Society for Restorative Justice Honored with EJW Award
10.10.08 — The School of Law’s Society for Restorative Justice, a student organization, was awarded the 2008 Equal Justice Works (EJW) Exemplary Public Service Award at the EJW annual awards luncheon on October 10, 2008, in Washington, DC. Second-year student Rebecca Greening accepted the award and described the audience and experience. “Needless to say, I was nervous,” commented Greening. “Speaking in front of a ballroom full of leaders in public interest law as well as students who share a similar passion for public interest was an intimidating proposition. However, as I spoke, I looked out at the audience and felt invigorated by being able to speak about Restorative Justice and not feel that it was being received as a fringe concept or radical idea.”
The award lauded the Society’s work at the Social Justice Academy, a Hyde Park high school where NUSL law students are collaborating with the school to implement an alternative disciplinary system based in restorative principles. Other Society activities include raising on-campus awareness of restorative justice and other progressive law movements, partnering with local restorative justice organizations to promote restorative justice in New England, and promoting the use of restorative justice in schools statewide.
Approximately 15 NUSL students also attended the EJW Conference and Career Fair, which is held annually for two days in mid-October. Students came to hear speakers, mingle with activists, interview and press resumes into the hands of more than 200 nonprofit and government organizations looking to hire graduating law students for summer and post-graduate positions. Much of the Co-op and Career Services staff joined the students at the conference as they do every year. “It’s the largest public interest and government job fair in the country,” said Associate Director of Career Services Valerie Kapilow. “There’s enormous power in being at a venue with over 1,000 public interest minded students from all over the country. This unique experience happens at the same time that campuses across the country are hosting law firms for their fall recruitment interview programs. It’s the public interest-minded law students’ counterpart to this flurry of law firm activity.”
Students attended workshops throughout the weekend, including sessions on the federal government’s new College Cost Reduction and Access Act, “What Law Students Can Do to Push for More Diversity in Law Firms” and “Connecting Outside the Bubble: Finding your Public Interest Peers During Law School.” “The talk helped me to appreciate more how lucky we are to not just be one of a handful of people at our school to want to go into public interest,” said Greening. “Being interested in public interest seems like a scarlet letter A at other schools.”
