SBA Meeting Minutes, 2/21/10

Hello everyone! Here's a summary of what took place at yesterday's SBA meeting:

- Student Adam Rosen attended the SBA meeting and asked if there was any way that the commuter shuttle could make a stop at the law school, in addition to 3rd St. Now that 5th St. has reopened, this is something the SBA can look into. Many thanks to Adam for coming to the meeting and voicing his opinion! The SBA encourages students to attend meetings and voice their concerns.

- 3l President Shannon Troutman informed the SBA that some of the faculty is interested in attending Barrister's Ball. Faculty have not attended in recent years, but have in the past. One argument that can be made in favor of the faculty attending is that we could make Barrister's Ball a more professional, inclusive law school event like the Mary Philbrook Awards. The other argument is that we already have plenty of professional events and banquets that the faculty attend, and there is something to be said for having a student-only celebration. The SBA would like to stress that faculty members will not be taking seats from students. We would like student feedback on this issue. If you have questions or concerns, you can e-mail Shannon at pres3l@camlaw.rutgers.edu or myself at ckwright@camden.rutgers.edu.

- Reminder: Barrister's Ball will be held April 3rd. Tickets are on sale now, and the event is open to all students! For more info, please check the Facebook event page.

- The next SBA meeting will be held on March 7th at 6pm in the moot courtoom. We have tabled the debate about Barrister's Ball until then. If you have any questions or concerns, please attend! We love student feedback.

Until next time,

Callan Wright, SBA Secretary

SBA Meeting Minutes, 1/24/10 and 1/31/10 and Dean's Breakfast

Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay, but here is a recap of what took place during our first two SBA meetings and at our first Dean's Breakfast of the semester:

- On January 24th, the SBA voted to approve the Spring Budget. Many thanks go out to our treasurer, Amanda Harber, for skillfully handling the complicated budgeting process. Also, I'd like to thank our student groups for adapting well to the new budgeting guidelines, coming up with some great programming ideas for the semester, and devising creative ways to cut costs.

- The SBA has some information about the July 2009 NJ bar exam results. First of all, New Jersey only releases a list of people who passed the bar. It is up to the individual law schools to locate their graduates in the pass list. This can often be difficult due to people who got married during or after law school, and may have different names than the ones the school has on file. Once the law school figures out how many of their graduates passed, they then self-report the statistics to the ABA. Our school is still working on calculating exact number, but estimates that we had about a 85% passage rate.

- Dean Solomon informed the e-board that the school would like to continue offering TA jobs to graduates, like they did last year. Dean Solomon is aware that the job market for law students is still somewhat bleak, and this program seemed to help out those students that took part in it last year. However, the graduate TA program is dependent on how much the school can fund raise, so more details will be revealed in the future.

- Just a reminder: the school does NOT rank its students. Any calculation of rankings is done solely at graduation, and only to determine which students graduate "with honors" and "with highest honors".

- Barrister's Ball will be held on April 3rd at the National Constitution Center. 3L President Shannon Troutman really outdid herself, and his should be an excellent event. Further event details and ticket info can be found at the Barrister's Ball Facebook page.

That's all I have for now. Expect a blog with minutes from the February 20th meeting of the SBA very soon!

-Callan Wright, SBA Secretary