Dear Candidates,

Service to one's community can be a very rewarding experience, and no student should go through law school without gaining pro bono experience.  We believe that both the Law School and the SBA could do a better job promoting pro bono work, first by drawing a brighter line between pro bono opportunities and public interest opportunities, and then by promoting these opportunities and making them more accessible to the student body as a whole.

There is a distinction between pro bono work and public interest work.  Public interest is a career path, while pro bono work is more discrete projects that supplement one's chosen career path.  Public interest work is not for everyone, but pro bono work can be.  Both an attorney working for a large corporate law firm and one working for a small non-profit organization can benefit from pro bono experiences.  Speaking from our experiences with the CDO and the fall recruiting process, we can attest to how valuable our experiences with Street Law were, and how often potential employers asked about them.  We can also tell you how glad we are that we ignored the CDO's advice to remove Street Law from our resumes because, in their minds, pro bono and volunteer work makes it look like you are on a public interest career track.  This perception is misguided, but seems to permeate GW.  In fact, firms and public interest organizations alike appreciate and embrace candidates involved in pro bono activities.

During orientation, 1Ls have the option of attending a pro bono and public interest panel that is organized by the SBA.  Students that are interested in pro bono activities but want to focus their career efforts on firm or government work sometimes feel alienated by this focus.  The law school should acknowledge and embrace the goals of students interest in public interest, government, and private work when it plans these events.  Having attended the panel as 1Ls and as panelists, it is clear that the focus of this panel is public interest, and not pro bono work.  While the SBA currently has both a Community Service and Pro Bono/Public Interest chair, the events planned by these groups are few and far between, and cannot possibly accommodate the whole student body.

The SBA has taken a step in the right direction however, under the guidance of Greg Crespo and Kathie Carroll, the Pro Bono/Public Interest chairs.  They have worked to create the GW Public Interest Coalition, which is currently trying to create a special listserv that will send out information on pro bono and public interest opportunities.  Hopefully this effort is continued, and eventually becomes successful, but there are many ways in which the school and SBA could work to promote pro bono involvement specifically.  Dean Alan Morrison is the newly appointed Dean for Public Interest and Public Service Law, and we are excited about the effort GW has made in hiring him.  The SBA should work closely with him to foster a culture at GW where students recognize the difference between pro bono work and public interest work, and where students want to gain pro bono and volunteer experience.

Sincerely,

Nicole Vitale and Chris Healey   
Co-Presidents of Street Law