About 80 Casco Bay High School juniors attended a daylong conference
at the University of Maine School of Law on Dec. 8 to learn about the
law and legal careers. The conference was the culminating event of the
Legal Diversity Pipeline Program, which strives to create more diversity
in the legal profession.
The NALP/Street Law Legal Diversity
Pipeline Program is a partnership between Street Law, a nonprofit
Maryland-based organization that creates classroom and community
programs that teach about the law, democracy and human rights, and NALP.
NALP, or the National Association for Law Placement, is a legal
professionals’ association based in Washington, D.C.
The Legal
Diversity Pipeline Program partners law firms with diverse groups of
high school students. The program’s goal is to teach students about the
law and legal careers and encourage and support them in the pursuit of
legal careers.
Lawyers from Portland-based Bernstein Shur and
students from the law school brought the program to Maine three years
ago. Each year, a team made up of the firm’s lawyers and some law
students has visited CBHS social studies classes to share their
expertise and teach juniors about the Constitution and the law.
This
fall, according to Casco Bay High School social studies teacher Jacob
McNally, the first session involved a First Amendment freedom of
religion case. Did a rabbi's religious invocation at a middle school
graduation violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?
McNally said students used past precedents and newly learned legal
concepts to present arguments on both sides to a panel of their peers.
In
the next session, students learned about the Fourth Amendment Right to
Privacy and protection from illegal searches and seizures. The guest
lawyers led students through a series of role-plays that investigated
that scope and limitations of this protection.
The third session
involved the topic of contracts. McNally said the guest lawyers made
that seemingly dry interesting by having students engaged with concepts
about contract law by role-playing a negotiation between a teenager and
her parent about the terms of a Saturday night out. And then students
applied their learning to negotiating a contract with a friend to
exchange guitar lessons for lawn-mowing sessions.
The final session took place at the conference, where the CBHS students applied their new knowledge in a series of workshops.
McNally
said, “Throughout the program, the lawyers have done an excellent job
of connecting with the students and presenting complex concepts in a
meaningful and relatable way.”
Click here for a Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MPBN) report on the Dec. 8 conference, which includes interviews with CBHS students.
CBHS students, from left, Nate Hesselink, Cassie Bull and Lona Peter
attend legal diversity conference. (MPBN photo by Patty Wight)