Faye Deal
Associate Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid

What three books would you choose to include in a new library if your hometown library had been destroyed? This is a question Faye Deal added to the Stanford Law School admissions application last year, a question meant to tease out just a little bit more about the applicant (many of the books students chose now fill her bookshelf). They aren’t trick questions and Deal isn’t looking for gimmicks as she sifts through the 4,500 or so applications to Stanford Law School each year. With many more qualified applicants than spaces available, she’s looking for that special something in each aspiring law student who will take one of the 180 places in the 1L class.

“There are very easy decisions on the tail ends—very easy ‘yes’ decisions and very easy ‘no’ decisions. The hard work is somewhere in the middle,” she says in the interview that follows.

When Deal took over as the head of admissions for Stanford Law School in 1992, she was thrown in at the deep end. Deal’s predecessor, Dora Hjertberg, had decided to retire, her parting recommendation to Paul Brest, dean at the time, was to name Deal as her successor. Deal already knew the law school well—she had joined the staff in 1985 as an assistant registrar and climbed up the ladder, moving on to assistant director of admissions and then director of admissions. She was familiar with the work and jumped in, developing her own style and putting her imprint on the law school in a lasting way. During her tenure, Deal has been an intimate part of Stanford Law’s steady rise in national ranking. Today, she directs one of the most competitive admissions programs in the country. She’s made it a very high-touch process, and many students continue to stop by Deal’s office long after they graduate.

Deal likes acronyms, though her favorite isn’t related to Stanford but is one she picked up years ago from her son’s Little League coach: LFAP, or, look for another play. It’s a mindset for Deal, a way to make the best of situations. It could explain why her door is usually open—to faculty, alumni, students, and staff stopping by to talk. There is a calm about her, even when she’s got hundreds of files to read. She’s ready for whatever comes her way.

Robert Rabin
Faculty Chair of the Admissions Committee and A. Calder Mackay Professor of Law

Robert Rabin has chaired the SLS Admissions Committee five times, long enough to know that it takes a lot of his time—and that time spent on helping to put together the 1L class is worthwhile.

“It’s intrinsically important to the law school,” he says. “It’s also very interesting because it gives me a sense of the applicants—beyond what I get in the classroom—the personal statements, the range of activities, and the experiences that they’ve had.”

Taking on this appointment—and reading hundreds of files—is made easier because he knows he’ll be working with Faye Deal. “She’s a pleasure,” he says.

An expert on torts and legislative compensation schemes, Rabin is highly regarded for his extensive knowledge of the history and institutional dynamics of accident law. He is a prolific author on issues relating to the functions of the tort system and alternative regulatory schemes and is the co-editor of a classic casebook on tort law. He has been at the cutting-edge of liability questions since joining the faculty in 1970. His most recent scholarship explores the ways in which liability laws will need to change as we move to automated vehicles and encounter new questions: Is the owner of the car liable, or the vehicle manufacturer? Should liability remain in tort, or should responsibility be established through a no-fault system? These are the questions that law students will also be asking.

Rabin’s scholarship in the field has been widely recognized. He has received the John G. Fleming Award in Torts from UC Berkeley School of Law in 2011; the William Prosser Award for Scholarship, Teaching, and Service from the Association of American Law Schools Torts and Compensation Section in 2008; and the Robert B. McKay Award from the American Bar Association for Contributions to Torts and Insurance Fields in 1997. He served as advisor on the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law (Third) of Torts and the Restatement of Products Liability and was the program director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Program on Tobacco Policy Research and Evaluation, as well as a co-reporter for the American Law Institute Project on Compensation and Liability for Product and Process Injuries and reporter for the American Bar Association Action Commission to Improve the Tort Liability System.

—By Sharon Driscoll

RABIN: Faye, you’ve been in the admissions department at Stanford Law School for more than 30 years. Has admissions changed much in that time?

DEAL: During my first few years, I was under the tutelage of John Barton and Tom Grey, who alternated as chairs of the admissions committee. I was so fortunate to have their guidance. Since I started, there have been changes in the way that LSATs are scored—10-48 versus 120-180. They would be surprised by that. I think they would be happy about some of the other changes—the increase in the number of women, the number students of color, the number of students coming in with work and life experience, and the number of students coming in with advanced degrees in other disciplines who want to combine those studies with the study of law.

For sure, you’ll see that scores and academic records have been on the rise, but that basic inquisitiveness, that aspiration to be problem solvers, that desire and longing to bring about change are still constant. It was there then and it’s still there now.

