Courses, internship shaped Glenn’s plan for law school

When Jourdan Glenn came to Cornell College she wanted to be a lawyer, and after graduation she’ll attend the University of Wisconsin School of Law. However, her path isn’t quite as straightforward as it might sound.

Glenn, an English major from Waldorf, Maryland, took two education courses during her first year, which steered her interest away from law and toward teaching. During Block 6 of her junior year, however, she took a class that made her re-consider the law as a career.

During a sociology class on the U.S. criminal justice system taught by Professor Emeritus Chris Carlson, Glenn went on a course trip to the nearby Anamosa State Penitentiary and experienced class visits from prosecutors, public defenders, police officers, and someone who had gone through the Johnson County Drug Treatment Court. It was the first time Glenn heard about drug courts, which are designed to keep non-violent offenders who have substance abuse problems out of the prison system.

Then she had an internship with a law office in Cedar Rapids, which gave her the opportunity to follow several cases through Cedar Rapids’ drug court. In cases referred to drug courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers, social workers, and the defendant all work together to ensure the defendant is receiving proper treatment and following the conditions set forth by a judge. That experience cemented her decision to apply for law school.

“There are so many people in our system for drugs,” Glenn said, “and they need the most help. There need to be more drug courts.”

Her class with Cornell College President Jonathan Brand, The Function, Nature, and Limits of Law, further showed her the importance of a career in law by helping her realize what parts of society are and are not covered by laws, and how that might need to be changed.

“We need well-educated people to step up and make changes in our society,” she said.

Her experience with drug courts and her interest in law made Wisconsin’s law school her top choice. In addition to being in the nation’s top tier of law schools,  it’s also highly regarded for its criminal law clinics, where students have the chance to work with prosecutors, public defenders, and appellate lawyers on ongoing cases.

She’s looking forward to learning more about how a lawyer can make an impact on the drug abuse problem in the United States, but she’s also going to bear in mind the lessons from a liberal arts education, in general, and her senior seminar on the role of the humanities in particular.

“I realized how limited society would be without the study of literature, history, and philosophy,” she said. “We’re in an age of technology, but we still need to know and understand our history.”