Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism

Cooley in the Community

Community Highlight - Pontiac Schools Initiative

In August 2006, Pontiac Northern High School asked Cooley’s Center for Ethics, Service, and Professionalism to develop a program on character, conduct, and personal success for in-coming 9th grade students as part of the Pontiac School District’s new 9th grade academy, and Cooley presented such a program to all 9th graders at Pontiac Northern High School. The program focused on identifying goals and avoiding destructive influences, and it included a requirement that each student write their own code of personal conduct.

This initial effort was so successful that Pontiac Northern asked Cooley to develop a broader program in cooperation with the school’s teachers and administrators. In the seven months since then, the following additional programs have been developed and implemented:

• Success on Saturdays – This program meets every other Saturday at Pontiac Northern High School from 10 a.m. to 12 noon (approximately 14 sessions since the beginning of the school year). Each session includes presentations related to personal and academic success and individual academic tutoring, planned cooperatively with Pontiac Northern teachers and administrators. Attendance has averaged 30-40 students per session.

• Elementary Character Education – This character-based education program started in January 2007 and brings Cooley faculty members and students into the Will Rogers Elementary School once every month. It emphasizes a different character trait each month, such as honesty, integrity, politeness, respect, responsibility, etc., through presentations and role-plays. The elementary students who then model that character trait during the next month receive "Character Cards" that can be cashed in at the "Character Store" for school supplies, back packs, and other items.

• Gettysburg Mentoring Project – The Pontiac Alumni Foundation held a training session at Cooley’s Oakland campus in February 2007 for law students interested in serving as personal mentors to small groups of Pontiac middle school and high school students. Over one hundred Cooley students attended the training and the first ones to apply and pass their background checks are now spending a minimum of one hour each week meeting with their mentees. Regular training sessions will be repeated each semester.

• Gang Violence Intervention – This program meets as requested by Pontiac Northern administrators to bring opposing gang members together in a structured setting with school counselors and Cooley faculty members and students to explore the consequences of and alternatives to violent conflict resolution. It included a field trip in March to see and then discuss the film, The Freedom Writers.

• Peer Mediation – This program will bring Cooley faculty members and students into Jefferson Middle School in April 2007 to train at-risk students how to peacefully mediate disputes among their peers. Lansing High School students who have already been trained by Cooley’s Lansing campus will join this training session.

• Exploring the Law – This one-day program at Pontiac Northern, sponsored by the Law School Admissions Council, brought Judges Leo Bowman (Oakland Circuit Court) and M.T. Thompson (Saginaw District Court) and Cooley faculty members and students to Pontiac Northern to discuss choices and consequences, constitutional rights in public schools, and potential legal careers. Approximately 135 students from Pontiac Northern and Pontiac Central attended this Saturday program.

• Exploring the Law II – This program brings selected Pontiac Northern honors students who have an interest in a legal career to Cooley’s Oakland campus to sit in on a law school class and then meet with Cooley faculty members, students, and alumni to discuss how to overcome the challenges on the road to college and law school. Mt. Clemens District Judge and Cooley graduate Sheila Miller participated in the first of these programs in March 2007.

• Mock Trial – This one day program, scheduled for this May, will be presented by the Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association Barristers Division. The program was developed in cooperation with General Motors and will involve Pontiac Northern students in the trial of a fictitious case under the supervision and coaching of the Barristers.

• College Transition – This one-day program, scheduled for this June, will provide college-bound Pontiac Northern students with day-planners and time-management training to help prepare them for their freshman year.

• Computer Donations – Cooley has donated approximately one dozen computers to Pontiac Northern to equip the school’s computer lab. In addition, Cooley students have secured the donation of additional computer equipment from an area hospital and have raised funds to buy a new lap top computer for the school.

• Dress Code Drive – At the request of Pontiac Northern administrators, Cooley faculty members, students, and staff collected dozens of collared shirts and belts for Pontiac Northern students being turned away from school because they could not meet the district’s new dress code.

• Prom Dress Drive – This new initiative on the part of Cooley faculty, students, and staff will collect and donate gently used prom dresses to the students at Pontiac Northern later this spring.

Service to Soldiers: Legal Assistance Referral Program

More about the Service to Soldiers: Legal Assistance Referral Program >

Degage Ministries

Degage Ministries is a soup kitchen and social service center for the homeless in Grand Rapids.

