Student Outreach Update – Fall 2009

This fall semester, we have attended Pro Bono Fairs at Boston University School,, Boston College,  Northeastern University, Suffolk University and Harvard University.  At these fairs, we introduced new and returning law students to mission and work of the  National Lawyers Guild. We also recruited students interested in participating in the Street Law Clinic’s and trainings that the clinic’s offer.  At these events, we signed up over 100 interested students!  We also attended at Pro Bono Fair at the Boston Bar Association, and signed up over 20 attorney’s interested in volunteering for the Street Law Clinic program.

Currently, Boston College and Boston University do not have established National Lawyer’s Guild chapters at their schools.  We have been meeting with students and faculty at both of these law schools, and we are getting close to having organized chapters there! This fall, we held a training at Boston University and this Spring, both Boston University and Boston College have agreed to hold trainings at their schools.  In many ways, this has been accomplished through our outreach efforts to faculty involved with public interest advising.  We really appreciate their efforts and are looking forward to strengthening our presence at these schools.

In order to build more cohesion between the various chapters at area law schools, we will be conducting our first student chapter meeting this November 17, 2009.  We are hoping that this monthly meeting between chapter representatives will help the strengthen individual chapters through community and coalition building between all the schools.

Last month we had a wonderful event to welcome new and returning Guild students at Felt on October 27, 2008.  We had members from the Board, and Guild students from Suffolk University, Northeastern University, Boston College, New England School of Law and Boston University attend.  We had a great time getting to know each other and playing pool together!  We are looking forward to getting together again for our student brunch this spring.