The Law Society at Carolina, a group that supports students interested in legal careers, officially launched this Tuesday.
Founded by a group of three undergraduate students, the new organization aims to provide students interested in law with a variety of opportunities to learn about the field through mentorship, lectures and law school admissions aid.
The idea to start the organization came to Jakob Williams, co-founder and co-president of the organization, at the beginning of his sophomore year. After realizing that he wanted to pursue a career in law, Williams, who is now a junior, set out to create a space that would give fellow pre-law students the opportunity to learn about the variety of pathways in the field.
“In the legal field there’s so many different avenues,” Williams said. “When I started to research those, I realized that there wasn’t really a resource on campus that was led by students that can offer pre-law students, or just pre-legal field students, the ability to learn about these different pathways.”
Williams didn't want to start the group alone, so he turned to fellow students Mikayla Crump and Nancy Alvarez Lopez, now co-founders and co-presidents of the organization.
As a junior hoping to pursue law in the future, Crump said that planning for law school as a freshman was daunting and that undergraduates pursuing law at UNC lack a laid-out path.
“Whenever I spoke to other people, or I would see what some people were doing, I felt like they were either light-years ahead of me, or also were lost and a little confused,” Crump said.
In an effort to demystify law school and careers, the organization is working to provide students exclusive access to a variety of resources, such as educational opportunities, admissions help and LSAT prep.
“We are willing and so excited to provide exclusive access to resources and networking opportunities, and we will help students engage with various legal specialties and promote collaboration,” Alvarez Lopez said.
