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Humble Jurist is where faith and law meet. We advance the values and mission of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society by highlighting those who are defending religious freedom, serving their communities, and striving to uphold the rule of law. Should you or someone you know be featured on Humble Jurist? Fill out this survey: gonzaga.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b4pOcSqafE4itMi
Welcome to Humble Jurist, the j Rubin Clark Law Society podcast. I'm Lucas Stevens. And for this episode, I'm joined by Amy Parker and Jenna Crowther. Amy works for the JRCLS as student chapters manager and previously as events manager. Jenna is a three l at the J.
Lucas Stevens:Rubin Clark Law School at Brigham Young University and serves as the society's student board chair. We focused our discussion on student chapters and answered frequently asked questions by law students, including how to find or start a chapter at a law school, how to operate a student chapter, what do student chapters do, and what resources are available. Thank you, Amy and Jenna, for joining Humble Jurist. To start off, could you share a bit more about yourself, your background, how you got involved with the J. Rubin Clark Law Society, and your current role?
Amy Parker:Yeah, absolutely. So I am a mom of four kids. I enjoy teaching cycle classes. I bike outside. I run outside.
Amy Parker:I ski. I just like being outside a lot. And I got involved with the Law Society because I also organize races around my city. And the executive director before Amy Larson was Forrest Hanson, and he came to one of my events and was looking for events manager at the law society. He also knew that I had recently taken the LSAT and was considering going to law school as an unconventional student in my late thirties and had recently decided against it.
Amy Parker:So he knew that I was interested in all things law and that I could run events. So he asked if I would apply for the events manager position, and I did and started doing that about three years ago and just recently switched over to the student chapters manager position. I'm excited to be here in this capacity working with students and making sure that student chapters stay organized.
Jenna Crowther:I'm Jenna. My current role is the chair of the International Student Board, but I came to it because at BYU we have, like, a career class where they bring in a ton of different people to talk to us about different aspects of law, different, like, societies that are involved in it. And Amy Larson showed up in my class to talk about the Jarrasulas. And I really liked the idea of faith intertwined with the practice of law. And she pointed me to Warren, who was on the student board before me, and he pulled me into the student board.
Jenna Crowther:So that's what I've been doing for the past few years. Oh, yeah. So BYU does, like, a global seminar where they'll take law students and place them with law firms or international government agencies for the whole semester, and we do work with them. And I was really interested in international business law and, like, international transactions. So I went to Korea to work for Kupang, which is, like a big e commerce company there.
Jenna Crowther:And it was so cool. And it did help me get my current job where I will go work after law school.
Lucas Stevens:Awesome. Thanks for introducing yourselves, Amy and Jenna. Now I'd like to hear what is your pitch to students about why they should get involved in the JRCLS?
Amy Parker:I think the JRCLS offers a lot of benefits for students from networking to fellowship and then also for opportunities that you might not get outside of the JRCLS. Networking, we have conferences with lots of different attorneys and speakers. As a student chapter, you have access to those attorneys and those speakers for your own events or or for your own networking. And then for fellowshipping, for the social aspect of it, our current international chair, Angel Zimmerman, often says that the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, the keyword there is social society, that we that we wanna be social, that we want to interact with other attorneys and future attorneys of faith.
Amy Parker:It's just always nice to know you're not alone. And then opportunities that are available through student chapters are things like our Religious Liberty Fellowship and the Sean Bentley Award through the Washington DC chapter. They offer an award that is a monetary award that allows students to go out there if they're interested in entering the civic sector just to help them on their feet as they work a summer internship or anything like Just that that extra income is living in in Washington DC is expensive. There's also the essay contest that is in association with the fellowship, but that's also a monetary award and an automatic acceptance into the fellowship. So fun opportunities as a student in the JRCLS to not only get some financial benefits, but networking benefits and social benefits.
