ABA Experiment of not requiring the LSAT helped Chad Davenport find his way to a legal career.
Attorney Chad Davenport said it was 2015 when his post-college future came to a fork in the road.
A new associate at Rupp Baase Pfalzgraf Cunningham LLC, he focuses on litigation at the Buffalo firm. As a senior in college, though, he was poised to parlay his biology degree from the University at Buffalo into a career in occupational or physical therapy. But then a friend who wrote for the student newspaper told him about a rule change that would enable him to be a late applicant to UB’s School of Law without taking the Law School Admission Test.
“She was talking about that article she was working on and it started the idea that law school could be an option for me,” Davenport said. “I had never considered law school before that.”
It was an experiment by the American Bar Association that allowed undergraduates at universities with law schools to apply without taking the LSAT.
He connected with Lillie Wiley-Upshaw, UB’s vice dean for admissions and financial aid, to learn more. Two months before the fall semester began, Davenport found out he was accepted.
“Ending up in law school, finding myself in the right clubs and the right organizations where I (came to understand) what my interests were and what excited me, and then ending up at a firm where I get to do exactly what I found out I like to do (is surreal),” he said.
“When I take a step back, I realize just how fortunate and how lucky I am to have ended up where I am.”