A panelist (right) smiles during the Pre-Law Panel on March 9, at Black Family Plaza Classrooms Room 191. Participants of the event learned from panelists about law school, according to the official event description. Photos by Emma Ibarra
Sophomore Allison Ferguson and Brian Link, assistant professor of Business Law, are working together to start a new pre-law society at Seaver College to assist pre-law students with their future plans. They said they hope to start the society in early 2024.
Pre-law doesn’t mean someone has to be a lawyer, Link said. It is for any undergraduate student who is thinking about applying to law school. The current resources available for pre-law students are faculty mentorship, professors, an undergraduate certificate in Conflict Management and books in the library.
“I decided to help start the pre-law society because, as a pre-law student, not enough resources are readily available for students who want to pursue that as a goal,” Ferguson said.
As she looked at different clubs to join, Ferguson said she noticed Pepperdine has a pre-medical society but not a pre-law society.
“I don’t know a ton about resources, but my biggest resource personally was just professors,” senior Skyler Danley said.
Ferguson said the steps she took to get a motion passed to instate a new society involved talking to Student Government Association and Inter-Club Council.
“There are many different groups working toward the same goal of having more pre-law resources, which will hopefully leave the Pepperdine campus with a stronger pre-law emphasis,” Ferguson said.
Link and Ferguson’s goal for the society is to table at Tide Pools in spring 2024 — in the fall, Ferguson said the plan is to make sure all paperwork is taken care of — to get more people involved in the society. They are in the process of filling out the paperwork with ICC to make this happen, Ferguson said.
SGA wants to represent all student voices on campus, said Michael Sugimoto, sophomore and upcoming SGA president.
“We wanted to advocate for students interested in law school, which is why we formalized a statement so that we can address the lack of support for pre-law students,” Sugimoto said.
ICC wants to reinstate the Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity because of how much demand there is for it on campus among students, Gabriella Dardano, president of ICC, wrote in an April 5 email to the Graphic.
Danley said the new pre-law society will benefit students who want to go to law school.
“It will be nice to have a group of like-minded individuals going over what they’ve learned together to help them get to law school and how best to go about once you get to law school,” Danley said.
Link said the society can host drop-in reviews for the LSAT, host alumni panels and offer students a place to share successes and frustrations.
“Being a student-run entity, which will be close to the students is going to be useful when it comes to ascertaining what the students themselves want out of a pre-law experience at Seaver,” Link said.
Ferguson said she hopes to see the new society have strong pre-law resources.
“I hope we have the resources so that Seaver is able to give me and other students the right resources and strong foundation to really do well in our post-grad careers,” Ferguson said.
Link said he encourages any interested students to look out for more information as it becomes available or to contact Ferguson or himself.
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Contact Alicia Dofelmier via email: alicia.dofelmier@pepperdine.edu
