First-Year Law School Class: A Focus on Students with Disabilities, 2023 Update

Disproportionate burdens are placed on students with disabilities[1], in life and in law school, as compared to students without disabilities — whether it’s the often costly and time-consuming process of having to prove one’s disability, difficulties obtaining accommodations, confronting stigmas around the receipt of accommodations, or other aspects of living and learning in a largely non-accessible world.[2] These processes can be isolating and affect students’ sense of belonging. It can be particularly difficult when students have “non-apparent” disabilities — such as mental health disorders, chronic pain, autoimmune disorders, and other types of disabilities — which can result in feeling extra pressure to “perform” one’s disability in order to be believed. The multiple identities of law students with disabilities (i.e., the intersectionality of identities) can exacerbate existing inequities; for example, socioeconomic barriers for students with disabilities are compounded for racially and ethnically marginalized[3] students with disabilities.[4]

To date, there is limited data about how many students with disabilities enroll in law school each year. In October 2023, LSAC distributed a survey to 2023 first-year law students to build on our understanding of who current law school matriculants are and what factors they considered to determine which law school(s) would meet their academic, professional, and personal needs. This is the second year LSAC has included questions on disabilities in this survey.[5]

The purpose of this update to the report “2022 First-Year Law School Class: A Focus on Students with Disabilities” is to add to the knowledge base regarding the journey to law school for students with disabilities and provide further information that can be used by law schools to better understand and effectively address the barriers that law school candidates with disabilities face. These factors include personal considerations, such as whether to disclose a disability to law schools and why disabilities were or were not disclosed on applications. The report also reiterates the extensive recommendations from the 2022 report that are still highly applicable and schools can use to 1) assess their own practices and policies that impact students with disabilities and 2) think about ways to remove barriers for students with disabilities from the application stage all the way to graduation.
Key insights from the update report include:

• In 2023, 12% of students in their first year of law school identified as a person with a disability. This is the same as the proportion who identified as students with disabilities in 2022.
• The most commonly reported disabilities included mental health disabilities (59%) followed by developmental or intellectual disabilities (28%), cognitive or processing disabilities (27%), and physical disabilities (21%). The proportion of 1Ls reporting each category of disabilities is similar to those reported in 2022.
• Students reporting a disability were more likely to be white, continuing-generation college graduates, women, and straight/heterosexual students. This is also similar to respondents in 2022.
• Students with disabilities entered law school with significantly higher average undergraduate education debt loads than students without disabilities. The difference in average debt load (approximately $9,000 higher for students with disabilities) was almost exactly the same as the average difference in undergraduate debt loads reported in the 2022 survey.
• Almost half of all 1Ls with disabilities (49%) disclosed their disability on all their law school applications, just slightly more than those who disclosed to all in 2022 (46%). Racially and ethnically marginalized 1Ls were more likely not to disclose their disabilities (43%) than their white (37%) peers with disabilities. This is similar to the trend in 2022.
• Students who enrolled in the top 25% highly selective law schools were less likely to disclose to all schools they applied to (42%) compared to students in law schools in the second, third, and fourth selectivity quartiles (49%, 49%, and 58%, respectively).[6]

To learn more about how students with disabilities experience the journey to law school, as well as important aspects in their decision-making process, please download the full report.

If you have any questions related to this project or future work informed by the results, please contact LSAC DEI and Applied Research at DiversityOffice@LSAC.org and StrategicResearch@LSAC.org.

[1] LSAC has chosen to use person-first language in alignment with the National Organization on Disability, the American Association of People with Disabilities, and the American Bar Association. Person-first language is largely recognized as emphasizing the individual over their disability, condition, or diagnosis. We respect and honor an individual’s personal preferences when referring to their own disability, including the use of identity-first language.

[2] Emens, E. F. (2020). Disability admin: The invisible costs of being disabled. Minn. L. Rev., 105, 2329.

[3] The term marginalized refers to populations that historically have been excluded, disempowered, disenfranchised, or otherwise treated as being insignificant, unimportant or peripheral. Marginalized can be used to describe various populations and is not synonymous with or limited to racially/ethnically underrepresented populations.

[4] Payne-Tsoupros, C. (2020). A starting point for disability justice in legal education. Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity (JCSCORE), 6(1), 165-189.

[5] These questions were developed with the input of a focus group of current and former law students with disabilities organized by the Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation as well as the ABA Council on Disability Rights.

[6] Based on the 2023 admission rate, median LSAT of admitted students, and mean UGPA of admitted students, each school is assigned a selectivity index score used to create quartiles of law school selectivity. The top 25% highly selective law schools are in quartile 1 (Q1).