Seniors Jason Dryer and Danielle Michael may only have one semester left, but they are working to leave a lasting impact on Longwood’s community of aspiring lawyers.
As the Pre-Law Society enters its second year of existence, Dryer, the society’s vice president, said the society continues to try to prepare kids for law school.
“We’re trying to prepare kids for law school, so we have a lot of law schools come in, usually from the Virginia area, to come and talk to us about our admissions process and how that works,” Dryer explained. “But we also have people who work in the legal field.”
In the past, they’ve hosted admissions counselors from law schools from Virginia and North Carolina, including Washington and Lee, George Mason and Appalachian State.
Later this semester, Dryer said one of his friends who works in law enforcement will come speak to the Pre-Law Society. In February, the Prince Edward County Commonwealth’s Attorney Megan Clark and will come to speak with the organization.
Dryer noted they focus on the legal realm of current events, and emphasized that “politics and law kind of go hand in hand.”
Michael, the Pre-Law Society president, added, “During this whole last semester, the election process, we had a lot of discussions about that. Just basically anything in the current world.”
Dryer and Michael joined this organization last year as one of the first few members. Two years later, the organization has grown to 15-25 members.
While the Pre-Law Society mainly consists of pre-law majors, they are also branching out into other related departments, such as the history and criminal justice departments. It is an organization that is open to everyone, regardless of their concentration or major. Society members who are not pre-law majors can also get involved through the society’s events and their discussions of current events.
“Anybody on campus can be in the society. You don’t just have to be political science or pre-law,” said Michael.
With only a few months of their undergraduate education left, Dryer and Michael are thinking about their own futures while planning the Pre-Law Society events.
Michael said she is currently applying to law schools, and she interned over the summer for the law firm Patten, Wornom, Hatten & Diamonstein under Lindsay Carney, a real estate business lawyer in a Newport News. She said that she really enjoyed the work, and that it reminded her of the work her father does.
“My father actually owns a lancer bank business, and what Lindsay did kind of correlated with what my dad did, and I’ve worked for my dad for the past five years in the office,” said Michael.
Michael said she liked how the Pre-Law Society opened opportunities for her when applying to law school.
“I love how, not only can I help other students with the law school admissions process, it’s also helped me a lot,” she said. “Being just a member last year has helped me through the admissions process that I’m in now, and it’s just been a great refresher.”
Dryer said he’s looking for a career in law enforcement as a police officer.
“If I don’t get into law enforcement in the next couple of years, then yeah, I probably will end up going to law school,” he said.
Moving from biweekly to weekly meetings since it first began, the Pre-Law Society meets each Thursday in Ruffner Hall, room 256 at 5:30 p.m.
