The Consumer Bankruptcy externship program is really important. First of all to law school because it gives students the ability to represent clients and learn how to do hands-on tasks and become practice-ready lawyers, which is something we believe in at Mercer.
It also provides assistance to the community, where there's a lot of lack of access to justice. We were contacted by over 30 people in the community. We accepted 15 into the program and we actually filed eight Chapter Seven cases. That is over $30,000 of legal work that we were able to give back to the community.
The main thing I took away from the program is being able to better relate to people and in understanding the practicalities and the inner workings of the actual code of bankruptcy law, and how it actually applies to a particular individual's situation and being able to see actual attorneys in practice and see how they handled different situations, and just how it's made me a much more insightful and prepared attorney going forward.
We are the only law school in Georgia to offer students the opportunity to represent clients from start to finish in a Chapter Seven case. Out of the country, there are only a handful of other schools that do this. Mercer Law School stands apart from other schools in the country because we truly believe in our mission. And our mission is to train and practice-ready lawyers. We want them to hit the ground running as soon as they enter practice and we provide all the resources for them to do that.
The experience and from the practical standpoint that you get with interacting with clients and handling those situations. Even if the student might not have a particular interest in bankruptcy, it certainly does not hurt to know and to learn bankruptcy. It's beyond just the program and practical experience some techniques and lessons that you learned. I mean, bankruptcy is one of the few areas of law that truly touches every type of law. In my opinion, it was perfect for us as students and learning. You truly can't get quite the broad cross section of legal experience outside of bankruptcy.
