Lewis & Clark

Our group has been in existence some ten years; it meets a few times a year; it has speakers, and will sometimes sponsor programs and helps with placement. The key to getting started is, well, getting started. A little money helps, as does an interested faculty member.

Art laFrance

Southern Methodist University

1. Do you have a health law club/society? Yes

2. How long has it been in existence? 3 years

3. How often do the students meet? 3 times each semester

4. What type of services do they provide (speakers, study groups, etc.)?
Speakers, mostly . T hey also are co-sponsoring an organ donation card-signing drive this fall; last year they sponsored a 2-hour CLE for Dallas lawyers on advance directives.

5. Any tips on starting a club?
I t helps to have a core group of students who are passionate about starting - the hurdles (student bar recognition, budget process, "distractions" like class prep, jog searches, etc.) are formidable for students who are not committed to success

I f the local bar has a health law section, they can be helpful (as a source of speakers) and they can also open up their monthly breakfast or luncheon meetings to student members of the health law association - good networking opportunity for the students and the practitioners seem to like the contact with the students .

A lot of groups die after the initial core group graduates . . . it is essential that younger students be brought into the fold early in the year and prepared to assume leadership the next year - they typically have to hit the ground running with their proposed budget so they have to learn a lot and learn it quickly.

Indiana University

We have a most active health law society at our school that is over ten years old.  The society sponsors job fairs, speakers and social events.  Currently, we have a really strong leadership team in the society.  The society is planning a health law alumni event for this February.

Here is the link to the letter from the health law society president to the students explaining the health law society: http://www.iulaw.indy.indiana.edu/Programs/CLH/hlsletter.htm.  I would suggest that you contact Julie Reed, the society's president.  She is very energetic and personable and could answer all your questions.

Washington and Lee

We don't have one (yet) here at Washington and Lee. At Ohio State, where I taught for 20 years, we had a reasonably active group. The students met perhaps 4 to 6 times a year. They usually invited in speakers, usually to address issues of interest at the time. The most popular session was the annual "jobs in health care" session, when we would invite in, usually one person from a firm, one in house counsel from a hospital, someone from state government, and a malpractice attorney to talk about what courses you should take in law school for practicing health care and where the jobs were. We also had a few popular sessions where we met together with the medical students. There were good years when the group was pretty active, and years when hardly anything happened. In a few years, students were able to tie up with mentors from the health law section of the Columbus Bar Association. The level of activity mostly depended on the leadership of the group for the particular year, and on getting funding from the student government for pizza at meetings.

Widener University School of Law

We have an active Health Law Society here at the School of Law at Widener Univ. in Wilmington. It has been around for 15 years. It is student run and student funded, and I'm the faculty advisor.

1. Do you have a health law club/society? Yes

2. How long has it been in existence? 15 years

3. How often do the students meet? It depends on the leadership in any given year, but probably from every two weeks to once a month.

4. What type of services do they provide (speakers, study groups, etc.)?
We have Brown Bag lunches on Health Law topics; Job Panels on employment in Health Law in this mid-Atlantic region; charity work ranging from blood drives to collecting clothing for homeless shelters; and work on a special Symposium issue of the law review or CLE programs at least once a year.

5. Any tips on starting a club?
Typically you need a cohort of interested students, just a few, and then you go to the Student Bar Association at your law school and request that they constitute you as a new organization with a budget. Then put a notice up at the school and in your Digest, and call for an organizational meeting. And have professors who teach health law announce the meeting in their classes.

That should do it.

Thanks.

Regards

Barry Furrow
Director, the Health Law Institute
Widener University School of Law
4601 Concord Pike
Wilmington , Delaware 19803
(302) 477 2138