Prepare to roll up your sleeves and do some good work, because the last Saturday in October is Work-A-Day: a day set aside by the Law Student Division each year for law students across the country to perform public-service projects.

"The idea is to get the most impact on one day across the country," says Tim Tuttle, governor of the Law Student Division's Eighth Circuit and chair of the Public Interest Committee of the division's Board of Governors. "With everyone working together, we can demonstrate the impact law students can have."

Work-A-Day has grown steadily from its genesis in 1991 at the University of Illinois College of Law. It is now a national program; last year approximately 10,000 students from about 100 American Bar Association-accredited law schools participated in community-service projects on the same day. This year the Law Student Division expects even greater participation.

Last year, students at some law schools participated in several different community-service projects on Work-A-Day. Third-year University of Wisconsin law student and Seventh Circuit Governor Johnathan McCaskill says some University of Wisconsin law students went to a women's shelter to present a workshop on job-interviewing techniques and dressing for work, while others put on a fashion show at a local senior center. Work-A-Day proj-ects undertaken by Oklahoma City University School of Law students included a mentoring proj-ect and a visit to the children's ward of a local hospital, according to Tenth Circuit Governor Brenda Carpenter.

Some law schools get a variety of student organizations involved in Work-A-Day projects. The driving force behind many of last year's Work-A-Day projects by University of Wisconsin School of Law students, for example, was the school's Women's Law Students Association. The school's Black Law Students Association sent one group of law students to a neighborhood center to do some maintenance and painting, and another to do trail maintenance in a local park.

This year, building on a theme of "reaching out, building awareness," the Law Student Division is encouraging Work-A-Day participants to use the day to promote awareness of people with disabilities. Carpenter, a third-year student at the University of Tulsa College of Law in Oklahoma and a Public Interest Committee member, says that Work-A-Day has traditionally been devoted to "cleanup" types of projects, but that this year the committee "wanted to do something a little different, something where we could learn something, too. We want to promote the awareness that persons with disabilities face a lot of everyday issues which we may not recognize, and that they make a contribution. As lawyers we may be dealing with clients with disabilities, or with other attorneys with disabilities. There's sort of an unintentional discrimination—we don't even see a lot of what people with disabilities are dealing with."

The members of the Public Interest Committee are already batting around ideas for next year's Work-A-Day. There's even been talk of setting up a continuing project that would run for several years.

If Work-A-Day sounds good to you but you need some help coming up with an idea for a public-service project to do on Oct. 24, check out the story on page 43 about the Law Student Division's Outreach Assistance Initiative. The division has money available to help schools get public-service programs off the ground, whether for Work-A-Day or for the rest of the school year. Check with your law school's ABA/LSD school representative or with the division's staff at 312/988-5624.

Lee Farbman