Matthew Schmitz
The fall after graduation I started my first year of law school at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis. In addition to getting foundational knowledge in the legal profession, the spring semester has also allowed me to volunteer at a local public school teaching students about legal topics.
My primary interests are two-fold: first, the role that lawyers currently play and could play in educating the public about our laws and institutions to promote efficient and confident interactions between people and their laws. Second, I am interested in the ways lawyers both help and stand in the way of effective public schooling, including the IEP/Section 504 processes for disabled students, labor negotiations with teaching and non-teaching staff, and university general counsels helping large public institutions achieve their goals.
Ursinus College’s Education Department gave me both the language and reflective capacity to understand how my passion for education can fit into a professional community like the law. The breadth of thinking we were encouraged to practice in our educational studies classes reinforced for me that educational issues connect to every part of life and make up some of the most important questions facing our society. On a practical level, the rigorous writing standards and practical experience out in classrooms have translated very well into my developing legal writing and client interactions skills.
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