Assistant Dean Nelson Miller offers pro bono legal service at Degage every week with students welcome to accompany him (students may sign up to accompany Dean Miller by email). Degage’s patron population is primarily the homeless but also includes a few very low-income residents of the area. Thus the legal service issues tend to be Social Security disability and other welfare benefits and rights issues, criminal law matters, administrative issues having to do with identification and basic services, and family law matters.

Students participating in the pro bono service see first hand the personal degradation, family disruption, and overall loss that can accompany mental and physical illness, job loss, work disability, substance abuse, and incarceration. Students also get first-hand experience communicating legal information to and relating on a professional basis with the poorly educated and often mentally disabled clients who visit Degage.

Degage is located at 144 South Division Avenue in Grand Rapids, two blocks southeast of Cooley’s Grand Rapids campus. Degage also offers meals, laundry, haircuts, lockers, showers, and food pantry services.

Degage's program director Bridgette Bassford can be reached at bridgette@degageministries.org or (616) 454-1661.

Pro Bono Opportunities in Grand Rapids

Cooley students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to observe and participate in four pro bono legal service programs near Cooley’s Grand Rapids campus:

Legal Assistance Center

The Legal Assistance Center is a courthouse-based legal self-help service operated by a non-profit board led by Cooley faculty. The Legal Assistance Center is located on the fifth floor of the Kent County Courthouse at 180 Ottawa N.W. in downtown Grand Rapids. The Center serves approximately 1,000 patrons every month. Patrons receive legal forms, basic assistance completing those forms, and information enabling them to handle their matters in court on a pro se (unrepresented) basis. Cooley students and faculty volunteer at the Center assisting patrons in that manner. This hands-on work equips students with a first-hand, practical understanding of how to evaluate, initiate, and defend basic family law, landlord/tenant, and other personal court actions. It is the kind of experience that helps enable students to “know their way around the courthouse” and, more particularly, to become familiar with local rules and requirements. It also helps students develop the interpersonal skills necessary to dealing with disadvantaged populations. Assistant Dean Nelson Miller is the Center’s board president, and two other Cooley faculty members serve on the Center’s board. Dean Miller, Professor Tracey Brame, and Professor Don Petersen volunteer weekly at the Center. Students are encouraged to accompany them to the Center or to volunteer at their own times. The Center is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and also serves patrons by telephone from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays. The Center’s executive director Kristin Hanratty can be reached directly at (616) 632-6014.

Hispanic Center of Western Michigan

The Hispanic Center of Western Michigan is a non-profit cultural and social service center located at 1204 Grandville S.W. in Grand Rapids, approximately one mile southwest of Cooley’s Grand Rapids campus. Two Cooley professors, Assistant Dean Nelson Miller and Associate Professor Don Petersen, maintain a weekly pro bono legal service at the Center welcoming and encouraging students to accompany them. The population served is primarily low- to middle-income, Spanish-speaking-only individuals, meaning that most of the legal counseling is done through translators provided through the Center. Students observe first-hand and gain experience in that translation process including measuring their understanding of and capability in Spanish (if any). The work is comprised of consultation, review of documents, the determining of client objectives, referrals, occasional research, and telephone and written communications with third parties. The legal matters include family law, criminal law, immigration, employment law, and small business and consumer issues. Although access to justice is a primary mission of the Center, the Center offers a wide range of other services including employment training and placement, language instruction (Spanish and English), computer skills training, and financial management training. Students may sign up to accompany Dean Miller or Professor Petersen by email or through the Grand Rapids campus’s International Law Society TWEN page sign-up sheet. The Center can be reached directly at (616) 742-0200.

Mel Trotter Ministries is Grand Rapids’ largest homeless shelter located at 225 Commerce Avenue S.W. just one block south of Cooley’s Grand Rapids campus. The mission offers a range of social services from substance abuse treatment and after-care programs to transportation, meals, housing, medical and dental service, vision services, clothing distribution, and legal services. The legal services are provided by the local non-profit organization Christian Legal Ministries of whom Assistant Dean Nelson Miller is a founding board member. Dean Miller and eight other local lawyers rotate offering weekly pro bono legal service at the mission. The work is primarily evaluation, legal counseling and education, objective-setting, and referral. The matters typically include family law, criminal law, and Social Security and other welfare benefits issues. Students are welcome to accompany Dean Miller or the other lawyers with advance email request. Mel Trotter Ministries is a Christian organization, and all services are rendered consistent with the norms and practices of that spiritual community. The mission’s legal services program director Jose Gonzales can be reached at (616) 682-HOME.