UT is the second biggest law school feeder in the nation, according to Tatem Oldham, director of liberal arts career services. The University’s pre-law program is headed by pre-law advisor Karintha Fenley who organizes law school events like UT’s annual law fair. 

The program is a strong one, sending a large number of UT students to law school. According to Oldham, around 3,200 UT students are currently pursuing pre-law, and the University also has many student-led pre-law organizations. However, despite the clear demand, the University only has one pre-law advisor. The College of Liberal Arts should allocate money to hire another full time pre-law advisor for the Liberal Arts Career Services.

“Last year, about 1,000 students met with our pre-law advisor for an individual appointment,” Oldham said. “We also still have around 2,000 students on our pre-law (email list), and then we host an average of about 50 pre-law events per year.”

Fenley’s limited number of appointments can make it difficult for lower-division undergraduate students to receive pre-law advising.

“It’s hard to schedule a meeting … there wasn’t that much availability,” Marianne Nader, international relations and global studies senior and Minority Women Pursuing Law president, said. “She tends to book up really fast.”

Advising early in a college career is especially critical when students are considering switching career paths or exploring other options.

For example, pre-law advising helped psychology sophomore Niki Dashtban figure out if law school is the right option for her.

“I was initially a pre-med student, and it wasn’t really working out for me. I didn’t like science at all, so I was considering pre-law,” Dashtban said. “I spoke to (Fenley), and she was super helpful about it because I literally knew nothing about pre-law.”

The work that Fenley does at UT is extremely important, but the low advisor-to-student ratio means that not every student that wants individualized help can get it.  

Currently, there are two senior health profession coaches handling the large number of pre-med students. UT pre-law students equally deserve this level of academic coaching. This year, LACS hired a graduate student part-time to help Fenley with her immense workload. However, this graduate student will not individually advise students, but will only help with overflow. 

Ann Huff Stevens, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, described COLA’s pursuit to improve their offered career support services.

“COLA has received significant additional funding for career support over the past several years from the Provost’s office and from donors,“ Stevens said. “We continue to evaluate the greatest specific needs, and have made Liberal Arts student career support a high priority in our ongoing fundraising campaign.”

While COLA is working to increase career support capabilities, the college must specifically focus on their pre-law students’ needs. As Oldham shared, 70% of UT’s pre-law population is made up of liberal arts majors. COLA students need more support in their pre-law endeavors.  

“I would love to have another full time pre-law advisor … and we are looking into additional funding opportunities for that, trying to find money in the budget for that,” Oldham said. “That’s something we’re working on but not something that we’ve secured yet.”

There is clearly a considerable amount of UT students that are passionate about pursuing the law. However, without LACS proving that they can permanently fund another pre-law advisor, UT’s pre-law program cannot hire another full-time advisor. Students deserve to have their passions met with an equally passionate amount of academic advising. COLA must invest in their pre-law students.

Muthukrishnan is a government freshman from Los Gatos, California.