Tradition of 1L Section Reunions Continues Online
April 30, 2020
In their first year of law school, students develop strong bonds within their first-year sections as they encounter and tackle the new challenges law school brings. To honor and celebrate these bonds, AUWCL created a new tradition in Spring 2019 – 1L Section Reunions for the graduating class.
While the first reunions were held on a sunny Spring day on the campus lawn, a year later the law school has moved online, and so too does this tradition. On Friday, April 24, 2020, five first-year professors and their faculty colleagues hosted 1L Section reunions on Zoom.
The tradition began with Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP) Professor Michael Carroll. In Fall 2014, he took a “class selfie” of his first-year section on their first day of his Contracts course. He told his students they would have to wait until the section was about to graduate to share the photo with them. He was unable to attend their graduation in Spring 2017, so he invited them for a reunion lunch.
The students’ strong positive reaction to seeing the photo of themselves as 1Ls and being back together with each other made it clear that this should continue. The class selfie remains Carroll's tradition with his students, but he thought there was no reason all 1L Sections shouldn’t reunite near graduation.
In Spring 2019, Carroll reached out to first-year faculty colleagues who enthusiastically embraced the idea of 1L Section Reunions. Andrew McCarthy-Clark, director of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving, was delighted to provide organization and sponsorship for this new AUWCL tradition as the graduating class joins the large AUWCL alumni family.
For the Class of 2020, the desire to reunite, connect, and celebrate is stronger than ever, and this new tradition provides the opportunity to make that happen.