Danny Johnson is an incoming 1L at Georgetown Law School and the newest contributor to Beyond the Classroom. Over the course of the next year, he will be chronicling his experience as a first year law student.

In March, I attended the Georgetown Law School Admitted Students Open House to see if everything I had read and heard about the school was true. It suffices to say that I was impressed, and by the end of the visit, I was drinking the Kool-Aid, had joined the Facebook fan page and decided to name my firstborn after Dean of Admissions Andrew Cornblatt (those plans have since changed).

Aside from its great reputation, influential faculty and innovative curriculum, I learned first hand of the unique and inherent benefits afforded to GULC as a place where influencers and thought leaders descend due its location in the heart of Capital Hill.

I had planned to leave DC and return to Utah on Sunday, immediately following the open house, but when I heard that Education Secretary Arne Duncan and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner would be speaking on the campus as part of the Educating For Democracy in a Digital World Conference that Wednesday, I moved my flight and stayed an extra few days.

Aside from meeting the Justice and the Secretary, I met two other people at the event that I was just as excited about interacting with. Those two men were Street Law founder and former GULC professor, Jason Newman, and Richard Roe, the current director of the Street Law Clinic.

Georgetown Law is heralded for its clinical programs and the Street Law Clinic is one of the reasons why. It provides 2nd and 3rd year law students the oppurtunity to teach high school kids in DC about civics and the law and is the one clinic at Georgetown that I am most interested in getting involved with.

I have long had a passion for working with young people that started while teaching under privileged youth in the favelas of Sao Paulo, Brazil and this continued to develop while coaching at numerous basketball camps over the past few years. Thus, when I initially read about the Street Law Clinic, I recognized this as something that I could become passionate about.

Both Professor Newman and Professor Roe were very cordial and engaging. I was very impressed when Professor Roe  told me all about the Thurgood Marshall Academy that he helped found in 2001. The Academy is a charter school for underserved students in DC and recently boasted a 100% college acceptance rate. Though our conversation got cut short, Professor Roe asked that I email him to continue the dialog and he has been very responsive and helpful in answering my questions and providing guidance.

Though I was already riding shotgun on the Georgetown law bandwagon after the open house, this experience sealed my fate as a future Hoya.

To continue the conversation, leave a comment or send Danny a Tweet at @DannymJohnson.


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