Dear UVA Pre-Law Community

Dear UVA Pre-Law Community,

It was always obvious I wanted to be a lawyer. It wasn’t always obvious how I’d get there. 

My first year at UVA was unlike any academic experience I had ever been through. I went to a small secondary school from 7th to 12th grade and did well there. I took the hard classes, got good grades, worked a part-time job, and played on a sports team. Compared to college, that time was a walk in the park.

UVA students are high achieving, determined, and very active community members. I realized that on my very the first day, when seemingly everyone had vetted their roommate before moving into their first-year dorm. Such a simple concept baffled me back then—reaching out to a stranger to dorm with instead of choosing “random assignment?” That’s crazy!

Fortunately, I learned a lot from the experience of knowing nothing. It made the contrast between what I was doing poorly and what others were doing well more apparent and made my learning curve a bit easier. 

One thing I did right was the Fall Activities Fair. I stumbled my way across the amphitheater on a 90 degree day and found myself in front of a tri-fold with a big, beautiful title: “Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity.” It was here where my pre-law journey began. 

As I mentioned before, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer, but the process of becoming one was foreign to me. There were no lawyers in my family; I had never even met one. I had no idea where to start until I went to my first chapter meeting as a PAD rushee.

In 2021-22, the PAD president was a Fourth-Year named Blake Morrain. He was smart and well-ingrained in the UVA community. He could tell stories for hours about his time at UVA and no one would be bored. He was my role model. He encouraged me to remain active in PAD. Over the years, I had the opportunity to serve as the Secretary and Vice President, continuing to develop the knowledge and mentorship skills I learned through my time as a pre-law student.

PAD at UVA offers discount codes for LSAT prep courses, LSAT fee waivers, access to guest speakers, service and leadership opportunities, and access to law school tours. Despite these offerings, PAD’s true value lies in its community. This community was my first introduction to the pre-law process. My fellow PAD brothers taught me the basics:

• Law schools highly value LSAT scores and undergraduate GPA over extracurriculars.
• The Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) is a marathon of a test. Practice needs to be taken seriously.
• The LSAT costs $235, but test prep services range from $500-$3,000+.
• Law school applications are assessed on a rolling basis, meaning that applicants can be admitted throughout the admission season.

The UVA Career Center doesn’t hold your hand through the application process; it hosts events that supplement your journey, but isn’t well-known among undergraduates. PAD, on the other hand, supports pre-law students well. 

Through PAD’s pre-law series with the Blue Ridge Center, “Your 1L Year,” we hosted lawyers from countless fields, federal and state judges (many appointed by POTUS), legal scholars, and practitioners at the forefront of landmark cases such as Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and UNC. Each event was tied into the doctrinal classes taken by every law student in the country: property, torts, constitutional law, criminal law, contracts, and civil procedure. We were able to expose students to these legal ideas before they stepped foot in a law school classroom.

One major characteristic of Phi Alpha Delta is its dedication to service. One way we serve our community is through a puppy yoga fundraising event! I had the pleasure of kicking off the first puppy yoga session with UVA Recreation and the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA in 2024. We raised hundreds of dollars along with toys, food and supplies for our community animal shelter. We plan to make puppy yoga a yearly tradition to support the CASPCA.

Our advisor, Sherri Moore, is the iconic Commercial Law I & II professor that almost every pre-law student vies to work for as a TA. Her support is key; PAD members have a lawyer available to talk to every day of the week over in her office (Robertson 343). For students like me with no exposure to lawyers or the legal field, this access and her approachable nature made me feel just in asking what I thought were stupid questions. (Spoiler: lots of students had the same questions!) 

Last semester, Prof. Moore gave a keynote speech to our new member class of over 189 students. I have been a part of PAD since my first year and I never would have expected that I would be a part of initiating the largest pledge class in our organization’s history. 

Our network is vast and encompasses law students and faculty at law schools across the country including University of Virginia Law, Harvard Law, Georgetown Law, Columbia Law, Notre Dame Law, and many more. As each class graduates, this network gets bigger and, in turn, becomes more valuable to the new members who join our ranks.

I am proud to have spent so much time and energy with Phi Alpha Delta at UVA. We held elections last weekend and I can’t wait to see what the new executive board, led by Arjan Dulai and Kate Semenikhina, has in store.

To conclude, I want to thank every faculty member, peer, and legal professional that guided me through the process of getting into law school. I hope you know the value of your support as mentors.