First Annual Professionalism Week

Professionalism Week was one of those events where you end up relieved it's done :)

Last year, Emily Sheets (then Treasurer of the ABA Law Student Division at Regent, and now President) came to me with the idea of doing an etiquette dinner for law students. While the university does one for all the students, it is not attended much by law students, unless it is a mandatory event for some student organization. (Let's face it: law students like things that easily fit into their schedules, and the less convenient something is, the less likely we are to attend.) Well, we were unfortunately unable to do that event last year.

Then, when we were in New York for the ABA conference, I talked to some other SBA presidents about the lack of programming at law schools regarding professionalism. An idea started emerging-- to work with our Career Services office and try to put on a full week of events regarding professionalism, centered around the etiquette dinner. When I spoke to one of the deans about it at the beginning of the school year, he was very supportive and only had one request: that we put the week around the same time as the mandatory 1L professionalism orientation during February.

After making the contacts with Career Services and the administration, I pretty much stopped working on it (SBA has had a lot going on!!), but Emily and I would meet occasionally, brainstorming events. Honestly, I was very frustrated when she cancelled the lunch (as I built everything around that lunch) because a speaker backed out and she didn't think there was enough time to get another one, but everything worked out well... and hopefully next year they will be able to add the luncheon into the schedule!

The events this week included:
Monday— Courtroom Decorum with Judge Humphreys (food provided by PAD.)

Wednesday—a panel with Commonwealth Attorneys and Public Defenders on Professionalism in their field. (Lunch provided by PILAR.)

Thursday—three Attorneys with the law firm of Pender and Coward speaking on Professionalism in the Firm Environment. (Lunch provided by the ABA.)

Students who attended any session received a "Passport to Professionalism" and once they attended two sessions were entered to win a $1500 BarBri scholarship or a free 6-day course from Kaplan PMBR. Also, we have away PMBR study aids to a lucky 1L and 2L. This incentive to attend worked well: we had approximately 80 students participate in the Professionalism Week!

I sincerely hope that next year, the SBA is able to more fully develop Professionalism Week to have events each day, and continue to educate Regent Law students on maintaining professionalism in different work environments!