About a year and a half ago, Penn State Dean Danielle Conway invited me to be a contributing author to Incorporating Antiracist Principles in Alumni Affairs and Advancement (Volume 8) of the book series created by the Antiracist Development Institute (ADI). The book series is entitled “Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession,” and it will consist of eight volumes and be published by the University of California Press.

“More than 100 colleagues from the legal academy, legal profession, and adjacent organizations are contributing to the book series as chapter contributors, editors, content reviewers, and workshop facilitators, representing 55 institutions across the country.” https://dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/adi-book-series.  

I agreed to write the chapter on Antiracist Metrics for Alumni Engagement, Fundraising, and Communications. In so doing, I started by trying to make myself more knowledgeable about the existing engagement and fundraising metrics. That effort led me both to author the blog post below and the two that preceded it, which I have permission to publish here from the ADI, and to author the chapter, which is now proceeding towards a second draft.

I thank Dean Conway for the opportunity to grow my knowledge of antiracism, alumni relations, fundraising, and communications and think through the intersections among the four from a design thinking lens.

Because the possibilities are so much more extensive than I had imagined, I have a lot to share. In fact, I divided the information into three posts: (1) Introduction to Advancement Metrics and Fundraising Metrics,  (2) Alumni Engagement Metrics, and (3) Communications Metrics. This final post focuses on Communications Metrics.

I hope the three posts might be helpful to deans in goal-setting and evaluation for departments whose functions are not typically areas of expertise for law school deans.

Communications Metrics

Email Open Rate, Click-Through Rate, and Email Opt-Out Rate. As part of an overall alumni engagement measure, a counting metric is possible and easily implemented: the total number of alumni who open any alumni email in a given year.  In fact, mass email tools, such as Constant Contact and Salesforce, automatically count the number of recipients who open each email message. These totals can be compared on an email-by-email basis or year-over-year basis.

More refined is the email open rate, which is calculated by dividing the number of alumni who opened the email(s) divided by the number who received the message(s) multiplied by 100 to get to a percentage. Open rates also are compared on an annual basis to gather data about alumni engagement, and they also can be calculated for various types of alumni messages to ascertain alumni preferences. 

The click-through rate is similar to the email open rate but measures a different phenomenon. It is common in electronic alumni newsletters to include links from the email to news stories about alumni on the institution’s website and to various parts of the institution’s website that might be of interest to alumni. This metric measures the percentage of alumni who receive the email and click on one of those links; it is calculated by dividing the number of alumni who click through by the number of alumni who receive the email multiplied by 100 to get to a percentage. Click-through rates can be disaggregated for emails and even for particular links within an email, allowing, over time, for patterns to emerge that can influence future choices.

All email tools include a mechanism for recipients to communicate, electronically, a desire to discontinue receipt of emails. In addition, some alumni communicate such desires by separate emails or phone calls. The email opt-out rate is the percentage of alumni who receive the email(s) and choose to opt out. It is the number of people who choose to opt out divided by the number who receive the email multiplied by 100 to get to a percentage.

Landing Page Conversion Rate and Website Page Views. In some instances, an institution has strategic reasons for wanting to get alumni to click through from an email or from a social media post to a particular landing page on the institution’s website. Most commonly, that page would be the institution’s online giving page. In other instances, however, the institution might want alumni to read a full statement from the dean regarding an issue of institutional significance (e.g., a law school name change or a statement about a community issue). The landing page conversion rate is the same as the click-through rate discussed above regarding emails, but it also focuses on pages to which the alumni go rather than pages from which they go and includes a similar measure for social media posts. It is calculated by dividing the number of people who went to the particular page between the time of the communication and for a reasonable time thereafter divided by the number of people who received the email and/or were followers or subscribers to the social media posts that included the link multiplied by 100 to get to a percentage. Of course, while the landing page conversion rate is intended to measure the effectiveness of an email or social media posting(s), the numerator is imprecise because the number of people who visit a particular page may and often does include some who visited the page for reasons unrelated to the posting.

Website pageviews can be valuable as a point of comparison to prior years’ results. Most of the time, institutions use this measure to evaluate whether a new digital marketing campaign for prospective students is succeeding in getting them interested enough in attending the institution to visit the institution’s website. However, the effectiveness of advancement communications also can be evaluated in this way. Any page or set of pages on a website can track visits and allow for comparisons. Thus, an institution can track visits to its alumni news page or giving page and compare results across months and years.

