The Council on Legal Education Opportunities (CLEO) has evolved from a federally-funded program to a private one. It is currently sponsored by the ABA, law schools, law firms and corporations. Its purpose is to give applicants, especially disadvantaged ones, a head start.
The CLEO program is a combination head start program and placement service. CLEO participants attend a six week summer school program at one of their Institutes. There are usually three Institutes, in three different locations. Your work is periodically evaluated, and law schools are given the opportunity to review your evaluations and to interview you. Virtually all CLEO attendees go off to law school at the end of that summer.
The tuition for the Summer Institutes is $200 for low-income applicants and $2,000 for others. “Low-income” is defined as an applicant whose adjusted gross income for IRS purposes is less than $22,500, and whose parents’ whose adjusted gross income is less than $40,000.
CLEO is designed to help disadvantaged applicants who are marginally acceptable to one or more law schools, or whom a law school thinks has a much better chance of long-term success with a head start. The typical CLEO participant has a lower gpa or LSAT than the law school usually accepts, and something in the application leads the law school to believe that, with proper preparation, the applicant has a good chance of succeeding.
The good prospect for CLEO will vary a great deal depending on the schools to which you are applying. If your gpa and LSAT are marginal for a top school, and you think that some disadvantage affected your performance, you might be a good CLEO candidate. And if your gpa and LSAT seem so low that no law school will take a chance on you, CLEO might be the factor that changes their minds. In general, though, you must have at least a 2.7 and at least a 140 to have a chance of being accepted to CLEO.
CLEO isn’t the best route for everyone. You must attend for six weeks, with no children, lovers (legal or otherwise) or pets along with you, and no weekends off. If family obligations of any sort will prevent you from moving in for six weeks, CLEO isn’t a good idea. Students are expected to work hard at these Institutes, so you should apply only if you’re willing to work overtime to prove yourself. Also, you’ll need a school to be willing to take you as a CLEO graduate. Since the purpose of CLEO is to help disadvantaged applicants, a law school might not make the commitment if there is no evidence of disadvantage (either financial, physical, or emotional) in your file.
There’s a three-part acceptance process at CLEO. The first part is completing the application, which looks much like a law school application. The main difference is that it focuses more attention on disadvantage than the typical app. CLEO will get an LSDAS report, any recs that you marked as "general" in the Law Services LOR system, a personal statement and recommendation, and financial aid information. The application fee is $20, and will not be waived for anybody. You will also have to apply to at least one CLEO supporting or member school. (A list of those schools appears below.)
The second part is in the hands of the law schools. Shortly after the application deadline (Feb.1), member schools are sent a list of applicants, along with information about your gpa, major, etc. Each CLEO supporting or member school tells the CLEO Program Director whether the school
The third part involves both the CLEO Program Director and the three Institute (summer school) Directors. The law schools’ responses and the applications are reviewed by these directors, and roughly 35 people are chosen to attend each of the three Institutes. Since each Institute Director is part of the decision-making process, the criteria for selection will vary with the interests of the directors (just as discretionary admissions decisions are made at most law schools). The strength of the schools’ interest in you will be a part of the decision, as will the quality of your application.
Since one of the goals of CLEO is to select applicants who will go on to law school at the end of the summer, you should apply to as many schools as possible who nominate students to CLEO (see note below). You should make sure each such school knows that you are a CLEO applicant, so they can consider that possibility in making the admissions decision. If your personal statement does not discuss the disadvantages you have faced, you should include your CLEO essay in your file. If you are accepted into the CLEO program, you should notify all the school to which you applied, so thy can reconsider your case with that additional knowledge.
It will help you to be accepted to CLEO if one or more member schools nominates
you. The following sample list shows schools who were listed in the
1998 CLEO bulletin as member schools. The list changes every year, though;
look in the current CLEO catalog to see who's a sponsor. You should
contact the CLEO schools to see how you can get them to nominate you.
The admissions staff from the following schools told us in our fall interviews
that they recruit at the CLEO Summer Institutes either in person or by reviewing
written reviews if they have space left in their class. It will
increase your chances of acceptance if you apply to these schools. Then if
you are accepted into the CLEO program, you should contact those schools
and tell them you'd like to be recruited.
The admissions staff from the following schools told us in our fall
interviews that they will either hold your file or reconsider it if you are
accepted to attend the CLEO Summer Institutes. It will increase your
chances of acceptance if you apply to these schools. Then if you are accepted
into the CLEO program, you should contact those schools and tell them you
are attending CLEO.