Fifty-five Cleveland-area students from Maple Heights High School, the Cleveland Academy of Scholarship, Technology, and Leadership Enterprise (C.A.S.T.L.E.) High School, and Cuyahoga Community College’s Upward Bound Program will take their first steps toward college or law school when they meet with faculty, students, administrators and practicing attorneys at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law on Friday, January 29 from 10 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. at the law school, 1801 Euclid Avenue (at the corner of East 18th and Euclid Avenue).

The students will be participating in the national Jump Start High School Program sponsored by the Law School Admission Council’s DiscoverLaw.org initiative, a program developed to inspire greater numbers of students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds to earn college degrees and proceed to law school and careers in law.

During the four-hour program, Cleveland-Marshall faculty, administrators and law students will speak with the visiting students and recommend procedures and policies that will help them prepare for undergraduate and graduate education. Some of the scheduled activities for the day include the American Bar Association video presentation, “Choose Law: A Profession for All”; panels regarding higher education admission processes and the value of lawyers in American society; a luncheon with law students; and a tour of the law school. Lawyers from the Norman Minor Bar Association, the regional chapter of the National Bar Association, will counsel the students as well.

Jump Start is one among many Cleveland-Marshall “pipeline” programs created to inspire students from elementary school through undergraduate school to consider careers in law. Other law school pipeline programs include the year-round Law and Leadership Institute, the Summer Legal Academy, the 3Rs Program and the Mock Trial Program. In addition, the law school admissions department holds open houses throughout the year exclusively for minority students in college and high school.

According to Sandra English, Cleveland-Marshall Assistant Director for Admission, Financial Aid, and Multicultural Recruitment, “Our law school understands the importance of diversifying the legal profession, and we work very hard to welcome and encourage potential law students from minority populations to imagine themselves as lawyers. We want them to know there is a place for them in the law profession and that the profession needs their insights and skills.”

Contact Ms. English at 216.687.6887 or Sandra.English@law.csuohio.edu.

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