Class Notes Submission Rate. For many years now, alumni have been submitting their accomplishments and news, and law schools have been sharing them with the alumni community, typically organized by the year they graduated. Submitting notes has become much easier as law schools have developed online notes submission tools. Consequently, it is much more possible for institutions to track and measure meaningful data; in other words, engaged alumni want to report their career and life milestones to their classmates and law school. Thus, the percentage of alumni who submit class notes is a meaningful metric, calculated by dividing the number of alumni who submit class notes by the total number of alumni and then multiplying by 100 to get to a percentage. This metric only becomes meaningful in comparison to prior years’ outcomes.  

Production Results. For each of the social media tools, an institution can report a counting metric, the production, and sharing of new social media posts, stories, and videos for each of the social media tools used by the law school. (Of course, an aggregation of all such postings is also possible.) This data can be compared month-over-month and year-over-year. In addition, production data for competitor institutions is available for Twitter (X), Facebook, and Instagram, allowing for evaluation of outcomes.   

Amplification Rate. The amplification rate is a measure of the effectiveness of social media posts, allowing an institution to assess the effectiveness of those posts by looking at the most significant way in which subscribers respond to social media posts by resharing/reposting them. Amplification refers to the idea that a social media post succeeds if it reaches the networks, family, friends, colleagues, links, etc. of the users already in the institution’s network. It is typically calculated on a per post basis to allow evaluation of and comparisons of types of posts. The formula is the number of amplifications (reshares, reposts) divided by the number of followers of that social media account multiplied by 100 to get to a percentage. An institution also can calculate an annual amplification rate across a time frame (e.g., a month or a year) and compare that rate to peer institution rates and to historical rates. The formula is similar to the post-based formula; it is calculated by dividing the number of amplifications of all posts by the number of followers on the relevant forms of social media and then, of course, multiplying by 100 to get to a percentage. 

Applause Rate. Finally, the applause rate measures the degree to which alumni respond positively to a social media post by liking it, loving it, commenting on it positively, or otherwise communicating approval. It is typically calculated on a per post basis to allow evaluation of and comparisons of types of posts. The formula is the number of applause instances (likes, loves, positive comments) divided by the number of followers of that social media account and then multiplied by 100 to get to a percentage. An institution also can calculate an annual applause rate across a time frame (e.g., a month or a year) and compare that rate to peer institution rates and to historical rates. The formula is similar to the post-based formula; it is calculated by dividing the number of applause instances of all posts by the number of followers on the relevant forms of social media and then, of course, multiplying by 100 to get to a percentage.

As was true for the production rate, communication data regarding engagement (the aggregation of amplification and applause) for competitor institutions is available for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, allowing for the evaluation of outcomes.

Alumni Engagement Metrics

About a year and a half ago, Penn State Dean Danielle Conway invited me to be a contributing author to Incorporating Antiracist Principles in Alumni Affairs and Advancement (Volume 8) of the book series created by the Antiracist Development Institute (ADI). The book series is entitled “Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession,” will consist of eight volumes and will be published by the University of California Press.

“More than 100 colleagues from the legal academy, legal profession, and adjacent organizations are contributing to the book series as chapter contributors, editors, content reviewers, and workshop facilitators, representing 55 institutions across the country.” https://dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/adi-book-series.  

I agreed to write the chapter on “Antiracist Metrics for Alumni Engagement, Fundraising, and Communications.” In so doing, I started by trying to make myself more knowledgeable about the existing engagement and fundraising metrics. That effort led me both to author this series of three blog posts, which I have permission to publish here from the ADI and to author the chapter.

I thank Dean Conway for the opportunity to grow my knowledge of antiracism, alumni relations, fundraising, and communications and think through the intersections among the four from a design thinking lens.

Because the possibilities are so much more extensive than I had imagined, this posting is, by far, my longest blog post ever. In fact, I have divided the information into three posts: (1) Introduction to Advancement Metrics and Fundraising Metrics, (2) Alumni Engagement Metrics, and (3) Communications Metrics. This post focuses on Alumni Engagement Metrics. A previous post focused on Fundraising Metrics.

Alumni Engagement Metrics

Alumni engagement, in significant part, aligns with fundraising in obvious and important ways. Most alumni do not want a purely transactional relationship with their law schools whereby they give money and, perhaps, have something named for them. In most, but certainly not all instances, the pathway to a significant gift starts years before with a panel presentation, alumni board work, a hire of a recent graduate, or a student mentoring interaction. In addition, engagement is an excellent predictor of future donations and therefore influences which alumni gift officers approach, qualify, cultivate, and, ultimately, solicit. 

