The Student Bar Association passed an act at a meeting Tuesday that will require the body’s executive branch to develop an annual plan that details their fundraising strategies.
SBA Sen. Omer Turkomer, who sponsored the bill, said the Fundraising Act will add a clause to the SBA bylaws to require the executive branch to raise a minimum of $4,000 for the executive budget each year, which they will present at the third meeting after the general allocations senate meeting. Turkomer said the SBA has not previously required the executive branch to fundraise, and the bill will ensure the senate understands the executive branch’s fundraising efforts.
“We know from this year that sometimes the budget is not necessarily where we want it to be,” Turkomer said. “So any additional funds we can raise are going to be of great benefit to the student body.”
The SBA executive branch’s current fundraising efforts include selling law school merchandise and yearly ticketed events like Lawloween — a Law student Halloween party — and Barrister’s Ball, a law school-wide formal held at the end of the academic year.
The SBA Senate also appointed 13 new senators to the body following the Oct. 4 senate election.
A total of 493 students, about 29 percent of the Law school population, voted in the SBA Senate election for incoming senators on election day last week, and 78 students voted in additional runoff elections for races that tied.
SBA President Cherissa Lindsay said she will have conversations with GW Law’s Associate Dean of Students Jason Belk to continue the professional development fund — a budget to give GW Law students money to attend pre-professional events for career development, which former SBA President Shallum Atkinson created last year — into this academic year. Lindsay said she requested $10,000 from the Office of the Dean of Students, who said they would be interested in sponsoring the fund.
Amanda Hichez, the SBA Vice President of Finance, said the senators did not consider budgeting a professional development fund when the SBA Senate allocated money to student organizations and the executive branch during the general allocations period last month. She said the fund previously came out of the executive budget but was a “forgotten thought” by the body this year.
“I think it’s great how Cherissa is trying to create a solution,” Hichez said.
SBA senators unanimously confirmed Callie Stevens, a second year Law student, as SBA Senate parliamentarian, a role that the body created to ensure SBA Senate meetings run according to proper Robert Rules of Order and SBA constitution procedures. SBA Sen. John Demarco, who serves as the chair of the senate Rules and Constitution Committee and nominated Stevens to the role, said she will provide guidelines as to how senators are to “conduct themselves” during senate meetings.
“Sometimes, as any current member of the Senate can attest to, there are some questions as to whether the senate is following the appropriate procedure regarding the proper rules of court and so it is something that this body is in very dire need of,” Demarco said.
SBA senators passed a bill 16 to 6 to distribute $500 from the bodys’ ad-hoc budget to law student Kathryn Chavez to cover a portion of the event registration fee for the Luxury Law Summit in New York in November.
The SBA senate also unanimously passed a bill to distribute $650 from the ad-hoc budget to cover transportation and lodging fees for students Tanya Agarwal and Saksham Sabarwal for the International Law Weekend Conference in New York.
The next SBA senate meeting will be held Oct. 22 in the Law Learning Center.