Jenna Crowther:I think for students, much of going to law school is deciding what sort of lawyer you want to be. And I think the JRCLS has incredible guidance, but also just inspiration for that. You can keep your faith, you can keep your values, you can keep all of the things that maybe inspired you to go to law school in the first place with you as you go forward to practice law. And I think having a society where that's important and where that's encouraged and where you see lawyers dealing with that and coming out the other side confident and successful, I think that's a really wonderful thing for a student to have while they're making those choices on their own.
Lucas Stevens:Well said. So our society has student chapters at law schools all over the world, in The United States, The Philippines, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ghana, South Africa, Ireland, and other countries. That being said, how can law students find and connect with the chapter at their law school?
Jenna Crowther:Especially for US based law schools, there will be a connection between the law school SBA and the JRC. So going through your SBA and their club's websites or their club week, you'll probably find your local JRCLS chapter promoting there.
Amy Parker:The website is a valuable resource. You can go to the jrcls.org, and you can search your university there. If your university shows up, there's a chapter. It will list the chapter chair. You should be able to get in touch with the chapter at your university.
Amy Parker:That is different for international chapters because they're not by university, they're by country. So you could also search your country on the website and see if your country has a student chapter associated with it.
Lucas Stevens:And if a student is attending a law school where there is not a student chapter, how can that student start one? What does that process look like?
Jenna Crowther:The very basics of starting a new chapter are finding people who can be part of it. You'll need at least five to be an official chapter. But once you have those five people who are committed to their membership, it's fairly simple. There's a registration form to fill out and send back to the society, so you're registered directly with the society. For US based chapters, you'll need to connect with your SBA to become an official chapter at your law school, associated with your law school, and there may be other requirements they have, like a constitution or other procedural things.
Jenna Crowther:So it's fairly case by case basis. But, of course, if there are any troubles or any things that come around from that, you can reach out to me or to society in general. We can help. We will help. We have helped before to get chapters through difficult moments.
Jenna Crowther:For international chapters, it's a little bit different. Usually, it involves some sort of association with your local attorney chapter. But, again, case by case basis as you run into issues, we can help with those. But the first thing is finding members and then letting the society know that you're interested, and we'll work with you from there.
Lucas Stevens:There's also a helpful step by step guide on the website entitled how to organize a new JRCLS student chapter. That link is available below in the episode's description. It describes selecting officers, completing the chapter student registration form, and requesting a webpage so your chapter can be added to our website. I will also add that you can reach Amy and whoever the student board chair is at their email addresses, which are also listed in the description. Now having mentioned it, could you describe what the student board is and how we can help?
Jenna Crowther:Yeah. So the student board is a collection of law students, and our job is to represent the student chapters to the rest of the society. We serve on the various committees that are associated with the society to make sure that their initiatives are being brought down to a student level, that students are working towards those same goals per se, as well as making sure that if there are things that students need from the larger society, that they have access to those resources. So, if they're looking for speakers on a specific topic or they want to connect with specific area in the world to get more information about those chapters, the student board works to get them connected with those people, as well as going out finding chapters, helping students feel more connected with the society in general.
Amy Parker:Yeah, the student board is a really important component to the law society as a whole. The student board is comprised of really as many people as would like to serve. Having a student fit in all the committee meetings is something that we're really interested in having, just having the perspective of students so that as we are doing service, religious freedom, events, women in law, communications, we're doing those things, having a student voice will really help us as we understand how to reach our our student chapters and how to involve the student chapters. Because there's so much turnover with students, jumping right into the international board really helps to train the next generation of of the student chapter leaders. So if you jump in right from the beginning to the international board, that's not even a that's not even a problem.
Amy Parker:It's not like you have to be really involved in your chapter before you can join the international board.
Lucas Stevens:Absolutely. Now that we've covered how to connect with existing student chapters and how to start them, let's talk about running one. What general advice do you have for recruiting students, funding chapter activities, and sustaining an active chapter over time?
