BLSA Hosts Annual “Law Student for a Day”

So, you are contemplating law school. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get a first-hand look into law school during your undergraduate studies so you could be more informed when it’s time to make that important decision?

The UK Law Black Law Students Association (BLSA) has done just that for prospective students.

For eleven years, BLSA has hosted or co-hosted the annual “Law Student for a Day” event where prospective students have the opportunity to get a well-rounded overview of law school. This year, BLSA hosted twenty undergraduate students who are interested in applying to law school.

The participating students hear from the UK Law dean, admissions director, faculty, and current students. They have an opportunity to sit through a lecture given by a UK Law faculty member to get the full experience of being a law student. Prospective students are divided into smaller breakout groups so they have an opportunity to speak with current students and ask candid questions about law school and the current students’ experiences.

Over its tenure, the “Law Student for a Day” event has been successful in converting interested students into enrolled students.

UK Law Dean David Brennen acknowledged the value of this event, “This event is a beneficial piece to our recruiting efforts. Allowing students who are interested in pursuing a law degree to be exposed to our law school during their time in undergraduate studies, will allow them to make connections with students and faculty, and provide opportunities for them to see the strong legal education they could obtain from UK Law.”

A major goal of the event is to not only provide insight for prospective students, but to also encourage minority students to consider attending law school after they complete their undergraduate studies.

“Our goal for the event is to diversify the student demographics at UK College of Law,” said BLSA President Janine Tate. “The number of students of color applying to law school has been declining over the years, and our goal of the event is to help minimize that [decline] in any way that we can. BLSA believes that students thrive in diverse environments, and we hope to encourage diverse students to apply to law school in order to achieve a more representative student population.” 

Ms. Tate also pointed out that diversity can include factors other than someone’s skin color, “BLSA’s goal and initiative is to make UK Law inclusive in several ways beyond reaching out to students of color. We believe that diversity is skin deep as well and we were proud to have so many attendees from different socio-economic and interesting backgrounds.”