First-year law student Katie Paradise first found the love for international business and helping people when she was a volunteer in the Peace Corps after graduating from Temple University.
Paradise spent two years in Senegal, West Africa helping local entrepreneurs grow their business and establishing a scholarship and camp for girls in the area.
“I worked a lot with youth development,” said Paradise. “Premature marriage happens a lot, so we started a scholarship and camp for the girls that focused on education empowerment. We wanted to encourage studying and health education in the community. This is what I was most passionate about.”
Her experience in the Peace Corps helped to cement the passion to go to law school and possibly focus on international or immigration law.
Paradise’s story is just one of the many of passion and experience that the incoming class of 130 students in 2017 brings to the law school.
The incoming class of first-year law students at Widener Law Commonwealth is one of the most diverse to enter the law school. Representing 18 states and two countries, the age of students’ ranges from 20 through 61 and more than thirty percent of the class identifies as a person of color.
In his address welcoming students to the profession, the Hon. P. Kevin Brobson ’95 told incoming law students that the legal profession was one people look to for comfort.
“People don’t go to architects, they go to the courts,” he said. “People look to us to protect their rights.”
He added that being a lawyer and being in the legal profession means that a person needs to be able to see the path and have the ability to look at situations with a clear view and different perspective.
Inder Deep Paul ’16 addressed the incoming students from the perspective of a recent graduate. His advice encouraged law students to experiment with all different types of law and to be “the best law student” over the next three or four years.
“I have three pieces of advice,” he said. “There is no alternative to hard work. You are not always banned from having fun. Always focus on the big picture of the ultimate goal.”