Speaker 4:Speaking to recruiting students, there is a misconception that since the student or since the society is named after Gabriel Clark at BYU that it's exclusive to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and that's just not true. I'd say, especially for student chapters, looking beyond that mental restraint to other people of faith who are wanting to incorporate it in their practice, people who care about religious freedom and the rule of law, will help bring in a wider group of students and also enrich the the chapter as a whole.
Jenna Crowther:You'll get more perspectives. You'll get more active people who care about these things because that's the basic values of
Speaker 4:the society are things that we share as people of faith, not just as members of the Church of Jesus Christ. So recruiting
Amy Parker:students, if you are at a law school and you don't have a big membership, I like to talk about it as if you're just building a big fire and your fire is so big that everybody just wants to come and join it. So if you are hosting, fun events, if you are an active chapter that is something that people want to be involved in, they're they're going to come naturally. Just build such a a fun, inclusive fire that's so big that people are attracted to it. And if you need to get funding, that's available through most SBAs and working with your local school to see what kind of funding is available. And of course being recognized by your law school is going to open up a lot of those opportunities for you you too.
Amy Parker:The quickest way to kill a chapter is by not having leadership set up for succession. So if there's always a chair elect, there's always a plan for next year, then student then the chapter is is going to survive. And that's true of student chapters. It's true of attorney chapters. Sometimes you have a really active chair that's going to make the chapter really robust for the year or two or three that the chapter chair is there.
Amy Parker:But if there's not somebody coming up, in the ranks to become the chapter chair, then even a really strong chapter can fade away for a while until somebody else comes in. As long as there is a consistent game plan for a line of succession at all times, you're gonna keep a strong chapter.
Lucas Stevens:I'd like to discuss more about what student chapters do. What are some common events and activities that they organize?
Amy Parker:There are so many different events that I've heard of and that I've seen. So anything from bringing in speakers and having maybe a lunch and a speaker to having service activities. I've also heard of chapters who just have a lunch once a month and meet together and have a discussion topic. Choosing what they're going to talk about, will they munch and mingle and and talk about a topic that's important to them?
Jenna Crowther:I love to see when student chapters have service opportunities. I know the BYU chapter in the past has done clothing drives and, like, associated with the local clinics to provide pro bono service. I've also heard of more religion focused activities, like having a prayer group or, like, a religious text study group periodically?
Lucas Stevens:Yeah. I wanna share some of the events that the Gonzaga student chapter has hosted. We do an opening social for chapter members and their families under the pavilion at the Spokane Temple. Our faculty advisor hosts a potluck chili cook off at his home every year. We have an annual pickleball tournament, an outline review session for 1Ls before midterm exams.
Lucas Stevens:Every year we have a lunchtime event with our law school chaplain, which we have as a Jesuit institution. Actually, the first event my wife and I went to was a hike, which was so important to us making friends and finding our community here after we had just recently moved to a different state. Something we've done in the past is pair law students with attorneys from the Spokane attorney chapter as part of a mentorship program. And we recently hosted Hannah Smith from the International Center for Law and Religion for a lecture on religious freedom. I just wanna emphasize again that events are so important for engaging students with the mission of the society and for inspiring and connecting students.
Lucas Stevens:Another event I encourage student chapters to host is gathering to watch the JRCLS Global Student Summit in April. That being said, what is the Global Student Summit and what will it look like this year?
Jenna Crowther:The Global Student Summit's our worldwide virtual event for students in the way that the society has a whole has the annual conference and people come from worldwide. Students usually can't do that sort of thing. So we've created a virtual event for them to come be inspired, get some training. We pass over the leadership of the student board, so everyone who attends knows who their next point of contact is for the student board. And it's a good time.
