There has been a recent increase of interest in law and legal studies at Elizabethtown College, as well as on a national scale.
Etown comes with many ways to help students who are interested in pursuing a career in law and how to get started. Something different that Etown does involving law is their pre-law program. This program is not formal, which means that it is open to any student and is not tied to any specific major. This also means that there are no prerequisites to complete, and students at any point in their college career can join.
Etown associate professor of communications Dr. Matthew Telleen is a pre-law advisor. This current idea of a pre-law program and assistance to those who want to learn law ties started over a decade ago. Telleen said that political science professor Dr. Kyle Kopko started to revamp pre-law and the legal studies major here, which Telleen then joined 10 years ago.
With Telleen’s assistance, he added a designated class with the purpose to help students prepare for the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), which is crucial for students to take. Telleen knows that this preparation is important to have, since he personally attended law school.
“We wanted to have a pre-law program that was for students regardless of their major to just get advice about [the] process of thinking about law school,” Telleen said. “This helps students think about what courses they want to take to give them a sense of whether law school is a good choice. And this can maybe help prepare them for the type of classes they’ll take in law school, and the types of learning they need to do.”
The pre-law program and advising from this program would still be a resource for someone, even if it is a little later in their college career.
The program doesn’t require a specific major, even though there is, of course, Etown’s legal studies major. This is another way for students at the College to start to prepare for law school, with content coming from various disciplines, and students can analyze text, form arguments and learn more about philosophy and law.
With the pre-law program being helpful for those newly discovering their interest in law, and those who have declared legal studies as their major, Etown even has a program for those who are in high school. This is the Law Early Admissions Program (LEAP),. This program sets a student up with a 3+3 program, where students will attend at least three years at Etown, finish their core requirements and gain automatic acceptance to one of the College’s partnering schools: Drexel University, Duquesne University and Widener University. Once students complete their first year at law school, then those credits will be fulfilled for a student’s undergraduate.
This program to help those in high school has been useful recently, since there has been an increase—nationally and locally—of interest involving legal studies.
“I think the interest amongst high school students probably was driven by a lot of questions during COVID about public policy, rules and regulations involving vaccines, masks and other sorts of things,” Telleen said. “It might have gotten them thinking about who are the people that make and interpret these rules or laws and therefore might’ve put that career on their radar, in a way they might not have thought of, under typical conditions.”
In addition to Telleen, Dean of Etown’s School of Public Service Dr. April Kelly also noticed the newer interest in law with younger people. She thinks that people do want a good paying job, but also really want to make a difference within their community.
“For a lot of people, law is a field that allows one to make these sorts of meaningful contributions to society, while also providing a good living,” Kelly said.
With all three of these options involving law, Etown puts in the effort to advise, assist and provide resources for students to help them complete their next steps to pursuing law.
