Practice With Impact Resource Hub

Across the United States, people of color are overrepresented in the legal system but underrepresented in legal education and the legal profession.

The legal profession is not representative of the people it serves in part because of mass incarceration and criminalization. Involvement with the criminal legal systems creates barriers to important educational and employment opportunities in the law for many people of color and their families over multiple generations.

While the backgrounds of people seeking to enter the legal field ought to be considered, the overbroad and stigmatizing factors that are currently used by law schools and state bar admissions administrators serve to gatekeep the profession and exacerbate existing racial and social inequities. Legal education and practice would benefit from the diversity of experience that people impacted by the system bring, and yet these are the very people the profession excludes.

The Practice with Impact Resource Hub is an information space geared toward making law school and legal education more accessible for system impacted students. It features current research, reports, data, initiatives, news articles and other resources that serve two audiences: System Impacted Students interested in legal education and the legal profession and Law School Administrators, Faculty, Students, and Staff interested in making their law school and the legal profession more accessible for system impacted students.

CDLP categorizes and shares resources from researchers, scholars, organizations, and journalists focused on issues related to legal education for system-impacted people. We also share CDLP generated reports and information in this space. The resources featured currently center on New York State and will expand nationwide.Resources that appear on this website are not necessarily endorsed by CDLP.