RABIN: The reputation of the school has certainly risen. How have rankings affected applications?

DEAL: U.S. News and World Report started ranking law schools, I think, around 1990. I don’t think people choose us based specifically on rankings, but I believe they think about the rankings. I’m not sure the rankings have led directly to stronger applicants because we’ve always had strong applicants. I think there’s a stronger correlation with the changes that we’ve made to the school’s program. For example, the shift to the quarter system and the focus on interdisciplinary work are attracting a certain kind of candidate. And those applicants’ interests dovetail nicely with how the school sees itself. So, it’s not so much that the pool is changing, but that the school has developed in a certain way that applicants are finding attractive and then choosing to be a part of.

RABIN: The law school is really known for its close-knit classes. That starts with admission. What are some critical decisions that go into building a class?

DEAL: We look at a variety of things in applicants. Academic vitality is very important. We scrutinize the transcripts—looking at whether they stayed with a safe and narrow road, or whether they explored outside of their majors and how far afield they ventured. We want to make sure that they were digging deep in their courses and weren’t just taking the easy ones. We scrutinize resumes to see if and how they contributed to another community—whether, if we admit them, they would make a similar effort to engage and contribute to our community. We scrutinize their letters of recommendation. We want to see what impressed other people. We scrutinize their personal statement to see if they can write because writing is so important in law school. But, just as important and sometimes even more so, we want to see how they view the world and that comes through in their personal statement. We’re big fans of this notion of distance traveled—where you started and where you are when you apply and what happened between those two points. So, we’re looking for that too.

RABIN: You accept more students than will wind up coming to Stanford Law. What efforts are made to keep the students you’ve accepted? Yale, Harvard, and Stanford chase a lot of the same applicants.

DEAL: Our pools definitely overlap. A lot of the work begins after we’ve made our first offers of admissions. We know candidates are going to have to choose between schools. We start by introducing them to life here. We match admitted students with current students, with faculty members, with affinity groups, and with alums—enlisting help from these people who know the school and the programs so well. And then we fly prospective students out for Admit Weekend. Years ago, very early on in my tenure, admits made the trip out here on their own. I remember a conversation with a Stanford colleague at the undergraduate level and he asked why we didn’t fly them out as they did with the undergrads. It was a novel idea then for law schools. So, we tried it. Once we get them out here for a full weekend of activities, they can begin to imagine actually being at Stanford for the next three years—how they would fit into the larger university and whether they would thrive in this place. You can only do so much on the web, with phone calls, or emails.

RABIN: How important is the law school’s support structure for minorities and first-generation students?

DEAL: The affinity groups are very important. The impact is felt very early on because the affinity groups help us by engaging with applicants before the 1L class begins. The Law School Admission Council [LSAC] has a huge database. When you apply, or even if you’re just considering applying, you can opt into a service where law schools can search for certain qualities or criteria, which we use. Every fall, we engage the affinity groups—the minority student organizations, the Women of Stanford Law, veterans, first-generation students, and so on—to help us reach out. We’re doing mailings right now with the affinity group leadership, and they include their personal statements and resumes. This helps applicants see what our students have done. And once the 1Ls are here, they have an established connection and can rely on their affinity groups for support. But if you’re a first-gen student, for example, you’re not only going to be contacted by first-gen current students, you’re going to be contacted by other groups as well. During Admit Weekend, affinity groups also play a critical role. But it’s not only the affinity groups that lend a hand; it’s the entire community.

RABIN: How are alumni involved in admissions?

DEAL: We started to do more with alumni in the last few years by asking them to do outreach for us. Each admit is assigned an alum contact. Alums also host dinners for us, primarily on the East Coast, and we keep these very small. You might have a dinner in D.C. with only five to eight admits in attendance. So, from the very beginning, we’re showing them that things are going to be done in small groups here.

RABIN: We don’t conduct in-person interviews. Business schools and medical schools typically do. Why don’t we?

DEAL: That’s a really good question and I go back and forth on this one. Just as when you take a standardized test, you have some people who will do well on the test and some people who won’t. The same thing will happen during an interview. Some of my colleagues who do interviews have said that they can be helpful in weeding out people from your pool, but not necessarily helpful in choosing to admit someone. I think it’s hard in 15 or 20 minutes to assess the skills that we’re looking for: ethics, critical thinking, interpersonal skills. It’s hard to make these kinds of determinations in a short conversation. And you might reject someone who will do very well here and in the legal profession, simply because of a problematic 15-minute interview. I’m not sure that makes sense.

