Maine
Graduating class show law school’s efforts to recruit rural Maine lawyers and boost diversity
Jonathan Burk is returning residence to rural Maine to observe regulation after his commencement from the College of Maine College of Legislation on Saturday at Merrill Auditorium in Portland.
Burk, 25, is one in all 76 college students who will earn a level from Maine’s solely regulation college. He additionally is likely one of the few graduates who will work in part of Maine the place legal professionals are retiring and shutting companies as a result of they will’t discover anybody to exchange them.
His classmate Schadrac Joseph, 33, will work for the U.S. Air Pressure as a decide advocate or army lawyer. He’s one in all 10 college students of coloration to graduate this yr.
Burk and Joseph characterize two of the priorities that Maine’s solely regulation college has set lately because it seeks to encourage extra graduates to work within the state’s rural communities which have few legal professionals and enhance the range of its scholar physique.
“I imagine one of many largest obstacles to new legal professionals coming into rural practices is a lack of expertise of the alternatives ready for them,” Burk stated.
Left to proper, Jonathan Burk, 25, is one in all 76 college students graduating Saturday from the College of Maine College of Legislation. Schadrac Joseph, 33, is one in all 76 college students graduating Saturday from the College of Maine College of Legislation. Credit score: Courtesy of Schadrac Joseph & Jonathan Burk
As Maine Legislation tries to spice up the ranks of rural legal professionals, Burk stated he’s inspired by the opening of a Fort Kent satellite tv for pc workplace of the Cumberland Authorized Assist Clinic, the place authorized college students will intern for school credit in the course of the college yr or for a stipend in the course of the summer season months.
“I feel related initiatives that permit college students to expertise rural observe firsthand will profit legal professionals and purchasers alike,” Burk stated.
Joseph, who was born in Florida and raised in Hamilton, New Jersey, has seen the regulation college’s efforts to extend range however thinks it must do extra.
He prompt that the regulation college rent a full-time range officer
“The Maine State Bar Affiliation must also proceed increasing, mentoring, and offering assist to its range sections,” he stated.
Joseph was within the U.S. Air Pressure and performed prison investigations earlier than deciding to attend regulation college. He selected the College of Maine College of Legislation in a predominantly white state due to its small class sizes, comparatively low tuition fee and placement in Portland.
However what sealed the deal, he stated, was the “heat sense of welcome primarily based on my interactions with professors and the admissions staff” that he felt after visiting the campus.
Burk, who graduated from Cornell College in Ithaca, New York, in 2018 with a level in economics, was anxious to return to Maine. A local of the Oxford County city of Denmark, he graduated from Fryeburg Academy.
“I’ve at all times cherished Maine, so I jumped on the alternative to come back residence for regulation college,” Burk stated. “I additionally knew I used to be thinking about working in Maine after commencement, and I feel there isn’t any higher place to launch a profession regionally.”
When Burk joins the Hastings regulation agency this summer season, he’ll turn out to be the fourth member of one of many oldest regulation companies in Maine. Hastings Legislation Workplace turns 175 this yr.
Discovering younger legal professionals prepared to stay and work in rural Maine is troublesome however not not possible, stated David Hastings, who joined his household regulation agency in 1976 and is the fifth technology to serve the authorized wants of residents in western Maine and jap New Hampshire.
When a small, rural agency like Hastings’ hires a younger lawyer straight out of regulation college, it’s a massive dedication.
“College students be taught quite a bit concerning the regulation in regulation college however not quite a bit about how you can observe regulation,” Hastings stated. “There’s a number of mentoring concerned. It’s an enormous funding of money and time, however we determined that we are going to make that funding in Jonathan.
Not like Hastings, Burk and Joseph would be the first legal professionals of their households after they move their bar exams.