caught her attention while taking part in a summer seminar for incoming freshmen.  She also took part in youth court while in high school.

She remains interested in juvenile justice.

Work and inspiration

Once at UCD, the outreach program students keep up a grueling pace: six-day, 70-hour work weeks.  Each Saturday, they take a mock LSAT test; on Sundays, they review the results. 

They sleep in dorm rooms and learn from nine tutors and a group of instructors that include a criminal justice professor from Sacramento State University, attorneys, professional LSAT prep instructors and grad students in philosophy.

They hear from those who handle admissions for King Hall, who explain the dos and don'ts of the intricate process of getting into law school. Kohgadai said that, in high school, she wasn't told she needed to take advanced-placement classes and had to scramble at the last minute to take the SAT II test.

Because she's the first in her family to go to college, "you can't go to your parents (for help with the process). I would have had to translate and help them with that."

The students also meet professors and alumni in a variety of legal disciplines and lunch with luminaries like Cruz Reynoso, a UCD professor who made history as the first Chicano on the California Supreme Court.

Garcia said Reynoso, in particular, inspired him.

"I would love to be 70 years old and be able to say, ‘I was able to help people in these ways.' Just listening to him gave me goosebumps."

In addition to room and board, students are given a $1,400 stipend to help compensate for lost income from summer jobs most would need to help pay for school or rent.  Gapasin said the program doesn't ordinarily advertise the stipend, because they want students who are there to learn, above all, but the recession found many prospective students saying they just couldn't afford to take part. A last-minute change of tactics brought in a few more.

The students are given chances to loosen up. This year, Dean Kevin Johnson went river rafting with them.

For juniors, the month culminated with mock trials. To be invited back again next year, they'll have to keep their grades up during the school year. They also receive pre-law advising during the year.

It was her first mock trial that grabbed Phillips, when she was a junior. She smiled just thinking about it.

"I love it. I love public speaking. I love the attention. Whenever I get a chance, I take it."

A final test

This year Phillips and the other seniors presented moot court oral arguments about a hypothetical case involving race-based admissions before California's Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento.  Each student spoke for seven minutes and had to be ready whenever a justice interrupted with a question.

It was a big day for a group that included students who had never even met a lawyer, much less step foot in a courtroom, before taking part in the program.

"There was so much tension on the bus," Kohgadai said. "Everybody was just shaking."

Time to take pictures in the courtroom before the justices appeared relaxed some. One student sat in the hall, holding a glass of water, with two bailiffs providing encouragement.

Gapasin said that is a difficult test. She recalled once finding a student in tears in the bathroom.

Gapasin, herself the daughter of Filipino immigrants, said she told her what she could tell most anyone the program:  "You've been through so much - you can do this."

In the end, each of this year's seniors did something Justice Vance Raye reminded them that few attorneys ever do: stand before an appeals court.

Two of the justices were King Hall graduates, Kathleen Butz (class of 1981) and Tani Cantil Sakauye (1984).  Butz called the seniors "outstanding."

"As Justice Raye noted at the conclusion of Wednesday's oral arguments, if the students attended one of the Court's monthly oral argument calendars, they would realize just how well they did," she said.

Finding success

Going through the month-long process brings the students together.  Garcia said his classmate's stories reminded him of why he first returned to college.

Said Kohgadai, "It made everyone stronger. It's hard. It's so difficult. It proves who is passionate and who is not.  Every day we had 12 hours of classes. If you didn't care about going to law school, you wouldn't do it. But those two months were very, very rewarding."

The program, which has grown from eight students in a one-year program, has its share of success stories. Of its 176 previous alums, 33 were admitted to law schools, including UCD, UCLA and UC Berkeley, and 11 to graduate school programs.

Among them is third-year UCD law student Alice Cheng, 24.  Cheng's parents, who did not attend college, emigrated from Hong Kong in the 1990s, when she was six. They settled in San Francisco and went into the dry cleaning business.

Cheng said that one day, when she was in middle school, she and her older brother were accosted by a group of young men who demanded money. When her brother turned out his empty pockets, they beat him up. No one reported the crime to police.

That experience led to an interest in criminal law. Cheng now works for the Sacramento District Attorney's Office.

"I don't think anyone should have to grow up feeling they have to be victimized," she said.

Cheng said King Hall's outreach program provided her with the tools to succeed on the LSAT, the knowledge to get through the application process and the time-management skills to survive in law school.

Because it's one of eight such programs nationwide sponsored by the Law School Admissions Council, the nonprofit organization which administers the LSAT, her application fees were waived. That allowed her to try for schools that sometimes charge upwards of $100 just to apply.

This summer, Cheng served as head tutor. She lived in the dorm with the students, helping them with their class work but also by turns encouraging them and, as mentors, giving them straight talk about their chances of success.

She said that other students in the program and its graduates become a support network for one another, like-minded people to whom you can turn to if, say, you want help with a personal essay.

"We understand that we were given a chance to be part of this great program. Giving back to people is an integral part of it."

A hand up

King Hall's is the only pre-law program of its kind on a UC campus. It costs about $300,000 to run, with funding from the school, the Law School Admission Council, UC Office of the President and private donations.

It's an investment worth making, said Justice Butz, because it gives students "a tangible perspective on the legal system, the substance of the law, and participants in the system, all of which can enhance a student's confidence in a future decision to attend law school."

The program is important, too, because diversity matters, she said.  "Diversity in the legal profession, beginning in law school, is critical for the exposure it provides to cultural sensitivities. And the rule of law is strengthened when our lawyers and judges reflect our ethnically and culturally diverse population."

The outreach program is one step toward that goal. Johnson, the first Latino law school dean in the University of California system, said he was proud of it and felt the law school building's namesake, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., would be too.

"It is precisely the type of program that President Obama has endorsed; it offers a ‘hand up,' not a ‘hand out.' It also is exactly the kind of program that we all should want and expect at a public law school," he said.

While the legal profession has been slow to change, UCD's is showing progress. Of 578 students enrolled in fall 2008, 221 were minorities.  UCD ranks 10th in the country and first among California law schools for faculty diversity, according to the Princeton Review. King Hall also has more Asian-American professors than any other U.S. law school.

Yet Cheng said she could still count "on one hand" her black and Latino classmates. She said the legal profession must change to better reflect the face of California.

"People should feel like they can relate to the lawyers who may very well represent them someday."

Added Kohgadai, "In the long run, that's the only way I feel we can actually have a just society. And that's what the law is all about, right?"

This article appears courtesy of The Davis Enterprise, where it was originally published August 9, 2009.  For more information on the Enterprise, visit http://www.davisenterprise.com/