RABIN: Let’s talk a bit more about the admissions process. Can you explain it? How has it changed?

DEAL: Back when I first started, it was all paper. You submitted an application on paper. Droves of mail would come in daily and it never seemed to end. Then, around 2008, we shifted to an electronic system, through the Law School Admission Council. LSAC collects transcripts and authenticates them. LSAC also collects letters of recommendation. And then everything is sent to us electronically. By moving to an electronic submission process, we’ve saved an enormous number of trees! I’ll admit that the first year we went electronic was a really tough one for me because I no longer had paper to hold in my hand. It’s a very old-fashioned notion, but I would sit there thinking, “I’m holding an application that was held by the person who applied.” There was a connection. I had to rethink this connection to an applicant because I couldn’t ask staff to print up thousands of applications. I just had to learn to be happy with saving some trees.

RABIN: How involved are faculty in the process? Has that changed?

DEAL: We have an admissions committee with six or seven faculty members and the chair. Years ago, all faculty read files—each got a stack of 25 or 35 files with instructions on what to look for and how to rank. Well, you can imagine how challenging it was to get those files back. Getting them out was easy, getting them back was a bit like herding cats. I mean that in a good way. It was a lot to ask of them so at some point, a while back, we made the decision to form an admissions committee rather than involve all faculty. I don’t think faculty members minded giving up the extra work.

In admissions, there are very easy decisions on the tail ends—very easy “yes” decisions and very easy “no” decisions. The hard work is somewhere in the middle, so that’s where the faculty help. It’s a comparative process.

In the current model, there’s a faculty chair, which rotates every three or four years. I read all the files and send files to you, Bob, and a small number of files go to the committee for review. These are essentially files where the strength is not in the numbers, but instead in experience. The faculty members on the committee are asked to review this group and make recommendations to me and Bob. We then go through those files and talk about these recommendations and say “yay” or “nay.” So, we work very closely over the course of the season. The decision-making process is a team effort, for sure, and the admissions committee is essential to bringing in each class. You Bob, in your role as chair, are critical to the success of the process and I trust your judgment immensely.

RABIN: Is there much outreach to college campuses to find students and has this changed over time?

DEAL: When I first started in admissions, recruiting was done by the Office of Student Affairs. The dean of students did recruiting and admissions did orientation. That really didn’t make sense. The dean of students, of course, had other priorities. I thought we needed to recruit. So, I made the pitch to the law school dean, I think it was Paul Brest, to move recruiting to admissions and to give orientation to the dean of students. So, that’s the history.

Recruiting has changed over the last few years. In the past, we’ve gone to college campuses and while we still do a little of that now, we’ve shifted to setting up events at law firms or other venues in cities. We’ll invite students from nearby colleges and people who are working in those cities to come to the event. Attendance at these events has been so much better than college campuses. It’s been remarkable to see the difference. When students walk into a law firm, it’s so different from walking into a room at the career center on a college campus. The students are much more professional in their demeanor. We still keep some of the college campus events, but we like to send our current students who are graduates of those schools, as they can connect well with those students.

A few years ago, we also started the Law Admissions Workshop Series [LAWS]. It’s a collaborative effort with other law schools—we go on the road together, put on panels and info sessions. We’ve had events at the National Press Club, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the New York State Bar Association.

RABIN: Where is financial aid in the picture? How important is LRAP, our loan repayment assistance program for public service work, and the veterans’ benefits programs to admissions?

DEAL: LRAP was founded in 1985. It was huge back then and it’s even more important now because of the increasingly high cost of attendance. Loan debt can be staggering for those who choose to work in the public sector where, in some cases, one might earn less in a year than one’s annual loan payment. LRAP is critical. We help students by giving them funds each year, depending on their income, to help pay down their debt. It’s a loan at that point. If they complete the full year working in the public sector, we forgive that loan. They are eligible for funding for 10 years. If not for LRAP, we probably would not have as strong a public interest population here as we do, which is really important. It also allows us to compete well with other schools. It has been a huge part of our financial aid package. In fact, we tell applicants to look at LRAP funding as financial aid on the back end.

