From beer to basketball, the University School of Law has a mixed bag of 40 organizations for students interested in flexing their legal muscles while getting away from the heavy burden of law-school homework.
One of the newest groups at the law school is the Beeristers. According to the club’s mission statement in the law school guide, it is the only beer club in the nation to be officially recognized by its school.
The Beeristers’ main goal is to “share the home-brew experience with others,” club “Brewmaster” Tommy Brooks said. The group has informal gatherings to brew beer and teach newcomers about the brewing process. While the group was somewhat inactive last year, they are hoping to host more events in the upcoming year, he said.
Sharing home-brewed beer may be fun, but as future lawyers, the group members are also interested in learning about how laws impact home-brewers in Oregon, Brooks said.
In honor of Oregon’s strong beer industry, the Beeristers help sponsor a yearly event held by the Law and Entrepreneurship Society called “The Law of Beer,” Brooks said. Industry experts, including brewer owners and representatives from the Oregon Brewers Guild, speak at the event about the how current laws affect the beer industry.
As a student group, the Beeristers are “dedicated to responsible consumption,” Brooks said. Because the state of Oregon requires alcohol servers to take a class on alcohol awareness in order to gain a servers permit, the club wanted to be sure its members were aware of state laws. Last year 10 Beerister members became certified servers and hopes to certify more members every other year, he said.
“The goal is to make those servers available for events involving alcohol where law students are present. Not every event involving a law student is going to require a certified alcohol server, but even having one will be more likely to increase the safety of the law school community in general,” he said.
Not every group affiliated with the law school is for law students only. The Coalition Against Environmental Racism was initially a law school organization but at the moment is officially an undergraduate club. CAER works to educate people about the problems caused by environmental racism, which is when people in the poorest areas of the nation are burdened with the most pollution, co-director Jennifer Lleras said.
Lleras said that people in the lowest income brackets often get sick from toxins such as smog and pesticides because pollutants aren’t regulated as much in poorer areas. CAER does outreach by sponsoring various events, including an annual environmental justice conference.
While CAER is currently an undergraduate club, members are always looking for members from the law school and would like to expand their knowledge of how current laws impact environmental racism, Lleras said.
Students interested in political activism have their pick of organizations from all sides of the spectrum. One of the more progressive groups is the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, which club president Sarah Strock said emphasizes protecting various civil rights issues, including gay and lesbian legal issues, access to courts and immigration rights.
The counterpart to ACS is the Federalist Society, which, according to the Law School handbook, is “an organization of Conservatives and Libertarians who strive to promote rigorous intellectual debate.” Representatives of the Federalist Society could not be reached for comment.
Law students can keep in shape by joining the Legal Ballers Association, a basketball league organized by Jumane Redway. Redway said he was frustrated with trying to organize pick-up basketball games at the Student Recreation Center. The inspiration to start an official league especially for law students struck “field of dreams style,” Redway said.
“It was like I heard the voice. ‘If you build it, they will come,’” he said.
Redway decided to organize and got funding from the law school. The league has six teams, all of which have names taken from legal terminology, and holds official games two mornings per week at the rec center. He said he modeled the LBA after the NBA because he wanted to show how serious he was. The league, open to both men and women, even has playoffs and an awards ceremony.
Students looking for a more creative outlet to release their stress can join the cast of the Law Revue, a brand-new student group. The Revue is a musical that parodies life as a law student. The play is written and the performances are scheduled for early March, said director Brett Landis.
Landis was in the cast of a law revue at the American University in Washington, D.C. and considered it one of the best things she did as a law student, so when she transferred to UO last year, she knew she wanted to have the same experience here. She said the play, which is written by students, makes fun of the entire law school experience.
“It’s a good chance for law students to relax and do something collaborative and creative, take a step back and laugh at themselves,” she said. “You’re in law school and it’s a very serious thing, but it’s important to be able to step back and make fun of yourself as well.”