SIUE’s College of Arts and Sciences provides students with the fundamental skills needed to succeed in law.  Simply by offering a wide variety of quality liberal arts courses, SIUE lays the foundation from which students build successful law careers.

 The Pre-Law Advising Program, along with special events and student organizations, such as the Law and Society Lunchtime conversations and the Pre-Law Association (PLA), serve to enhance the SIUE experience for students interested in pursuing a career in law.

PLA president Alyx Mark says, “Law schools are becoming more and more diverse with the types of major they are accepting, so a Pre-Law degree wouldn’t necessarily aid a person in getting into law school more than any other degree…Basically, SIUE prepares students for law schools by giving them lots of choices—clubs, organizations, classes, etc.—and that’s what schools are looking for.”

Left to right—Andrea Smith, Morgan Clymer and Alyx Mark of SIUE’s student Pre-Law Association.

Commenting on the importance of the PLA, Mark notes, “There are students out there who aren’t really sure what direction they want to take in life, or more narrowly, in law.  The PLA allows students to be informed about different events that might help them answer questions about where they want to see themselves.”

Mark, who earned local fame in November by winning $100,000 as a contestant on ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” is a Chancellor’s scholar double majoring in Political Science and History, with minors in English and Mass Communications.  After graduating, she hopes to attend law school at Georgetown but says she will apply to every school within a fifty mile radius of Washington D.C.

“Right now, I am very interested in international law.  I will be studying abroad in South Africa next summer, and the thought of dealing with diplomacy, international conflict resolution, [and] war and peace really intrigues me.  I would love to be a foreign diplomat, but then again, it’s a lofty goal…But, I’m up to the challenge.”

Joanne Olson (B.A. ’03, Philosophy & English) is in her third year at SIUC, where she focuses on immigration law, constitutional law, and criminal law.  She hopes to graduate in 2007 in the top 10 percent of her class, pass the Missouri and Illinois State Bars, and then work at a law firm in downtown St. Louis.

Commenting on the quality of education she received at SIUE, Olson proclaims, “Official pre-law programs would probably have been detrimental to my preparation for law school…You are prepared for law school if you have a certain set of basic skills—reading and writing, logic and analytical reasoning.”

She explains that the information that you might learn in an undergrad pre-law program won’t really do a student much good, because the law is so unique.  Each state is different, and each jurisdiction in each state is different.  “What is most valuable is having skills to read and extract the rule of law from case law.  I feel the English and Philosophy departments prepared me to succeed in law school.”

Alumnus Matt Warren is currently ranked No. 1 in his class at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.

Matt Warren (B.S. ’05, Political Science & Philosophy) is in his second year at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.  “I feel that I was incredibly well prepared for law school by my education at SIUE.  The Philosophy and Political Science departments at SIUE are very strong, and the professors completely prepared me for the competitive law school environment.”

He emphasizes, “My education [at SIUE] has taught me to analyze issues and to extrapolate key concepts from complicated materials.  Here at the University of Arizona, I am in competition with students who have undergraduate educations from schools such as Dartmouth, Stanford, Yale, University of Chicago, Harvard, etc.  I feel that I was at least as prepared, if not more prepared, than students coming from any of these universities.”

Warren wrote onto the Arizona Law Review and is currently ranked number one in his class with a 4.0.  His specific area of interest is in international business and copyright law as well as in tort law and white collar crime.  After graduating, Warren plans to practice law for a few years, earn a Ph.D. in philosophy, and become a law professor.

Amy Gantvoort on the day she took her oath of office to practice law in California.

Amy Gantvoort(B.S. ’94) is an example that there is no best major for pre-law students.   Although she majored in theater and minored in speech communication, Gantvoort now works as a labor and employment attorney in the Santa Monica, CA office of St. Louis-based Bryan Cave LLP.  The firm has offices around the world and is rated among the nation’s most prestigious law firms in the 2006 Vault Guide to the Top 100 Law Firms.

After graduating from SIUE, Gantvoort worked at various theater companies for several years and tried to get an acting career off the ground.  Her main employment was at The New Theatre, a professional union theater company in St. Louis, where she quickly became General Manager.

