• Learning the law
  

  New learning community helps prepare students for law school.

  
  Bruce Allen isn't a lawyer but he is constantly helping students gain admittance to law schools after graduating from Iowa State.
  
  Allen, academic adviser in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, serves as the pre-law adviser to upwards of 300 students interested in pursuing law as a career. These students represent major programs from all undergraduate colleges on campus.
  
  Allen is also the adviser to the Pre-Law Club and developed the pre-law web site at Iowa State.
  
  When it came time to start a pre-law learning community, however, Allen was somewhat reluctant.
  
  "People had been after me for a couple of years to start a learning community for students who were interested in preparing to attend law school," he said. "I kept putting them off."
  
  Finally Allen said yes and the 2005 fall semester was the first semester for the Pre-Law Learning Community in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
  
  The learning community provides students interested in attending law school with strategies to score well on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), the environment in which students could develop their intellectual and personal preparation for law school, updated information on law school applicant profiles, updated information on the application process, and the opportunity to explore the reality of becoming an attorney.
  
  "Because law schools do not require a specific curriculum or give preference to a specific major, students may not find this assistance within their major or departments," Allen said. "The learning community connects students with faculty members, academic advisers and other key professionals on campus who provide an invaluable network."
  
  Of the original 22 students who signed up for the new learning community, only one decided it wasn't for them. Students are typically upperclassmen, many graduated this past December, and they represent a wide variety of majors at Iowa State.
  
  "We had majors from engineering, agriculture, human sciences, business and many disciplines in LAS," Allen said. "Students seem to have embraced this program campus wide."
  
  Allen says that the information provided by the learning community is very useful in the students' career development. The learning community also links these students to other undergraduates who share their career aspirations.
  
  Through guest speakers, students became aware of career opportunities in the law, learned how to prepare for the LSAT and gained specific knowledge of general law school admission requirements. Guest speakers included local attorneys, law school admission officers, career service officers, law professors and current law students.
  
  The learning community was clustered with Philosophy 230, which gave the students the opportunity to develop argumentative analysis and critical reasoning skills. Students also examined moral and ethical issues that are often involved in an attorney's case.
  
  Students were required to attend a legal proceeding, speak with an attorney about their experiences as an attorney and complete 10 hours for a community service project.
  
  "The overall goal of the learning community was to enhance the students' preparation process for law school and for the students to determine if the law was for them," Allen said. "I think we presented the students with a lot of good information. Hopefully, the students' experiences in the learning community had a positive effect on their decision to attend law school."

Guest speakers were prevelant throughout the Pre-Law Learning Community’s fall activities including this talk by Des Moines attorney Nicolas Critelli.

Around LAS
January 9-22, 2006

Ames, Iowa 50011, (515) 294-4111. Published by: University Relations, online@iastate.edu. Copyright © 1995-2004, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved.

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