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Among recent events at Chase early in the 2025 Spring Semester:

STUDENTS REGULARLY have opportunities to connect law and life, and the most recent came with a bit of Hollywood.

• Rob Bilott, the Cincinnati lawyer who gained notoriety for his litigation on behalf of West Virginia plaintiffs whose lives and livelihoods were upended by “forever chemicals” dumped in their rural communities, and his wife, Sarah, who is also a lawyer, talked with students about careers and wellbeing. First in a class taught by Professor Michelle Browning Coughlin and then in a noontime session for all students.

• His forever chemicals litigation became the 2019 movie “Dark Waters” (here’s the trailer if you are not familiar with it or want to be inspired by good work lawyers can do for people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvAOuhyunhY).

STUDENTS WENT SHOPPING ‒ for opportunities to volunteer in law-related activities. The Pro Bono Fair, organized by the Chase Office of Career Development, was an opportunity for students to connect with agencies, such as Legal Aid of the Bluegrass, to find out how they can apply their developing legal talents for people who need legal assistance and agencies that provide it. Chase is among a small number of law schools that require students to provide a specified amount of pro bono service to help them develop a mindset for what will become their professional obligation for pro bono work.

WITH THEIR SHARED IDENTITY as Chase students, many of them gathered for a student-sponsored symposium on anticipating how individuals’ similarities, personal differences and life experiences will weave into the fabric of their practices as lawyers. The Student Bar Association-led program “Chasing Diversity in the Law” featured presentations and discussions that included two Supreme Court of Kentucky justices, Justice Michelle M. Keller and Justice Pamela Goodwine, an Ohio Court of Appeals judge, Judge Marilyn Zayas, and lawyers Jada Colon and Scott Knox. For keynote speaker Justice Goodwine, her journey to becoming the first woman and only the fifth justice to have served on all levels of Kentucky trial and appellate courts before reaching the Supreme Court included life experiences of family losses, personal health concerns that interrupted her education and, in some instances, perceptions of race and gender.