From left: Second-year students and Latino/a Law Student Association members Gilberto Ruiz, Alicia Ayala, Claudia Cisneros and Danesa Tamayo stand
with LLSA faculty adviser Professor Robert Jones.
Northern Illinois University’s College of Law has been named a Top 5 Regional Law School for Latina/o Students by Lawyers of Color, a minority legal organization.
The school will be featured in the inaugural edition of the Latina/o Students Guide to Law Schools 2015, published by Lawyers of Color.
Lawyers of Color previously recognized NIU Law as a Top 5 Regional Law School for African-American students.
“Our two diversity recognitions from Lawyers of Color are especially important to NIU Law as they underscore our commitment to encouraging diversity in NIU’s student and faculty population and to increasing access by providing a cost-effective, high-quality legal education,” said NIU Law Dean Jennifer Rosato Perea.
Lawyers of Color based its selection criteria on a number of factors including affordable tuition, high percentage of Latina/o students in its population, employment figures, Latina/o distinguished alumni and GPA and LSAT scores of admitted students.
“Lawyers of Color strives to equip Latina/o prospective law students with the tools to become discerning consumers of law school education,” said Yolanda Young, CEO and publisher of Lawyers of Color. “We highly endorse the law schools that appear on our list. After months of careful and meticulous research, we are confident these law schools provide the clearest path to law school success for Hispanic attorneys.”
Jennifer L. Rosato Perea
“The NIU Law Latino/a Student Association (LLSA) continues to grow every year and strives to be a resource to students through networking events, speaker presentation, community services, and community-strengthening gatherings, said Danesa Tamayo, president of LLSA. “LLSA enters into dialogue on the legal needs of communities that surround them and encourages students to become better leaders within their communities.”
Dean Rosato Perea is the first female dean of the NIU College of Law and is amongst only a handful of minority women deans across the country. Under her guidance, NIU Law has enacted numerous initiatives to advance its mission of promoting diversity, professionalism and academic excellence.
In addition to recognition from Lawyers of Color, NIU Law has received recent accolades from The National Jurist as one of the most diverse law schools in the country.
The dean was further honored individually with a 2013 Vanguard Award from the Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois which recognizes lawyers, judges and institutions who champion diversity, making the law and the legal profession more accessible to and reflective of the community at large, and a 2013 Distinguished Leadership Award from Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. In addition, she was named among the 2013 Hispanic 50 nationally by Hispanic Executive Magazine.
As the only public law school in northern Illinois, NIU College of Law has been named a top law school nationally for diversity, value, and careers in public interest/government service.
