By Lawyers Without Borders | Executive Director
LWOB's student division engagement has been a resounding success. With literally no expenditure of funds, word of mouth has spread information about our robust engagement with students around the world. The students in the United Kingdom are by far, the most engaged, with over 15 student divisions currently registered. New requests to become a student division are finding their way to our inbox regularly.
In 2018 we will be hosting at Kings College London, the 5th annual ROLIC: Rule of Law Innovation Challenge. This is a program where LWOB identifies several different types of deliverables it is seeking to create that are notable for their outside the box approaches to access to justice. The students, many of whom are mentored by law firms who support LWOB's work as part of their pro bono initiatives, select a mechanim that meets the challenge criteria. The "winning" entry will find its way into an existing program--typically (but not always) part of the program's educational outreach. Last year's entry was submitted by an international team from SOAS and they are currently working with a group of London lawyers to put the final touches to a children's book that will aim to help prevent trafficking of vulnerable children. This year's program will be in Feburary 2018 in London at the Dickson Pool School of Law and already 7 teams from throughout the UK have registered interest in meeting the challenge.
LWOB has been able to offer opportunities to students from divisions that have engaged with LWOB to attend and support the logistics and administration of trial advocacy trainings in Kenya and Tanzania over the last year. Last year, students from United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Hong Kong, France and Argentina were able to intern at one of LWOB's two USA office locations.
As LWOB enters its 18th year, we are finding that many former students and interns have now joined the ranks of practicing lawyers. They are not only donating their pro bono services to the organization but also contributing financial support to it.
Students continue to play an important role at LWOB whether through participating student divisions or individually or through other mechanisms that support pro bono service at their universities. The pro bono culture that they experienced as students is finding its way into their professional lives--a testament to the positive experiences they experienced then and now, being part of lawyers crossing borders to make a difference.
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