Beachwood has a new club this year, founded by juniors Taia Menefee, Lyndia Zheng and Shreya Chellu.
Over the summer the three students participated in the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Summer Legal Adventure, a one-week program where they visited different law schools and heard from lawyers in the Cleveland area.
“After the program, we were very motivated to do something at school involving law,” Menefee said.
The club tries to meet once a month to spend time with others who share similar interests and to learn from guest speakers.
“We hope to have a guest speaker at almost every meeting who talks to whoever comes about their career and their journey in law school,” Menefee said.
I think having something for law is important because a lot of times it can be harder especially at a school very focused on STEM to find opportunities for people interested in humanities, so I think pre-law club will help with that and build a community of people who are interested in the same thing.
— Junior Taia Menefee
Their first guest speaker was Lorraine Debose, who works downtown as an assistant county prosecutor at the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office. She talked to the club about her career from high school to where she is now. She also mentioned how her identity has affected her career.
Club members were very interested in what she had to say.
Menefee expresses her goal of taking the club one step further.
“My goals are to introduce students to the field of law,” she said. “We are also aiming to do some sort of field trip down to the downtown justice center.”
“We also want to have some meetings without guest speakers just so students have the opportunity to spend time and talk to people who have the same interests as them because I think that’s really important no matter where you’re going professionally,” she added.
“Pre-law is new to this year, so I think a big goal is to keep it running, and we also hope that in the future the club can grow to include more people and more events,” Zheng said.
Menefee explained why she thinks the club is important.
“I think having something for law is important because a lot of times it can be harder especially at a school very focused on STEM to find opportunities for people interested in humanities, so I think pre-law club will help with that and build a community of people who are interested in the same thing,” she said.