Moreover, changes to law school accreditation and bar admissions standards to require more practical training and professional identity development instruction have required law schools to align themselves more closely with their local and state bar associations and more intentionally involve alumni in their educational programs.

Board Service. This counting metric, obviously, is capped by the number of board seats a law school has. Many law schools operate a single alumni board, perhaps with geographic region-based sub-groups linked to the alumni board. It is also common to have a board with a membership group that includes significant donors and particularly accomplished alumni (e.e., judges). These boards, typically designated the “Dean’s Cabinet” or “Dean’s Advisory Counsel,” often receive special benefits (such as private lectures from faculty and alumni experts) and are asked for strategic advice.  Some law schools have created additional advisory boards that align with institutional priorities represented by the law schools’ centers (e.g., an advisory board for a law school’s center for advocacy).

Experiential Engagement (e.g., simulation courses, field placements, and internships). The ABA’s recently enacted experiential education accreditation standard, 303(a)(3),[1]has heightened the need for alumni to be engaged in helping deliver law school curricula. These engagement opportunities include teaching simulation courses, defined as classroom courses, such as  a course in Negotiations, where students develop their skills by engaging in mock lawyering experiences. [2] Even more significant and critical are alumni who serve as field placement (A/K/A externship) supervisors; field placements are real-world lawyering experiences, such as working for a judge researching and writing memos and drafting opinions and decisions on motions, in which the student engages in meaningful lawyering activities under close supervision of a site supervisor. [3] This form of engagement allows the law school to offer its students a wide variety of experiential learning opportunities and, in many instances, to align those opportunities with students’ career goals.

Other Volunteering.  The other service metric is another counting metric that captures engagement in the form of alumni who serve as adjunct faculty [4] or competition team coaches, those who serve as mentors to current students, and those who speak on panels. It is not clear that many institutions track these data, but, as detailed below, tracking a wider variety of data is critical to an antiracist strategy of engaging a broader segment of law schools’ alumni populations. [5] 

Moreover, even among law schools that track these data, it is not clear that institutions have systematic mechanisms for capturing volunteer contributions of time to support student organizations by advising student leaders, attending events, or speaking on student organization panels.

The foregoing alumni engagement metrics can be readily combined into a single metric, Volunteering, as suggested by a 2018 information report from CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education). [6] CASE is generally considered to be an authoritative source. 

Philanthropic Engagement.  This metric is addressed above under fundraising and is measured by calculating the number of alumni who give and then calculating the percentage of the total alumni pool who are donors.

Alumni Events Sponsored. One of the best ways to connect with alumni is via alumni events. Many alumni are willing to host these events in their offices and cover the cost of food and beverages. This is, of course, a type of philanthropic engagement, but separating it out encourages such generosity, and it allows alumni who might not yet be willing to make a direct contribution to a law school to be engaged in a way that also benefits the alumni.

Events Attended.  CASE uses the term “Experiential” to refer to this metric, which includes alumni attendance at reunions, homecomings, speaker events (in person or online), and other events.  It can simply be a counting metric that helps institutions understand all the ways in which alumni are engaged with the law school.

It is also possible to calculate an event evaluation metric, the Percentage of Attending Alumni.  The percentage of attending alumni is calculated by diving the number of alumni attendees at an event by the number of possible alumni attendees (i.e., those in class(es) having the reunion or those in the geographic region) and then multiplying the result by 100 to get to a percentage.

All of the above combined.  With attention to avoiding double counting alumni who engage in multiple ways, this metric allows the law school to add together each of the above counting metrics and identify the total number of alumni who are engaged in any way with the law school. That total number of engaged alumni can then be divided by the total number of alumni to calculate the percentage of engaged alumni. 

The addition of email and social media as tools for connecting with alumni is forcing institutions to reconsider their definitions of alumni engagement. Is opening an email from the law school a form of engagement? Is reposting a LinkedIn posting about a law school moot court success a form of alumni engagement? Is liking such a post also engagement? How about just viewing the post?  After all, LinkedIn tracks “impressions” and the younger generation alumni are digital natives whose interactions include substantial social media communications. The metrics are segregated from the engagement in the discussion below but could be aggregated with the engagement numbers described above. In fact, the CASE information report takes the position that these metrics should be counted in engagement numbers. [7]

[1] Standard 303. CURRICULUM

(a) A law school shall offer a curriculum that requires each student to satisfactorily complete at least the following . . .

