Bridgewater, Va. – Bridgewater College’s Pre-Law Society is continuing club activities, including preparing for the LSAT together, despite struggles with continuing and maintaining leadership. 

The Pre-Law Society, which has been advised by Professor of History and Political Science James Josefson since 2000, gathers students from a variety of majors who are interested in law school or related careers to help them prepare for after graduation.

Like many other clubs, the pandemic has presented challenges with creating consistent leadership.

“It’s always difficult to have cohesive leadership between years,” said Josefson. “One of the things we’ve tried to do with that is… run things as an executive committee of people who are working together.”

This year, the club has had issues with shrinking membership and low attendance at meetings.

“Pre-Law is really any major, a lot of the people in the club come from all different majors, interests, some of them play sports… it’s a really diverse group of students, which makes it hard to plan,” said sophomore Katelin Carter, one of the leaders of the club. “A lot of the students in the club are high achieving, they have a lot on their plate, they really push themselves to do a lot… they’re very driven and motivated in school, so they don’t have a lot of free time.” 

Previous club activities have included visiting law schools and courts, including the Supreme Court, and talks from lawyers, judges, paralegals and BC alumni who have attended law school. The club has also held community programs on legal topics in the past.

“There are fewer students that seem to be interested in law, and I’m not sure why that is,” said Josefson. “There are still lots of opportunities for lawyers. Lawyers have an extremely low unemployment rate, and it’s become easier to get financial aid to go into law school. I feel like more students should be interested in law school than are currently because there are real opportunities out there.”