Holmes, Saada selected to List of Influential Persons in Legal Education
National Jurist magazine has named La Verne Law Dean Gilbert Holmes and Assistant Dean Jendayi Saada to its list of the Top 50 Influential Persons in Legal Education.
“Yesterday I was advised that Assistant Dean Jendayi Saada and I were each nominated to National Jurist’s Top 50 Influential Persons in Legal Education,” Holmes said in statement released on October 28. “Dean Saada was nominated for her being a bar results turn-around agent and I was nominated for instituting the True Tuition Model of a flat-rate tuition for all our law students.”
The list of 50 has been submitted to law school administrators and prior recipients for a vote to determine the top 25. La Verne Law is one of just six law schools in the nation to have two individuals selected to the list.
Holmes, who began his tenure as dean in June 2013, enjoyed an auspicious first year. During that time he helped establish new vision and mission statements for the law school and developed five core principles that would form the foundation for the La Verne Law Model of Legal Education.
The True Tuition Model, unveiled in March 2014, eliminated the merit scholarship paradigm at the College of Law, replacing it with a $25,000 flat fee for all fulltime students. That announcement inserted La Verne Law into the national conversation about the expense of attending law school, resulting in the True Tuition Model being cited in articles appearing in a number of high-profile publications.
Saada, Assistant Dean for CABR and Professor of Law, came to the law school in June 2012. Under her leadership, CABR has had a positive impact on student success, both academically and on the bar exam. Its Bar Exam Strategic Training (BEST) Program, a customized post-graduation bar review program provided to students immediately after graduation at no cost, has resulted in a marked improvement in the law school’s first-time bar pass rate.
The July 2013 California Bar Exam results showed a double-digit improvement in the pass rate percentage of first-time takers versus the July 2012 exam. The February 2014 first-time pass rate came in 19 percentage points above the statewide average; and, when combined with the July 2014 pass rate of 66% gives La Verne Law a first-time success rate of 73% for the year.