(3) one or more experiential course(s) totaling at least six credit hours. An experiential course must be a simulation course, a law clinic, or a field placement, as defined in Standard 304.

[2] ABA Standard 304(b): “A simulation course provides substantial experience not involving an actual client, that is reasonably similar to the experience of a lawyer advising or representing a client or engaging in other lawyering tasks in a set of facts and circumstances devised or adopted by a faculty member.”

[3] ABA Standard 304(d): “A field placement course provides substantial lawyering experience that (1) is reasonably similar to the experience of a lawyer advising or representing a client or engaging in other lawyering tasks in a setting outside a law clinic under the supervision of a licensed attorney . . . .”

[4] There is nuance in treating compensated adjunct faculty as engagement. On the one hand, the alumni adjunct faculty are paid so adjunct teaching is not strictly volunteering.  On the other hand, nearly all, if not all, adjunct faculty are paid much less than their regular hourly rates; in fact, the author of this chapter has seen calculations at as little as $20/hour. If income were a determining factor, adjunct teaching would not be the chosen mechanism to do so.

[5] There is an argument to be made that hiring new graduates is a form of engagement given the significance of job placement data in U.S. News rankings.

[6] CASE, Alumni Engagement Metrics 6 (2018), https://www.case.org/system/files/media/inline/CASEWhitePaper_AlumniMetrics%20AUG18.pdf.

[7] Id.

About a year and a half ago, Penn State Dean Danielle Conway invited to be a contributing author to Incorporating Antiracist Principles in Alumni Affairs and Advancement (Volume 8) of the book series created by the Antiracist Development Institute’s (ADI). The book series is entitled “Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession,” will consist of eight volumes, and will be published by the University of California Press.

“More than 100 colleagues from the legal academy, legal profession, and adjacent organizations are contributing to the book series as chapter contributors, editors, content reviewers, and workshop facilitators, representing 55 institutions across the country.” https://dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/adi-book-series.  

I agreed to write the chapter on Antiracist Metrics for Alumni Engagement, Fundraising, and Communications. In so doing, I started by trying to make myself more knowledgeable about the existing engagement and fundraising metrics. That effort led me both to author the blog post below and the two that will follow over the next few weeks, which I have permission to publish here from the ADI, and to author the chapter, which is now proceeding towards a second draft.

I thank Dean Conway for the opportunity to grow my knowledge of antiracism, alumni relations, fundraising, and communications and think through the intersections among the four from a design thinking lens.

Because the possibilities are so much more extensive than I had imagined, this posting is, by far, my longest blog post ever. In fact, I have divided the information into three posts: (1) Introduction to Advancement Metrics and Fundraising Metrics, and (2) Alumni Engagement Metrics, and (3) Communications Metrics. This post provides an Introduction to Advancement Metrics and then identifies the full range of Fundraising Metrics.

Introduction to Advancement Metrics

Few deans come to the job with extensive expertise regarding advancement, and almost none know more than the most rudimentary metrics, e.g., dollars raised, proposals made, and percentage of alumni donors. Candidly, when I started as a dean, those were the three metrics I knew, and I could not even explain the intended meanings of common terms in the field, such as advancement, development, engagement, and fundraising.  This blog post and the two that will follow are intended to serve as a resource for law school deans and their advancement offices.

Advancement office metrics align with the three categories common to law school advancement office work: fundraising, alumni relations, and communications. The inclusion of these three topics in this blog post is not meant to suggest that all law schools house all three functions in a single advancement department.[1] 

Fundraising metrics

Fundraising metrics are, to a degree, in a state of flux. Higher education advancement offices are moving from focusing exclusively on what might be called counting metrics, e.g., dollars raised, percentage of alumni who give, prospective donor visits, etc., to more nuanced measures such as return on investment, percentage of prospects contacted, number of active prospects in portfolio, and percentage of what are called “unique visits.[2]” There is no standardization in metrics used in higher education so the metrics identified and explained below are intended to be illustrative and neither exhaustive nor prescriptive.

Metrics for law schools typically are set by a university advancement vice president or president and may be set at a unit level (e.g., a university goal and a law school goal) or at a gift officer level or both.

