If you are relocating and need a referral to alumni in other cities, please reach out to lawalumni@lsu.edu or Karen Soniat, Director of Alumni Relations, at ksonia2@lsu.edu or 225-938-7763. 

To assist those who have been hardest hit by Hurricane Laura, LSU Law students are participating in multiple efforts to collect and deliver much-needed supplies to the Lake Charles area. The drives are being coordinated by the LSU Student Bar Association, LSU Public Interest Law Society, other LSU Law student organizations, and individual students.

Second-year law student Sam Ducote, a native of Hackberry in Cameron Parish, and his family have had their lives upended by previous hurricanes—Rita destroyed their home in 2005 and Ike did the same in 2008. He’s thankful that Laura only damaged his family home this time, but he knows many others in the area have lost everything, and he wants to help them.

“I and a group of my fellow classmates will host a donation drive this week at the Law Center and haul the donated supplies to Lake Charles on Friday, and then distribute them to low-income areas—house to house and neighborhood to neighborhood,” he says, adding the LSU Law students are hoping to deliver items such as bottled drinking water, non-perishable food items, insect repellent, tarps, hand sanitizer, masks, flashlights, and gloves, since officials anticipate it may be as many as five weeks before electricity and water services are fully restored in the Lake Charles area. Donations can be dropped off in Room 107.

In a separate effort, the LSU Public Interest Law Society is participating in a supply drive this week in conjunction with the LSU College of Agriculture. The items they collect will also be delivered to the Lake Charles area this weekend. PILS and the College of Agriculture are asking for donations of items such as plastic totes, batteries, gloves, fans, mops and buckets, garden hoses, garbage bags, hand sanitizer, bleach, dehumidifiers, mold killer, baby wipes, toiletries, N95 cleaning masks, rubber boots, and extension cords, among others. Donations can be dropped off at the PILS office on the first floor of the LSU Law Center.

LSU Law’s fall semester got underway on Monday, Aug. 17, with a mix of in-person and online courses. While the Paul M. Hebert Law Center looks a little different this fall due to health and safety precautions implemented as a result of COVID-19—and despite the closure of the law center for three days during the second week of classes due to Hurricanes Marco and Laura—the semester is off to a good start.

“I’m very pleased to say that we’ve had a relatively smooth—albeit quite different—opening for the fall semester and that we were not impacted by the hurricanes aside from some canceled classes,” says Interim Dean Lee Ann Wheelis Lockridge. “The health and safety of everyone on our campus continues to be our highest priority. While we have been required to rethink how we use the law center and deliver our educational program due to COVID-19, I’m confident that by working together our talented students, faculty, and staff will overcome any challenges and adapt to new responsibilities.”

Bucking a national trend of declining enrollment at law schools, LSU Law has about 20 more students this fall semester than it had a year ago—598 students are enrolled this fall, with 596 J.D. and two LLM. Supported by a talented Admissions Office staff and faculty, who did an outstanding job of recruiting another talented class during a pandemic, there are 208 first-year students enrolled this fall, which is three more than last year’s entering class.

This year’s 1L students hail from 23 states and two foreign countries. Louisiana residents comprise 63% of the class, while 37% are nonresidents; 52% are female and 48% are male; and 19% of the students identify as students of color. The median LSAT is unchanged from last year, at 155, while the median GPA is 3.45. Additionally, 11 of the students are enrolled in the LSU Law/LSU 3+3 Program.

LSU Law is collecting messages of encouragement and support from alumni to share with students who continue to pursue their law degrees during unprecedented challenges and disruption. Thank you to all those who have already submitted messages, and if you have not done so already, please share some cheer by providing a simple message of encouragement that will show our students the compassion and enthusiasm of our LSU Law alumni. A simple, “You can do it! If I can finish 1L, so can you!” or any other supportive message of your choice can provide much-needed inspiration to students during these unsettling times.

