The law school requires first-year students to participate in a community service program. Working with Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada and Nevada Legal Services, teams of students prepare and conduct weekly workshops for unrepresented people on basic procedures in family or small claims court and on paternity, custody, guardianship, tenants' rights and bankruptcy matters. This program offers students the chance to educate groups of people in a general way without giving specific legal advice. Students are required to attend approximately five hours of training and the student teams conduct weekly, two-hour workshops.
In the second half of their law school careers, students will have the opportunity, under direct faculty supervision, to represent real clients in a variety of externships and in-house legal clinics, as well as to work one-on-one with an attorney mentor on cases in consumer law, child welfare, family law and tax law. By so doing, they gain valuable training and experience. Moreover, these sorts of experiences should help to reinforce the students' commitment to community service, while demonstrating to the students that there is a large unmet need for legal services in our society today. We hope that Boyd School of Law students and graduates will be a positive force - throughout their careers - in meeting this need and in making their community a better place.