Commitment Goals. This metric measures the sum of immediate gifts, pledges via pledge agreements, and bequests, i.e., the institution being named in a will or trust as a recipient of either a percentage of the estate or trust or a specified amount. The specific target factors in needs of the institution, capacity of the donor pool, recent results, and pool development, i.e., where in the fundraising process prospects are.

Cash Received Goals. This metric captures both immediate gifts, transfers of funds by a donor made at the time of committing to the gift, and performance of pledges, transfers of funds by a donor in performance of a previously-made pledge. Targets are set using the same factors as commitments, except that, as one might expect, pledges that are still being performed are a critical factor in setting these goals.

Major Gift Goals.  Major gifts are the largest donations an institution receives and are set at a specific giving level by the institutions. Higher education institutions vary greatly in how they define major gifts, but, for many law schools, that number is either $25,000 or $50,000 but may be as high as $100,000 or more.  Major gifts are so important because 80%-90% of funds donated come from 10-15% of the donors; consequently, major gift goals are set in relation to the institution’s overall commitment goal and, of course, donor pool.

Annual Giving Goals.  Annual giving refers to the results of organized efforts (often letters or emails) designed to secure gifts on a yearly basis to support, at least in part, the general operations of an institution. Annual giving also captures gifts made in response to a “Day of Giving” or the like. Annual giving is the other side of the coin from major gifts and refers to the gifts made by the donors who make smaller donations either to specific existing funds (e.g., a scholarship) or to an undesignated fund. Goals typically assume at least a small increase from the prior year’s results.

Percentage of Alumni Giving Goals.  The alumni giving percentage is calculated by dividing the number of alumni who give by the total number of living alumni. This metric often has prominence in advancement office reporting, in large part because U.S. News rankings of colleges and universities include this metric as a factor in those rankings.[3] (The U.S. News ranking of law schools does not include this metric as a factor.[4])

According to U.S. News, for colleges and universities, “[T]he average alumni giving rate during the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 academic years was 8%,” but the 10 colleges with the highest rates saw “alumni giving rates of 44% and higher.”[5] Because U.S. News does not weigh alumni giving in law school rankings, comparative data is not readily available. What is clear is the percentage of alumni giving continues to be a fairly universal metric for evaluating fundraising departments, and goals are typically set to increase or at least maintain the previous year’s percentage.

Goals for Visits, Donors Qualified, Yield Rate, Conversion Rate, and Unique Visits.  In most institutions, gift officers are assigned a portfolio of prospects that includes alumni who may have a wide range of giving histories, including some who have never given to the law school and some who are regular donors. It is generally understood that donors typically do not make gifts they regard as financially significant absent some personal interaction, a visit, with a gift officer and/or the dean. Consequently, visits to a significant number of donors in the gift officer’s portfolio are an important predeterminate of successful fundraising, and many institutions have made visits a metric.  If, during a visit, a gift officer determines that an inactive donor has the capacity and propensity to give such that further efforts by the institution are warranted, the officer qualifies the donor. 

Some institutions have moved away from visit goals because of the risk of an unintended consequence—a gift officer could make a large number of visits that are speedy and mostly meaningless to manipulate the officer’s results. If an institution does set visitation goals, those goals tend to be between 121 and 150 visits per year. 

Qualification goals are set based on historical institutional data as a percentage of expected visits.  Ideally, according to studies of successful fundraisers, only about 15% of a gift officer’s portfolio should include potential donors who need to be qualified.[6]

Yield rate is a measure of the success of donor interactions, i.e., the percentage of money asked for that is realized in gift commitments.  In other words, if a gift officer were to make asks totaling $10,00,000 over the course of a year, and the gift officer were to secure $5,000,000 in commitments, the officer’s yield rate would be 50%. Depending on the quality of information available and of prior qualification work, a yield rate of 50-75% is considered good.

The closely rated conversion rate measures success in terms of the percentage of solicited donors who give, in other words, the number of solicited donors who give divided by the number of solicited donors. This metric carries with it a significant risk of manipulation; a gift officer could successfully convince a higher percentage of donors to give by asking for only small gifts. Nevertheless, some institutions set conversion rate goals, figuring that working with gift officers to set the amount of asks can minimize the risk of manipulation.

