Pro Bono Scholars set the bar (and pass it)
If you want to bet on a group of students likely to pass the New York State Bar Exam, you should put your money on the law school’s Pro Bono Scholars. For five years running, every one of this cohort of highly motivated third-year students has conquered the exam on their first try.
There’s a tradeoff. The Pro Bono Scholars spend their final semester of law school studying for and taking the February bar exam, then working full time, without pay, in the public interest. They forgo the elective courses and additional time with their classmates. But in return, they’re ideally positioned to enter their legal careers with real-world experience, the bar exam behind them, and the satisfaction of knowing they’ve used their new legal skills to make a difference for clients in need.
“These are high-achieving students who are very motivated to have this experience,” says Vice Dean Melinda Saran '86, who co-directs the program with Lisa Patterson, director of externships and access to justice initiatives. “They’re giving up the experience of their senior semester, but they find it highly valuable for their professional preparation.”
The seven students in this year’s cohort meet with Saran and Patterson weekly on Wednesday nights, a class that involves oral and written presentations by the students as well as guest lectures by experts in areas of public-interest law. “It’s a combination of legal skills development and an introduction to the variety of options in legal services in the law,” Saran says.
An underlying goal is to instill a love for pro bono work as these new lawyers begin their careers. The message, she says, is, “You can do this work, you’re needed, you’re valued, and we want you to do this.”
Marygrace Piskorowski
The Pro Bono Scholars tend to gravitate to the work naturally. Take Marygrace Piskorowski, who says her placement with Volunteer Lawyers Project in Batavia is the fulfillment of her childhood dream to advocate on behalf of immigrants.
“This is the job that I’ve always wanted to do,” Piskorowski says. “I grew up in Batavia in a migrant community, and I saw how difficult it is for detained individuals to get legal counsel.” Having studied Spanish as an undergraduate, she’s able to use her language skills when interviewing clients and supports the VLP lawyers in myriad ways as they represent clients held in the federal detention facility in Batavia.
Piskorowski took a roundabout route to law school—she holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing and has worked as a practicing nurse—but says, “The real commonality between the two careers is that both are advocates. My nursing background prepared me to be a strong advocate.” She’ll continue in that spirit when, after graduation, she joins VLP as a staff attorney.
Hannah Campbell
For her classmate Hannah Campbell, her Pro Bono Scholars placement with the Federal Public Defender’s office in Buffalo has been a rich learning experience, and is somewhat of a continuation of what she learned in the law school’s Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic.
She worked at the Federal Public Defender’s office last summer as well, doing mostly sentencing memoranda; now she’s drafting motions and doing research. Having passed the bar exam, she’s able to represent clients in court under a practice order.
“I’ve learned a lot in this placement,” Campbell says, “especially from the feedback I’ve received one on one with the lawyers.” She’ll apply that learning to her post-graduation job as an assistant appellate court attorney for the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Third Department, in Albany. “I’ve really enjoyed public defense, especially criminal defense,” she says. “This will be a little different from what I’ve been doing, but it will be a good experience.”
She’ll also bring with her a commitment to public service. “Pro bono service is inherent in many areas of law,” Campbell says. “This program gets us some real-life experience before we’re actually licensed, but we’re also giving back, which I think is the point.”
Alyssa Carbone
Another member of the Pro Bono Scholars cohort, Alyssa Carbone, secured a placement that took her back to her native New York City. At the nonprofit organization Sanctuary for Families, she’s spending the semester as part of the group’s Immigration Intervention Project, working mostly with asylum seekers.
“With the sudden influx, I knew I wanted to be a part of that kind of team,” Carbone says. “I wanted to be nearer to home but also be part of giving back to the community here.”
At Sanctuary for Families, she works mostly on asylum claims—conducting intake interviews (she too speaks Spanish), filing applications for asylum, helping clients seek green cards or work permits. “It’s been a great experience,” Carbone says. “I feel like I learned more in this practice than I would in the classroom if I had stayed in Buffalo. It fit in very well with the plan I had. I wanted to devote a whole semester to practice in the realm of public service, and I knew I wanted to be part of a project where my heart was invested in it.”
As a first-generation law student, she says, she also appreciated the program’s faculty support in the run-up to the bar exam, especially in negotiating filing requirements and applying for admission to the bar. “I knew I wanted the extra support of the program,” she says, “including being part of a smaller cohort, and having help with all the paperwork I knew I would have a hard time navigating on my own.”
She’s also preparing for her post-graduation job in the corporate department of the New York City firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, where she spent her 2L summer. It’ll be very different from her current work—but, she says, the firm encourages pro bono work and has a partnership with Sanctuary for Families, so she’s hoping to continue her work with asylum seekers on a volunteer basis.