Jenna Crowther:This will be our second year doing it, and last year, I think, was just really great. This year, we do have a theme chosen. We're gonna be talking about faith in the public sphere and speaking your convictions and the practice of religion in public spaces, as well as the restrictions and limitations, all of that sort of stuff. We're probably going to have a panel of speakers, and my hope is that we'll have a student breakout session to do a little bit of thinking and drafting in the context of our individual chapters too. So more details to come, but that's what we're looking forward to.
Amy Parker:This Global Student Summit is a great opportunity for the global student chapters to gather together. There are so many student chapters across the world that it's hard to get everybody together. So having this virtual component of it allows all students to join and without having to secure funding to travel, which is nice. So it's a it's a good opportunity to gather and see the scale of the student chapters and then to learn about not just a a topic that's interesting, but also to receive some leadership training and to hear from other chapters, maybe activities that they've had to learn from to learn with and and from each other.
Lucas Stevens:So mark your calendars for April 4. That event will be held annually on the first Friday in April. For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, another way to remember it is the Friday before general conference. Now our second to last question is, how do student chapters collaborate with attorney chapters, And how do students get involved with attorney chapters after they graduate?
Amy Parker:That's a great question. We would really like to see a lot more collaboration between the student and the attorney chapters. But one important component that we're hoping we can see every student chapter have is a member that sits on the local attorney chapter. So not necessarily a official member of the attorney chapter, but for any board meetings that an attorney chapter has, there will be a corresponding student who attends those meetings. And that will help the students have access to whatever events the attorneys are having, speakers that the attorneys may know, resources that those attorneys have, and then how to find one after you graduate.
Amy Parker:Yeah. Who who knows where you're going after you graduate? It could be anywhere around the world. And the nice thing about the law society is that we do have chapters just about anywhere you go. And again, you just go to jrcls dot org and you can search your area and all the chapters that are available will pop up.
Amy Parker:And you can reach out to the chapter chair to join. You can register yourself on the website and it will assign you to that chapter. And if you have any trouble finding a student chapter or an attorney chapter, you can always email any of us at the law society, and we can help connect you with one or help you create one.
Lucas Stevens:In closing, what has been one of your favorite moments or most meaningful experiences with the J. Rubin Clark Law Society?
Jenna Crowther:I think the first time I traveled to go to the J. R. Seelis event was down in Las Vegas, and a couple classmates and I rented a hotel room together and attended the events there. They had a student breakfast. And just getting the context of, like, there are students who are interested in this, who have come from pretty far away to attend and be part of this, and it's something that I can be part of too, a larger a larger community than the one that I was building.
Jenna Crowther:So it was pretty exciting.
Amy Parker:So most memorable and most meaningful are probably two separate things, but my most memorable is definitely in Mexico City for our annual conference in 2025 when there was a surprise conga line that broke out and having everybody involved in that, seeing very distinguished judges and really important attorneys just cut loose in this conga line was so refreshing to see that they're everybody's human, everybody likes to have fun, to see that the social part of the law society is working, that we can have fun around each other, and that we can connect on more than a professional level was it it was very memorable, and it was also really inspiring. And then just it's been really amazing to work on the management team. And one of the things that Amy Larson, the executive director, says often is that the Lord loves the law society, and we see that all the time. We're just a nonprofit, with a very small managing team and then a huge network of volunteers. And so to see how successfully it's run when the majority of what happens is in the volunteer sphere with people who are not getting paid for it and they're doing it on their own time just because it's something they care about is truly amazing to me.
Amy Parker:How many people dedicate their billable hours to the success of the law society, and we really do see miracles all the time from just how budgets work out to speakers we're able to get. And, yeah, different the difference we're able to make through service. Just lot lots of different ways that we see these little miracles that come because we we really do believe that the lord loves the law society.
Lucas Stevens:That concludes this episode. Thank you Amy and Jenna for answering frequently asked questions and providing a ton of useful information about JRCLS student chapters. If you have further questions, please reach out to Amy and Jenna whose emails are in the show notes. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe, rate, and leave a positive review. Also, please join us next month, and thanks for listening.