Unique visits are calculated by dividing the number of prospects visited by the number of visits made. Implicit here is that, in any given year, some donors will be visited multiple times, especially as the law school gets close to closing a gift. The ideal and therefore the typical target goal, based on studies of what works to grow fundraising success, seems to be about 50% unique visits.[7]

Major Gift Solicitations Made.  This metric reflects the essential role major donors play in commitment outcomes and seeks to increase the likelihood that a gift officer focuses on securing major gifts. The university sets a target number of major gift asks. While there is some possibility that a gift officer might try to manipulate the data by making major gift asks of a large number of donors, if the university also uses yield rate, the risk is minimal. Targets depend on the number of potential major gift donors in the gift officer’s portfolio and those potential donors’ readiness for a major gift ask.

All Gift Solicitations Made.  This simple counting metric measures the total number of solicitations made by a gift officer. Goals are set based on standards at the institution and the size and nature of the officer’s portfolio. Solicitation goals between 25-30 per year are consistent with the number of annual solicitations of the most successful fundraisers.[8]

New Donors and Donor Retention Rate.  These two metrics focus on numbers of donors rather than quality of donations. New donors measures first-time donors, and donor retention rate measures the percentage of the donor pool that continues to give gifts or continues to perform pre-existing pledges. Together, new donors and retained donors equal total donors. As gift officer performance metrics, these metrics conflict with a general trend in philanthropy— total giving has increased on a per donor basis and overall, but the total number of donors has decreased.  Thus, setting goals that contemplate increases in these metrics may not be rational.

Event Conversion Rate. Institutions often seek to assess the degree to which events are an effective way to inspire alumni giving. This metric allows the institution to quantify that assessment. It is the percentage of alumni who attend an event (a reunion or a regional alumni event) who later chose to donate and therefore is calculated as the number of attendees who donated after attending the event divided by the total number of attendees and then multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.

Return on Investment and Cost Per Dollars Raised.  As you will see, these two metrics examine the success of a fundraising enterprise from opposite lenses. Return on investment is calculated by dividing revenue by expenses resulting in a measure of the fundraising benefits of each dollar spent. If the result is greater than 1, it means the fundraising enterprise made a profit; if the result is less than 1, the enterprise lost money.  Cost per dollars raised is calculated by reversing the numerator and denominator, i.e., dividing expenses by the revenue. If expenses exceed the revenue produced, the result will be a number greater than 1, indicating that the enterprise spent more money than it brought in. If the result is less than 1, the enterprise earned more revenue than it spent and therefore was profitable.  It would be unusual (and redundant) for an enterprise to use both metrics.

Campaign Metrics. The term “campaign” refers to fundraising that occurs over specified time frame and focuses on a specific, predetermined goal. Such goals may be a dollar target not tied to a particular project or initiative, e.g., in five years, raise $10,000,000 for the law school, or a dollar target tied to a specific strategic initiative, i.e., in five years, raise $40,000,000 to build a new building for the law school.

Obviously, the measure of success of all campaigns is the achievement of the dollar target.  However, nearly all of the other metrics explained above can be tied to a campaign, e.g., Return on Investment with respect to the Campaign, Campaign Gift and Major Gift Solicitations Made, Percentage of Alumni Giving to the Campaign, etc.

[1] In fact, law schools vary greatly in terms of where these functions are housed. In some law schools, communications operates as an independent department because law schools’ marketing and communications needs also include student recruitment and yield and current student communications. In other law schools, a university marketing and communications department handles all communications, alumni and otherwise.  For other law schools, a university advancement office handles all these functions with dotted-line reporting to the law school’s dean. Finally, for other law schools, alumni relations is housed exclusively in a university advancement office.

[2] Unique visits are calculated by dividing the number of prospects visited by the number of visits made.  Eduventures, Gift Officer Productivity: Defining New Metrics (Summary Overview for CASE) (2013).

[3] Robert Morse and Erin Brooks, A More Detailed Look at the Ranking Factors: Find out which data is used in our undergraduate rankings and what has changed, https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights, (September 11, 2020).

[4] Robert Morse, Kenneth Hines, Eric Brooks, and Daniel Lara-Agudelo, Methodology: 2023 Best Law Schools Rankings: Find out how U.S. News ranks law schools, https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/law-schools-methodology (March 28, 2022).

[5] Josh Moody, 10 Colleges Where the Most Alumni Donate, https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/universities-where-the-most-alumni-donate (U.S. News).

[6] See Eduventures, Gift Officer Productivity, note 2 above, p. 13.

[7] See Eduventures, Gift Officer Productivity, note 2 above, p. 8-9.

[8] See Eduventures, Gift Officer Productivity, note 2 above, p. 13.

