The Earl Warren Legal Training Program, an educational affiliate of the NAACP…

    PressRelease F Se 5. ae 
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Contacts: Norman Bloomfield & . 
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. Pee 
(212) -586-8397 + cleat 

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Avery Russell onmel 
Carnegie Corporation of New York Fo 
(212) -753-3100 TBarefre, a aah 

FOR RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 
AFTER 11:00 A.M. 

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 17--The Earl Warren Legal Training Program, 

an educational affiliate of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund 

(LDF) has received grants totalling $1,260,250 from Carnegie Corporation 

of New York and the Rockefeller Foundation aimed at increasing the number 

of black lawyers in the South. 

The awards--$960,250 from Carnegie and $300;000 from Rockefeller-- 

were announced here today by the Fund's director-counsel Jack Greenberg, 

at a press conference with former Chief Justice Earl Warren, honorary 

chairman of the program, and a group of black lawyers and law students 

assisted by the programs. Mr. Greenberg said the funds will provide 

scholarships to black law students for three years of law school and also 

post-graduate fellowships to further their training in civil rights law. 

At the same time, Carnegie Corporation released a report evaluating 

the effectiveness of the last five years of grants given by foundations, 

corporations, and the general public to the Legal Defense Fund and the 

Law Students Civil Rights Research Council (LSCRRC)--organizations involved 

in every aspect of the program to encourage blacks to enter law schools 

and practice in the South. The report, entitled A Step Toward Equal Jus- 

tice: Programs to Increase Black Lawyers in the South 1969-1973, includes 

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NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. | 10 Columbus Circle | New York, N.Y. 10019 | (212) 586-8397 

William T. Coleman, Jr. - President Jack Greenberg - Director-Counsel 



Si 

school-by-school enrollment statistics. It shows dramatic gains made 

since 1969 in the number of law students trained in 17 predominantly 

white southern law schools--13 state university law schools and four 

private schools (Duke, Vanderbilt, Tulane, Emory). Between 1969 and fall 

1973, the report stated, black law student enrollment in these schools 

increased from about 22 to 375, nearly three-quarters of whom were 

Earl Warren Scholars. By June 1973 the program provided support for a 

total of 229 graduates, 102 of them graduating last spring. The report 

suggests that since several hundred black law students are currently en- 

rolled, this level of graduates should continue over the next few years. 

Mr. Greenberg said the new grants underscore the findings of the 

report. The additional funds, he said, "will further assure that the 

hard-won civil rights laws of the 1960's will not remain abstract concepts. 

Law is an abstraction until it is made available to people--and for the 

black community that means black lawyers who can help give concrete reality 

to the law's generality." 

The Carnegie grant will support about 40 new scholarships to be 

awarded each year for three consecutive years starting next fall as well 

as 12 four-year post-graduate fellowships. The fellowship program, also 

supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, will provide for a year of post- 

graduate internships in civil rights law under Legal Defense Fund super- 

vision, followed by three years of diminishing stipends which serve as 

fees for civil rights litigation while the young lawyers establish their 

practice, under continued Legal Defense Fund supervision, in southern 

communities where there is an acute shortage of black lawyers. To date, 

71 fellowships have been awarded. 

The report noted that the fellowship "has been extremely successful 

in its basic purpose of getting black lawyers into active practice in the 

South. Without the fellowships many would have likely chosen other careers." 

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The Earl Warren Legal Training Program was launched in 1970, devel- 

oping as an outgrowth of an earlier Legal Defense Fund program established 

in 1963 with initial funding from the Field Foundation. Between 1969 and 

1973, grants to the program totalled approximately $3.75 million from 21 

foundations including major grants from the Field Foundation, Carnegie 

Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Alfred 

P. Sloan Foundation, the Fleischmann Foundation and scores of other indiv- 

iduals and corporations. About $2.9 million of this was spent on the 

southern program. 

During this period the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council 

also received more than $1.6 million from 38 foundations and 15,000 

individuals, of which about $650,000 was spent in the South to recruit 

black students into law schools, provide tutorials and counseling in law 

school, and summer internship experience. 

The results of the Carnegie-commissioned evaluation of these programs, 

which concentrates on the Ford and Carnegie grants, shows that in the 

last five years: 

* Larger numbers of black students are staying in the South to 
go to law school and intend to stay there to practice. Since 
1969, the number of first-year black law students at these 
17 southern law schools has increased from 22 to about 171 
The total number of black students enrolled in those same schools 
in the fall of 1973 amounted to 375. Of 210 students who re- 
sponded to a questionnaire, 171 intended to practice in the 
South. 

% Almost all the 17 predominantly white southern law schools 
are recruiting black students, and applications from black 
undergraduates have increased from 396 in 1970 to 768 in 1972. 

The increased numbers of black students made it easier to 
appoint the first black law professors at six state university 
law schools. 

