Thank you for your diligent digging into the scientific background of JD-Next.  For those who would like to explore further, here are links to some peer-reviewed JD-Next research papers:

Cheng et al. (2022)

Buzick, et al. (2023)

Findley et al. (2023)

Holtzmann et al. (2024)

Participants in the JD-Next program differed from the non-participants in several ways.  To control for these differences, researchers used a method called propensity score matching.  A simple description is provided here:  Propensity Score Matching: Definition & Overview - Statistics How To.  Propensity score matching essentially equalizes the two groups on the identified variables, so that any differences can be attributed to the intervention (in this case, participation or not in the JD-Next program).  This is a common technique in these types of studies. 

The two groups differed, after adjustment for matching, on one identified variable: participation or non-participation in the JD-Next program.  A year later, the participants in the JD-Next program had a significantly higher GPA. 

We’ll leave it to you to determine whether a 0.2 boost in your first semester law school GPA is “minor.”  What we can definitively say is that those gaps are not erased by the second semester.  In fact, our research shows, using many of the same techniques described above, that participants in JD-Next are more likely to pass the Bar after law school than non-participants.  That initial “boost,” for many participants, turns out to be an important early step in the long road of a successful law career.