The Career Closet offers gently used professional attire for the students on the Sacramento campus. It gives our students the opportunity to better prepare for the transition into their chosen profession. Whether it be for an interview or your first day on the job, stop by to assemble the perfect outfit that you can keep!

The Career Closet welcomes any professional attire donations in good condition. Questions? Contact Maya Alexandria (malexandria@pacific.edu).

Law students have many opportunities to meet practicing attorneys, judges, and law clerks through various programs and events held throughout the year. It’s a great chance to grow your network and talk to people with years of experience in the field you’re interested in, to find out what it’s really like to practice law outside of a textbook. When planning your career after law school, one of the best things you can do is connect with people who have been doing it for years.

One such event, the ABA’s 23rd annual Judicial Clerkship Program (JCP), was recently held in New Orleans, LA, on February 2-4. The JCP connects law students from diverse backgrounds to judges and law clerks, educating students on the benefits of a judicial clerkship and gives students of color a better chance of being considered for judicial clerkships due to their new-found connections and exposure to judges.

Yuri Khadka (’24)

Four McGeorge students – Kristale Chaney (’24), Yuri Khadka (’24), Elena Lucero (’24), and Jules Jallab (’23) – attended this year’s program, learning as much about what it means to be a judicial clerk as they did about themselves and their career goals. Perceived fraudulence, or imposter syndrome, runs rampant in many industries and the legal field is no exception. Many law students feel that they are not qualified to even apply for certain jobs, scholarships, fellowships, or even attendance at certain events. However, as they would learn at every professional workshop or networking opportunity such as the JCP, your career goals are often furthered more by the connections you’ve developed and happenstance than by academic rankings (academic achievement certainly helps, but it is far from the only qualification considered by employers).

Two of the main takeaways from [the Judicial Clerkship Program] are: 1) You cannot be something you cannot see, and 2) Stop self-selecting yourself out of opportunities.

Yuri Khadka after attending the JCP.

If an opportunity presents itself and you believe there’s even a chance that it can benefit you, don’t be afraid to try! Whether it’s applying for a job or simply tuning into a webinar, take advantage of every opportunity if you’re able.

There are a lot of steps law students must complete on their journey towards bar admission, and it can be a daunting task to try managing everything by yourself. Everyone needs some kind of support system – whether it’s a dedicated study group, a bar-prep course, or just a friend or family member to help keep you motivated.

If you’re looking for answers about how to handle the MPRE, what the Uniform Bar Exam consists of, what exactly you need to do to complete your licensure, or what others experienced during their bar exam, you won’t want to miss AccessLex Institute’s upcoming webinars. There are a variety of info and Q&A sessions in the next few months, so be sure to register for any that appeal to your interests and set yourself up for success! Details for each session are below:

The Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE)
For many students, taking the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) is one of the first steps towards bar admission. Learn about the subject matter eligible for testing on the MPRE, along with important logistical information — when to sit for the exam, how to register, and more. Plus, tips for studying and making your MPRE exam day a success.

• Wednesday, January 18 at 3:00 pm ET
• Tuesday, February 7 at 7:00 pm ET
• Friday, February 24 at 12:00 pm ET

• Wednesday, March 1 at 8:00 pm ET
• Tuesday, March 7 at 3:00 pm ET
• Wednesday, March 22 at 12:00 pm ET

What You Need to Know About the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE)
The overwhelming majority of jurisdictions have adopted the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE). This session will cover each component of the UBE, including the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE), and the Multistate Performance Test (MPT).

• Wednesday, February 8 at 1:00 pm ET
• Monday, March 6 at 12:00 pm ET
• Wednesday, April 19 at 12:00 pm ET

The Road to Licensure
Becoming a licensed attorney goes beyond graduating with your J.D. This session will walk you through the steps to licensure and help you find the information you’ll need to meet all of the requirements for your specific jurisdiction.

• Tuesday, January 24 at 3:00 pm ET
• Thursday, February 9 at 8:00 pm ET
• Thursday, February 23 at 1:00 pm ET

• Tuesday, March 21 at 8:00 pm ET
• Wednesday, April 12 at 12:00 pm ET

5 Tips for Bar Exam Success
Stressed about your upcoming bar exam? Have questions about what the bar exam experience will be like? Join our team of licensed attorneys as they share some of their best tips, answer your questions, and help set you up for success.

