The first class to enter the Law and Leadership Institute at the UT College of Law will graduate from the program this school year.
Supported by the Supreme Court of Ohio, the Ohio State Bar Association, Ohio’s nine law schools and others, the institute is an initiative to increase the number of minorities involved in the legal profession.
In 2009, the College of Law’s institute began with a single ninth grade class; a new class has joined the program each following year. This summer for the first time, Toledo-area high school incoming freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors will participate in the five-week program.
During students’ first Law and Leadership Institute summer, they complete course work in criminal law and court procedure taught by UT law students with the assistance of high school teachers. Students meet attorneys and judges in class and on field trips to courtrooms and law offices. The first-year program concludes with a mock trial competition that gives participants the opportunity to test their skills in front of practicing judges and lawyers.
Law and Leadership Institutes also are taking place at law schools in Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton this summer. The program was piloted in 2008 with a class of 50 students in Cleveland and Columbus. The program has grown to nearly 400 students statewide.
Judge Jack Zouhary for the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio, will speak to the ninth-grade class Wednesday, July 11, at 2 p.m. in Law Center Room 1012. The ninth-graders’ mock trial will take place Thursday, July 26, at 6 p.m., and the 12th-graders’ mock trial, which will culminate the institute student scholar’s experience, will be held Friday, July 20, at 10 a.m.
For more information, visit the Law and Leadership Institute website or contact Marilyn Preston, UT professor of legal writing and institute director, at 419.530.2863 or marilyn.preston@utoledo.edu.