UNLV law school rated No. 9 for Hispanics

By Timothy Pratt

Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004 | 10:59 a.m.

Leticia Saucedo remembers trying to find a professor at Harvard to talk to about feeling out of place in the Ivy League after leaving her birthplace in South Texas, which she said was "98 percent Mexican."

She also recalls writing her thesis on Prop. 187, the 1994 California initiative that would have barred undocumented students from the state's public schools if the federal courts had not ruled the measure unconstitutional.

"No one on the faculty understood why I felt so strongly," she said, after leading a session Monday at the Boyd School of Law's Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Her Hispanic students at UNLV won't go through the same ordeals, and that, in part, is why she thinks Hispanic Business magazine, in its September issue, named the Boyd School of Law No. 9 in the top 10 law schools in the nation for Hispanics.

The ranking is based on the percentage of Hispanic students, full-time Hispanic faculty, services, recruitment efforts, and the quality of education.

Professors and students alike at Boyd Tuesday mentioned these same factors, especially the growing number of Hispanic students -- 40 of 300, or 13.3 percent -- and Hispanic faculty members -- 4 out of 40, or 10 percent.

Those numbers contrast sharply with Saucedo's memories of Harvard Law School, where her 1996 graduating class of about 550 had less than 20 Hispanic students -- and no Hispanic faculty members.

"At a cultural level, (the Hispanic professors at Boyd) are something I can relate to," said Chelsie Campbell, due to graduate from the program in May.

Campbell, whose mother moved to the United States from Cuba 30 years ago, is the first person in her family to go to law school.

That makes her feel different from her peers. "A lot of my classmates have parents who are attorneys," she said.

Tony Sanchez, a partner at the Las Vegas law office of Jones Vargas and former president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, was the first person in his family to attend college. He said it is important for Hispanic students to have role models among faculty and peers.

"This makes it easier to recruit," he said. He predicted that the state's growing Hispanic population will seek Hispanic attorneys, particularly those who are bilingual.

Mike Feliciano and Chris Cannon, who like Campbell are studying in the immigration law clinic at Boyd with Saucedo this semester, are the first persons in their respective families to reach higher education at all.

Feliciano, whose deceased father was from Puerto Rico and whose mother is from Mexico, said his impending December graduation makes him a role model for his family.

And though the three have an abiding interest in immigration law -- "to give back to the community," Cannon said -- the 40 students are as diverse in their interests as they are in their Hispanic backgrounds.

Those interests range from commercial to criminal law, and the students' backgrounds, from recent immigrants to third generation Americans in Hispanic families, Saucedo said.

Raquel Aldana, an associate professor at Boyd, graduated from Harvard a year after Saucedo.

She said the state's large Hispanic population helps the school's efforts to attract Hispanic students. That population was at nearly 20 percent in the 2000 census.

The rising Hispanic population nationwide has been accompanied by an increase in Hispanics in higher education in recent years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In 1980, Hispanics were only 4 percent of students enrolled in colleges and universities. By 2000, that number was 10 percent.

Still, Aldana, like Saucedo, recalled how out of place she sometimes felt in the Ivy League.

"I think our students may not realize how lucky they are," she said.

Dean Richard Morgan said he was happy about the "national recognition" the law school has received in its short life, referring to U.S. News and World Report magazine ranking the school in its top 100 list earlier this year and the Hispanic Business ranking this month. The school was fully accredited by the American Bar Association last year.

This particular ranking, he said, was also significant because Boyd students "are going be practicing law in a very diverse world."

"It is important to provide opportunities to all segments of society -- not just the white, upper class."