GW Law announced a new networking platform for students to connect with alumni and build connections in the legal community last month.
GW Law Link is an exclusive platform where current GW Law students can connect with alumni for mentorship and career advice, according to a University release. The release states that the website has already registered over 500 alumni, more than 80 percent of whom said they are “actively willing” to mentor students.
The platform is currently open to alumni to sign up and will be available to students later this year, according to a LinkedIn post.
Alumni on Law Link range from working as partners at law firms to solo practitioners. Alumni on the platform work at various companies, like Google and Microsoft, government agencies, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Justice, Capitol Hill and as judges, according to the release.
The website also lists upcoming events for law students, like guest lectures and networking opportunities.
Suzanne Hard, associate dean for professional development and career strategy at GW Law, said the law school is “pleased” to introduce Law Link as a new platform for students.
“GW Law is pleased to introduce Law Link, a new exclusive networking and mentorship platform,” Hard said in an email. “We look forward to sharing more soon.”
The University also provides the GW Career Connect program, a University-wide student and alumni networking website.
To create an account, users can sign up for the platform with an email address or using an existing LinkedIn or Google account, according to the website. Users can input law-specific profile details, like jurisdiction of bar certification or law journal membership.
Profiles go through a manual approval process before allowing the user to access the platform, with approval taking up to two business days, according to the website.
Josh Duvall, a 2015 GW Law alum and government contracts attorney at Maynard Nexsen, said Law Link will take away law students’ “jitters” of reaching out to legal professionals whom they have never met for advice because the platform is already made up of alumni who want to mentor students.
“It’s an invitation for either newer lawyers or current law students to reach out without having to worry about whether or not the person is even willing to have a conversation or a cup of coffee, to talk about their career, how to get a job, how to navigate a legal career,” Duvall said.
Duvall said he thinks there is “currency” in an alumni network like Law Link that other platforms like LinkedIn don’t have because alumni are offering students a “warm invitation” to reach out. He said when he was in law school, he had to make contacts through a “cold introduction” and reach out to legal professionals he had never met for advice.
“The platform really changes the nature of that,” Duvall said. “Because you have lawyers and others who have graduated from the law school who are putting themselves out there to be mentors.”
He said he signed up to mentor students on the platform because he wants to “give back” to the law school community that helped him launch his career.
“As an alumni of GW Law, I think it’s important to give back and it’s important to find ways to help others, and I think that would be true as a law graduate or otherwise,” Duvall said.