“I moved to LA in 1997 to really pursue the dream,” Gantvoort reflects.  “After three years, I decided that I needed more than just waiting tables and waiting for my career to happen, so I turned to my other interest—law.  Law school proved to be the right place for me.”

Gantvoort has been practicing in general litigation for the past three years and notes that her theater experience prior to law school has proved to be a huge asset in both securing employment and handling her clients. “I cannot measure how valuable my experience at SIUE has been for me.  My acting and speech communication courses helped me to gain confidence and my ability to speak in public effectively and to hide my nerves when necessary!”

Predictably, Gantvoort, like others, advises students interested in law to look at courses beyond the obvious choices of government or pre-law.  “Although I am sure that they are quite valuable and should be taken if possible, other courses such as speech communication and acting classes will prove to be just as beneficial if you plan to be a litigator.”

Alumna Rutha Lawrence-Prude is the corporate paralegal for the St. Louis-based architectural firm HOK.

SIUE alumna Rutha Lawrence-Prude (B.A., ‘00) likewise benefited from a broader liberal arts and sciences background.  She earned her bachelor’s through the Liberal Studies degree program, which offers students the flexibility to develop individualized programs of study with an interdisciplinary focus.  She then went on to earn her master’s in legal studies from Webster University.

Prude now works as the corporate paralegal for the St. Louis-based and nationally renowned architectural firm of Hellmuth, Obata, and Kassabaum (HOK), which does business in each of the 50 states and has 24 offices throughout the U.S. in addition to offices in Beijing, Brisbane, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Mexico City, Ottawa, Shanghai, and Toronto.

In her position, Prude assists the General Counsel to ensure they are receiving valid contracts from each of the company’s entities.  She also ensures that the firm’s business license and registrations are current and assists in trial preparation in the event the company must defend itself in court.

Prude notes that a broad experience base prepared her for the multitude of duties that she now faces as HOK.  “What I do here is really the culmination of four different places I worked previously.  When I came here I was supposed to be here for only three months to enter their contracts into a new database.  But they found that my talents were deep, [so] I was hired and given more responsibility.”  She also says that her liberal studies background prepared her for the amount of research demanded by her job, while it gave her a broader knowledge base.”

Alumnus David Herndon serves as the United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of Illinois.

Two SIUE alumni who have gone on to become prominent local figures in the field of law include Supreme Court Justice for the State of Illinois Judge Phillip Rarick, III (B.A. ’65, Sociology) and United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of Illinois David Herndon (B.A. ’74, Government).

Herndon was appointed to his present position by President Bill Clinton in 1998.  He says his appointment to the federal bench was the proudest moment in his career, which included seven years as an Associate Judge in the Third Judicial Circuit for the State of Illinois and fourteen years as a trial lawyer largely representing rail workers of the United Transportation Union.  “It clearly was the culmination of my ultimate professional goal—interestingly enough, a goal I set while I was a student at SIUE.”

“My major at SIUE was Government, with a minor in History, which gave me a great curiosity and interest in the proper roles of the three branches of government and how each one relates to the other…Clearly, the curiosity and study that was engendered in the education I began at SIUE prepared me for the rigors of law school.”

SIUE law students at SLU, from L to R, Alexis Overstreet, Cara Jackson, Adam Berry, Alyx Mark, Christine Williams.

Herndon stresses that students who are going into law must first and foremost “learn how to study and study efficiently.  They also need to develop a very strong work ethic.  Once they have learned both of those things in undergrad, they need to be prepared to triple them in law school.”

SIUE faculty are ensuring that students also connect law to broader societal issues.  Beginning in 2005, Professor of Criminal Justice Trish Oberweis organized Law and Society lunchtime conversations.  The conversations include some that are designed for faculty and others that are primarily for students.  Those interested in law and society are welcomed to contact Oberweis at toberwe@siue.edu.

For more information, and a guide for students interested in attending law school:


http://www.siue.edu/POLISCI/PreLaw/

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