+ The number of black students graduating from these 17 law 
schools has increased dramatically in the last few years. 
By June of 1972, the program had produced 127 graduates; in 
June of 1973, the Warren program could count 102 additional 
graduates, for a total of 229 graduates, most of them in the 
last two years. Since several hundred black law students are 

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currently enrolled, this level of graduates should continue 
over the next few years 

* The summer internship program, which LSCRRC administered, 
placed in the South more than 481 students of both races 
(approximately 50 percent of them black) into summer working 
experiences in civil rights law firms or organizations, and 
government legal programs. The programs, evaluated as "an 
important skills-building experience" has increased the desire 
of students to complete law school by giving them the con- 
fidence that they could function as civil rights attorneys 
The program also provided a way for black students in northern 
law schools to test the South for a summer as a place to 
practice after graduation. 

% The attrition rate for Warren scholarship students declined 
from 30 percent in 1969 when all recipients were first-year 
students, to 10 percent in 1971, and dropped off significantly 
for second- and third-year students. The overall dropout 
rate is actually about one-third less than the figures would 
indicate since a significant percentage have been readmitted 
in subsequent semesters cr transferred to other law schools 

* Larger numbers of young -lack lawyers are choosing to practice 
in the South. Mississippi, for example, has 49 lawyers in 
the black bar, more than quadruple the 1969 figure. 

% Young black lawyers are being drawn into a larger leadership 
role in their communities in the South. Former Warren 
fellows, for example, are serving as the mayor of a town in 
Alabama, in the state legislature in Arkansas, as a municipal 
judge in Houston, on the Board of Elections and the Selective 
Service Board in North Carolina, as a Democratic county chair- 
man in Mississippi, on the city council in Arkansas. Of the 
39 Warren fellowships awarded since 1970, 12 fellows are in 
the first year of their internship and 25 have already begun 
law practice in southern areas. 

The report points out that while substantial gains have been made 

in black law school enrollment, blacks still represent only about 3 per- 

cent of the total number of students enrolled in the 17 predominantly 

white southern law schools. None of these schools has a proportion of 

black students higher than 7 percent of its student body. 

"The law schools still have a long way to go to reach a proportion 

of black students equal to the black population in their states," Greenberg 

stated. "Equal representation in southern courts will never occur until 

there are sufficient black lawyers for every black person who needs one." 

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Today's announced grants bring the total amount contributed to the 

legal training program to $5,024,464 since 1969. 

The President of the Earl Warren Legal Training Program is William 

T. Coleman, Jr. of Philadelphia, Pa., and the Vice President ig Louis H. 

Pollak of New Haven, Conn. 

Members of the Executive Committee include: Jean K. Benjamin, 

Ramsey Clark, Adrian W. DeWind, Walter Gellhorn and Chauncey L. Waddell 

of New York City; Julius L. Chambers, Charlotte, N.C.; Marian Wright 

Edelman, Cambridge, Mass.; Clifford L. Alexander, Jr., Patricia Roberts 

Harris, James M. Nabrit, Jr., Washington, D.C.; and Judge William H. 

Hastie and Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Philadelphia, Pa. 



Black Students Enrolled in 
17 Predominantly White Law Schools 1968-1973 Total Tota Pare 

First-Year Black Students Barlineis “Bae. “Benes 
1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 C Fall 1973) 

Alabama 0 8 2 8 4 3 10 500 2 
Arkansas NDA 4° 5* Be.) 20 9 18 38 639 5.95 

(includes Little Rock 
and Fayetteville) 

Duke 0 3 4 7 8 13 24 467 5.14 

Emory NDA NDA NDA NDA 9* 17 27 627 4.33 

Florida NDA NDA 2° 19 14 16 35, 1006 3.48 
Florida State 7 9 10 9 12 il 32 499 641 
Georgia 0 3 4 8 4 9 14 658 2.13 
Kentucky 3 6 12 10 2 8 18 502 3.59 
LSU 1 0 1 uf 1 6 15 943 1.59 
Mississippi 4 10 11 18 cl 6 12 667 1.80 

North Carolina i) 2 5 5 10 14 23 696 3.30 
South Carolina NDA NDA 3* 14* 13" 16 26 879 2.96 
Tennessee NDA 3 3 1 5 5 il 690 1.59 
Texas 3 13 5* 3° 5* 7 11 1623 0.68 
Tulane 1 2 3 8 5 3 14 574 2.44 
Vanderbilt NDA NDA 5* 5* 13* 15 33 485 6.80 
Virginia 3 13 12 9 17 9 32 962 3.33 

Totals 22 76 87 136 149° 174. 375, 12,417 3.02 

* Statistics with asterisks supplied by LSCRRC; all other statistics supplied by the law school administrations. 

Notes: a. pone figures do not include other minoriti ies. 
he phrase “first-year class” occasionally includes transfers and readmissions repeating their first year. 

4 NDA indicates no data available. 
d. All data collected in fall of each year.