Kathryn Querner ‘22
Executive Editor
Sidewalk Law, one of UVA Law’s most recently founded student organizations, provides law students with the chance to get outside of the North Grounds bubble and engage with the broader Charlottesville community. The organization facilitates opportunities for law students to volunteer with local elementary schools, helping teachers out around the classroom.
Sidewalk Law is the junior version of Street Law—a Law School organization through which law students teach lessons on introductory legal concepts to students at local high schools. Due to the limitations of elementary students’ age and comprehension skills, however, Sidewalk Law will focus less on teaching law and more on providing general assistance to teachers. This includes working individually with particular students and completing other tasks to help out with teachers’ agendas. Because participants will engage in less specialized forms of assistance, Sidewalk Law welcomes students of all backgrounds, including those with minimal teaching experience or training.
Due to restrictions enacted by local public elementary schools to combat COVID-19, Sidewalk Law will not be able to facilitate in-person volunteer opportunities with these schools through the 2020-2021 school year. Because of the young ages of the students and the challenges of Zoom, Sidewalk Law executive board members and local schools determined that assisting elementary students virtually would not be a productive or effective endeavor. Students will be able to volunteer again beginning fall of 2021.
Eric Seifriz ’22, the founder and president of Sidewalk Law, founded the organization this past spring. As an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Seifriz volunteered weekly with an organization that sent students out to surrounding schools to assist teachers and build relationships with students and the local community. After graduating, Seifriz taught students in pre-K through twelfth grade. Seeking out teaching opportunities after arriving at UVA Law, he got involved with Street Law and went on to found Sidewalk Law. Seifriz also noted that Madison House, the UVA undergraduate counterpart to Sidewalk Law, has formed many relationships with local elementary schools which Sidewalk Law hopes to use.
Before Sidewalk Law came into existence, UVA Law did not have a group for students interested in education law and policy. Seifriz foresees Sidewalk Law providing a space and community for students interested in education law or policy career paths to socialize, network, and pursue education-related interests. Furthermore, if volunteering goes well next fall, Seifriz hopes that Sidewalk Law will eventually provide opportunities for additional services including tutoring and after-school enrichment programs.
Sidewalk Law’s executive board members are Seifriz, Director of Community Engagement Colin Lee ’21, VP J. Carr Gamble ’22, and Director of Outreach Caroline Spadaro ’22. Lee commented that the best part about involvement in the organization has been, “meeting other students who genuinely want to have a positive effect on the lives of youth.” In conversations with fellow Sidewalk Law members, Lee has found, “a strong commitment to K-12 advocacy—whether that takes the form of teaching, coaching, or mentorship. Ultimately, that is what Sidewalk Law is all about.”
Finally, as Sidewalk Law is the first organization of its kind to be established at a graduate school at UVA, its executive board hopes to work with other UVA graduate programs, including Darden, Batten, and the medical school, to expand the reach of the program and provide greater assistance to local elementary schools.
To get involved in Sidewalk Law—and this applies especially to 1Ls who are eligible to join the organization’s executive board this upcoming year—students can email Seifriz at es5eg@virginia.edu to be added to the listserv. As Sidewalk Law is so new, current 1Ls who choose to get involved next year will have the opportunity to really shape the growth and trajectory of the organization.
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kmq8vf@virginia.edu