Submissions will be collected through September 4, and LSU Law be using your messages in displays within the Law Center to lift up the student body. With your permission, we might also use your message on the newly launched @LSULawDean Twitter account or the existing @LSULawCenter Twitter account or LSU Law Facebook page.

Five LSU Law faculty members are part of a global collaboration of feminist law professors who are re-imagining and rewriting key judicial decisions from a feminist perspective.

The project re-imagines key decisions through a “feminist perspective that takes into account race, class, gender, disability and other status groups historically marginalized by the law.”

While many of our alums and friends are in recovery mode from Hurricane Laura and COVID-19 has changed our year, LSU Law will be forging ahead with virtual versions of the Ira S. Flory Mock Trial Competition and Tullis Moot Court Competition this fall.

The competitions have always been an important part of our legal education program and despite the circumstances, we are planning now for these important competitions. Both competitions provide students with the opportunity to develop their advocacy skills in front of professionals in the legal community. The feedback students receive from practitioner-judges is crucial to their professional development as legal advocates. 

“Throw a blazer on over your yoga pants, pop on a nice neutral background, and come judge superb student talent in moot court and mock trials from the comfort of your living room,” says Professor Jeff Brooks, the Preis PLC Director of Advocacy and Professional Practice, who also serves as Director of Field Placement and Advocacy Programs and is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice.

 

Get complete details on competitions and dates, and sign up to be a judge. Questions may be directed to advocacyprogram@lsu.edu. Thank you for supporting our 2020-2021 advocacy competitions! 

In our latest Dean's Council Spotlight, 1987 LSU Law graduate Denise C. Puente shares her advice to current law students, talks about her 33-year career at Simon Peragine Smith & Redfearn, and discusses why she supports LSU Law and the Dean's Council.

"Fortunately, I was the recipient of a scholarship, which helped finance my tuition," Puente says. "Between student loans, scholarships and the money I earned clerking, I was able to pay for law school. I have been very lucky. The law degree I earned has given me great opportunities. If I can help someone else in the same way my benefactor helped me, I am happy to do so.

Growing up in South Louisiana in a family of socially-minded attorneys, 2018 LSU Law graduate David Hogan says he always “harbored an appreciation and interest in fighting for justice and protecting those who do not have the means to do so themselves.”

As a law student, Hogan was a member of the Trial Advocacy Board and he took every available criminal course offered at LSU Law, including the Juvenile Defense Clinic, where he provided full representation to a juvenile in delinquency proceedings.

“I knew when I entered law school that I wanted to help people and soon realized I could be of the most service as a public defender,” says Hogan. After graduating cum laude, Hogan joined the East Baton Rouge Office of the Public Defender, where he routinely works on misdemeanor cases, low-level felonies, and some violent crimes as an Assistant Public Defender.

As Jessica Brewer begins her final year of law school at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, she’s looking forward to a career in immigration law. She grew up on a cattle farm in Arlington, Tennessee, just outside of Memphis, and she became interested in pursuing a career in law after becoming passionate about immigrant rights as an undergraduate.

“I enrolled in classes directly related to immigration patterns in the U.S. and the U.S. South,” says Brewer. “I even traveled abroad to study the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. Those experiences motivated me to seek a career that would allow me to protect immigrant rights.”

Brewer is actively involved in internal and external trial advocacy and moot court competitions at LSU Law, and this fall she is a student attorney in the Immigration Clinic.

Although we are unable to safely welcome back our graduates from the classes of 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2010 for an in-person Reunion Weekend this year, we're not going to let the pandemic get in the way of our plans to celebrate these amazing classes!

Stay tuned for more information on how we intend to celebrate your reunions virtually—until we can gather together safely. Rest assured an extra special in-person Reunion Weekend is envisioned for next year, honoring ALL 2020 AND 2021 reunion classes!

Here’s how you can be involved now:

Find out about the latest news and accomplishments of your classmates.

To submit an item for Class Notes, please contact the Office of Alumni Relations.

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