During the Spring Meeting of the Section of International Law (“SIL”), the U.S. Lawyers Abroad Committee sponsored its third annual Community Outreach Event. This year, our member participants visited the Manhattan Academy for Arts and Language, a public high school in operation for two years. The school, just a 15-minute walk from our conference hotel, is for students whose first language is not English and who are interested in the arts. Our Section members who visited the school are all bilingual lawyers who went to talk about (1) the importance of being able to speak and work in at least two languages, (2) the importance of international law, and (3) the professional opportunities that are available in international law for people who, like these students, will have at least two languages under their belts.

Each of our member volunteers spoke with small groups of between three and seven students, and the lively discussions quickly spun off into their, and our, different areas of interest.

As we have done each year following the Community Outreach event, our member participants joined together over a meal or coffee to talk about the experience. As one of the members who had participated in last year’s award-winning event and again this year said, “It was a real privilege and, as it was last year in Washington, it was one of the best things this year about the International Section meeting. I hope the students got as much out of it as we did.”