On the night of the New Hampshire primary, Harvard Law School-educated Barack Obama continuously repeated the refrain: “Yes, we can!” He then gave several examples where people of color were told that they were not ready, and couldn’t achieve their dreams. Obama, using his law degree, served as a community organizer, law professor and U.S. Senator. As we celebrate Black History Month, it is important for young people to take Obama’s message to heart and realize that they too can become lawyers and aspire to the presidency.

People of color have become lawyers even when discrimination was rampant. In 1848, George Boyer Vashon became the first black lawyer admitted in New YorkState. Because clients refused to hire a black lawyer, he tried publishing and ultimately moved to, and was admitted to practice in, Washington, D.C.  William Tucker Garvin was one of eighteen children from rural South Carolina. In 1931 Garvin graduated from St. John’s. He was the first black assistant district attorney in Queens and the first African American to serve on the Queens local school board. Garvin later had a successful legal career in private practice. Growing up in a tenement in Chinatown, Thomas H. Lee graduated from St. John’s in 1936 and became the first Chinese American lawyer licensed in New YorkState. In 1951 he became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Manhattan and later had a successful career in private practice. Cora Walker was one of the first black women to practice law in New YorkState. In 1947, she graduated from St. John’s. Her mother attempted to discourage Walker from becoming a lawyer, fearing that her daughter would face double discrimination for being both black and woman. Ignoring her mother’s warnings, Walker had a successful career as a litigator in her own law firm in Harlem.

Phillip Roache was the first black law professor at St. John’s. Before attending law school, Roache worked as a token clerk for the MTA. He graduated from St. John’s in 1954 and served as a family court judge. In 1987, civil rights activist and scholar Haywood Burns became the dean of CUNYLawSchool also becoming the first black dean of any New YorkState law school.

Despite these successes, the gains in minority admission to the legal profession are small. In New YorkState, approximately 3.4% of the lawyers are African American, even though blacks comprise 16% of New YorkState’s and 27% of New York City’s population. A study by John Nussbaumer at ThomasCooleyLawSchool shows that nationwide 63% of black and 52% of Puerto Rican law school applicants are rejected, as compared to 35% of whites. The Ronald H. Brown Center Study of the fifteen law schools in New YorkState shows that between 2000-2006, black enrollment declined 20% and Puerto Rican enrollment declined 54%. In fact, there are three New YorkState law schools that have no Puerto Rican law students even though Puerto Ricans are the largest Latino/a demographic in New YorkState. As law schools place more emphasis on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) in deciding which applicant to admit and fail to consider other indicia of achievement, higher hurdles exist for black and Latino/a law school applicants.

The Ronald H. Brown Summer Law School Prep Program is designed to increase the pool of qualified applicants and can serve a model for other law schools to use in finding constructive solutions to the underrepresentation of black and Latino/a law students.  After sophomore year, college students are taught law school classes by law school professors, intern with state court judges for two weeks, and then do four weeks of internships with the district attorney’s offices of Queens and Brooklyn. After their junior year, the same students come back for a specially designed LSAT Prep class with extra tutoring provided by law school students. On average, the Prep Program students saw an increase of nine-points on their LSAT scores.

Monica Moran, of St. Albans, participated in the Prep Program and is now a first year student at GeorgeWashingtonLawSchool. Moran described her experience as follows: “I really felt like a law student attending my first days of law school, and the Prep Program reassured me that studying of law was part of my future.”South Jamaica native Derell Kennedo, who scored in the top percentile on the December LSAT, said: “The specially designed LSAT class and the support of the law student tutors gave me the confidence I needed to ace the LSAT exam.”

The Prep Program expands the pool of qualified students of color eligible to attend law school. With the right mentoring, these students can achieve high scores on the LSAT and get into the law school of their dreams. In the future, these students will be poised to assume leadership positions reflective of the diversity of the State, the City, and Queens. One of them might even be the next Barack Obama. The success of the Prep Program demonstrates that, with the right kind of mentoring: YES WE CAN!