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LLI is a collaborative program funded in part
by the Ohio State Bar Foundation and involves all of Ohio’s
nine law schools as well as the State Bar Association, the
Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio Center for Law-Related
Education.
The LLI’s summer program is now being offered
in Ohio’s six largest cities – Cleveland, Columbus,
Cincinnati, Toledo, Dayton and Akron – with a special
emphasis on reaching out to minority students.
“We are looking to improve diversity in the
legal profession and looking at under-served communities –
that is our mission,” said Marilyn Preston, director of the
Toledo LLI and a professor of Legal Writing at The
University of Toledo College of Law.
LLI, a four-year college preparatory program
that starts with instruction in criminal law and court
procedures, is intended as a vehicle to help students gain
critical academic skills in studying and test-taking. The
program focuses on developing students’ ability to write and
express themselves, thereby building self-confidence,
positive peer group relations and excitement about a
professional career.
The Toledo LLI began last summer and there
are currently 24 rising sophomores in their second year of
the program and 27 soon-to-be ninth graders such as
Highsmith. LLI’s staff contacts area guidance counselors for
assistance in recruiting students into the program.
The students undergo four rigorous weeks
during the summer and then commit to spending 12 weekends a
year during the school year during their first year.
As students advance through the program, they
will experience law-related seminars and filed trips, a
four-day paid summer internship, and participation in a law
debate program while paired with an attorney or law student.
Last week, the students had the opportunity
to tour the offices of Cooper & Walinski, LLP. Parriss
Coleman, one of the firm’s partners, has been involved with
the program over the last several years. Coleman took the
group on the tour and another partner, Gerald Kowalski, gave
a short presentation on what his firm does, pointing out the
choices that law students have in choosing a career path
within the legal profession.
“We are litigators,” explained Kowalski, a
Woodward High School graduate who put himself through UT’s
College of Law by taking night courses and working full-time
during his days. Kowalski pointed out that he came from a
family that had not had college students before his
generation.
“We are lawyers who handle lawsuits and work
in courts,” he said of Cooper & Walinski. “If you have a
dream to be a lawyer, you can do it. Nothing should stop
you, dream big and follow that dream.”
That advice was very much in keeping with
what Jillian Highsmith has been pondering for so much of her
short life. Born to argue, she wants to do exactly what
Kowalski is doing – work in courts as a litigator. She wants
to handle criminal cases.
“I want to be the one to strike fear into the
hearts of people,” she said.
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