Filled with dreams of courtrooms and oral arguments, more than 125,000 aspiring jurists entered law schools nationwide in the fall of 1998, according to the American Bar Association. Of those, just over 25,000 were minorities. As part of the ongoing effort to increase the number of minorities in the pool of prospective lawyers, the DePaul University College of Law will host a six-week pre-law summer institute sponsored by the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO).

For 40 promising minority or economically disadvantaged students from across the country who might otherwise never have the opportunity to study the law, DePaul’s CLEO program will provide them with the boost needed to meet the challenges of law school. The program, which runs June 7 though July 17, will introduce students to such topics as legal terminology, legal methods, abstract thinking and legal writing.

"CLEO is designed to help promising law students whose grades and /or admission tests are not the best, but who have something that indicates they would make a sound contribution to the legal profession," said Philip Ashley, a DePaul law professor and the director of DePaul’s CLEO program. "We want the legal profession open to everyone, but not everyone tests well and that one factor may keep them from pursuing a law degree. CLEO gives these students, who shows real potential, a second chance."

That second chance comes in the form of hard work. CLEO students at DePaul are put through the paces of a mini first year of law school. They are taught by a team of College of Law professors, use the same books as first year law students and take the same exams.

The accelerated summer institute includes introductions to the role of judicial opinions in the American legal system and the fundamentals of brief preparation and writing. Students take courses in contract law, torts, legal writing, and how to study for and take law school exams. They also participate in seminars where minority lawyers give students no nonsense advice on such issues as surviving the law school experience and building a successful law career.

"CLEO gave me a sneak preview of what to expect in law school," said Tammy Skeete, a second year DePaul law student who attended DePaul’s CLEO institute last summer. " When classes began in the fall, I knew how to approach my reading and schedule my time. I didn’t fret because I knew what to expect."

Skeete, a native New Yorker, found her experience at the CLEO institute hosted by DePaul last summer so rewarding that she chose to attend law school at DePaul instead of at the University of South Carolina, where she had already been accepted. DePaul enrolled seven of the 39 students who participated in its institute last summer.

Upon successfully completing the CLEO program, participants who have not already been accepted to law schools pending their participation in the institute are recruited by law schools across the country.

CLEO, which is a non-profit organization that was established in 1968, is governed by the Association of American Law Schools, the American Bar Association, the Law School Admission Council, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the National Bar Association. Since its inception more than 6,000 lawyers have gotten their start through CLEO institutes.

The CLEO institute at DePaul is one of two sites for the program this summer. Forty students also will attend a CLEO institute hosted by the University of Missouri at Kansas City. CLEO received 750 applications for the 80 total slots available this summer.