We’ve also focused on attracting veterans to Stanford Law. We were one of the first law schools to fully participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program, where we match aid that the government provides. A school is not obligated to fully match the government, but schools are required to provide some funding, which varies by state. We decided, with the advising and strong urging of key members of the Stanford Law Veterans Organization, to eventually do the full match. And we were one of the first law schools in the country to do that—and the first school at the university to do that. We went one step further too. Schools can limit the number of students it will match as a way to manage its own internal funds. Dean Magill supported the ignoring of caps and also supported additional fundraising should that become necessary. So, this is a very strong program and our Yellow Ribbon match is an important sign of support for our veterans.

RABIN: What about merit scholarships?

DEAL: We’ve seen the rise of merit scholarships at many law schools, but Stanford is one of three that only offers need-based financial aid, along with Harvard and Yale. Oftentimes, in spring, I get into these very interesting discussions about aid with a few admits. Someone will say, “I’ve got a full ride at school X, but Stanford is giving me nothing. Can you match it?” But we’re not going to match it because we’re need-blind. So, we put the admit in contact with a current student who walked away from a merit award. And we often ask faculty to make the pitch to come to Stanford. It becomes a value comparison: What’s important to them at Stanford? Take the money off the table for a little while and think about what matters most.

RABIN: Can you talk about trends in law school applications? There was a big drop during the recession. Has it fully recovered?

DEAL: We’ve seen swings before. Back in the mid-80s, there was a TV show called LA Law and there was this notion out there that people were applying to law school because that show popularized lawyering. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but during that time period we saw the most applications we have ever seen at Stanford, 6,006 applications. People were flocking to law schools. That’s not a bad thing, but we also saw people coming to law school just because it was “fashionable” to think about becoming a lawyer. But many hadn’t really thought about what it meant to be a lawyer. They came, they learned, they practiced and sometimes it did happen to be the right career choice. But sometimes they were miscast—it wasn’t really what they wanted to do.

We saw the application number game right itself over time, with a couple of other blips along the way. Then we got to 2010 and we saw a drop in applications nationwide, and in legal jobs. There was a whole lot of angst about it, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Fewer people were applying to law school, but it meant that those who did apply were much more serious about their law studies and career options, so that was a good thing.

In the last couple of years, there has been an increase, nationally, again in test takers and applicants. The first inkling I got was about a year ago. We scheduled an event at a New York law firm and while we expected 75 to 100 people to attend, RSVPs came in at about 300, so we needed to find another venue. When we took a poll of the audience, most of the people who were applying were already out in the workforce. They were the ones who were sitting out the recession, waiting for the right time. So, we knew a change was coming.

This uptick has continued. I do think, in talking to applicants, there is a sense that they want to come to law school to bring about change. They want to fix things or create something that is going to work more thoughtfully, productively, and efficiently. After sitting out the application process or after putting plans on hold for a while, we’re now seeing people seriously considering law school again.

RABIN: What are prospective applicants asking about when you see them? What draws them to Stanford?

DEAL: When I’m on the road, I talk about the Law and Policy Lab, about our interdisciplinary focus, about the ease with which you can move in and out of the university. These are things that grab the most attention. They’re intrigued by the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, they’re intrigued by the Religious Liberty Clinic, and clinics in general. The d.school is another draw. And let’s not forget that being in the heart of Silicon Valley is a huge draw, too.

RABIN: Is there a “secret sauce” to admissions here at Stanford Law?

DEAL: There’s a Stanford way of doing things, with a lot of personal attention placed on the admits. Think about the small group dinners we have on the East Coast. There is a very Stanford touch to them—something small and intimate.

RABIN: I’ll end with this: What do you like about your work?

DEAL: I was on a LAWS panel once and the moderator had one last question. She was going down the line of three or four panelists and I was at the end of the table, so I knew I would be the last to answer. The question was something along the lines of “what makes it hard for you to say no to an application?” My answer popped into my head right away, and I sat there thinking, “Please, please, no one say my answer, because this is my answer!” I replied that it was kind of like cracking a safe. Now, I have never cracked a safe in my life. Everything I know comes from watching spy movies and reading spy novels, but I know you turn the dial until you can hear the clicking sounds, until you get the right combination. I’m looking for those clicks and that combination. When everything falls into place—when you read the transcript and it’s great and there’s no fluff in it, when the recommendation letters tell you exactly why the candidate impressed them so, when the personal statement is so well written that you turn the last page and realize you want this person at SLS. It is like putting your ear to the safe and finding that combination.

RABIN: Thank you so much, Faye. This was a pleasure.

DEAL: Thank you, Bob.