• Thursday, March 2 at 8:00 pm ET
• Tuesday, April 4 at 3:00 pm ET
• Wednesday, April 26 at 5:00 pm ET

With the fall semester behind us and spring semester kicking off this week, it’s a good time to reflect on your experience so far and focus on how to make this semester a successful one. Here are three easy tips to make the most of your spring:

  • What worked well?

Looking back at the previous semester, you’ve likely been through some great high points – maybe you aced an exam, paper, or oral argument you’d been anxious about. How did you achieve that success? Was it due to extensive preparation, last-minute cramming, or some combination of the two? Did you take advantage of study groups or drop-in hours with your professor? Think about the things that helped you succeed and work on further developing those strategies.

  • What didn’t work well?

While you may want to move on and forget about the hard times, there are valuable lessons to be learned from those experiences. Sometimes the study methods that worked in college are no longer effective in law school, or maybe you spent weeks writing a paper and the results were less than ideal. Law school is difficult, and everyone will face issues, but the fact that you are here means you’re capable of overcoming the obstacles it puts in front of you. Analyze what didn’t go according to plan and think about how you can change things this semester.

  • What are your goals for spring and summer?

If you hadn’t spent some time during the winter break coming up with a few goals for spring semester, now is the time to do so. It can be something definite and measurable (“earn an A on a Criminal Law exam”; “finish the year with a B+ average”; etc.) or something simpler like joining a study group. Anything that will aid you in your law school journey is a worthwhile goal. You should also start planning your summer – are you going to intern somewhere? Apply for a summer fellowship? Maybe you want to join the Trial Ad team next year and need to start preparing for that; or just take some time to decompress and re-assess some of the choices you made in law school and how to address any issues. There’s no right or wrong answer, but keep in mind that whatever you choose to do (or not) will have an affect on the remainder of your time in law school.

With a little self-reflection, you can make this spring semester work for you and your career goals.

Prisoner protest

As countries around the world continue to grapple with inadequate prison conditions, law students in the U.S. have become fierce advocates for incarcerated individuals. Fighting systemic injustices, these students have fought to improve living conditions, provide medical treatment, and reduce practices such as solitary confinement in prisons, among many other issues facing some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. If you are interested in working with an organization to defend prisoner civil rights, there are many opportunities for the coming 2023 summer.

UCLA School of Law recently compiled a list of summer opportunities for current law students, both paid and unpaid. With positions available across the country, opportunities abound wherever you will be spending the summer. Make sure you apply early as these roles are sure to be filled quickly, and schedule an appointment with a CSO advisor to review your application materials!

2023 Peggy Browning Fund header

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a radical shift in the expectations held by workers regarding the offerings from their employers. Where employees were once resigned to following orders blindly and accepting that what the employer wants is set in stone, there is now a sense that workers can enact change to create a workplace that serves the needs of both the employee and the employer. This shift has not always ended amenably, however – look no further than the current situation at Twitter.

Despite the growing empowerment of the working class, there is still a dire need for others who can stand up for them when an employer refuses to consider change.

If you’re a 1L or 2L and are interested in being an advocate for workers’ rights and workplace justice, we strongly encourage you to apply for the 2023 Peggy Browning Fund Summer Fellowship Program. This is a great opportunity to learn the ins and outs of workers’ rights under the mentorship of practicing labor law attorneys.

Applications are due no later than Friday, January 13, 2023 and offers will start to be made on a rolling basis on Saturday, December 10, so be sure to get your application submitted ASAP! You can read more about the specific fellowship opportunities and application requirements on PBF’s website.

The McGeorge Alternative Summer Advantage Program (“McGeorge ASAP”) is a self-directed volunteer summer legal research project created by alum Lexi Purich Howard and former Asst. Dean of Career Development Molly Stafford in response to COVID-19.  Today, the program provides students with a means of fine-tuning their research and writing skills while discussing a subject they are passionate about. This week’s ASAP paper was authored by Matt Carlson (3L, 2024) under the mentorship of Bianca Samuel (’11), Deputy Attorney General III, Employment & Administrative Mandate Section, Investigations Group.

“In an attempt to screen police candidates and prevent unfit candidates from service, Assemblymembers Jacqui Irwin and Luz Rivas co-sponsored California Assembly Bill 2229, which reenacts the bias requirement training in Government Code Section 1031 related to peace officer minimum standards. The following article provides a background to essential peace officer minimum standards, the history of targeted racial bias reform, failed attempts at overhauling minimum standards, and an overhaul of bias evaluation requirements.”

Read the full paper here.