Two recent graduates from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law have achieved something many lawyers never get the chance to do: a bill they worked on was signed into law by California Gavin Newsom in September 2021.
Eric Hoffman and Alexander Pequinot, both in the graduating class of 2021, worked on SB 311, a bill known as Ryan’s Law. The bill is a national first, requiring health care facilities in California to allow patients the use of medical cannabis instead of opiates for pain relief. It is named for Ryan Bartell, a California native and Coast Guard veteran who passed away in 2018 from pancreatic cancer. He was moved to a facility that allowed cannabis use after his original facility’s use of opioids rendered him unable to communicate with his family.
“The opportunity to work on a ‘first in the nation’ piece of legislation that will provide comfort to thousands of terminally ill Californians as a law student was invaluable,” said Hoffman.
“Working on SB 311 was an incredible learning experience,” said Pequinot. “I learned about the legislative process hands on, and then I was able to use that knowledge to help pass a bill that will bring happiness and comfort to thousands of patients and their families.”
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Students from the Drake University Law School’s Entrepreneurial and Transactional Law Clinic (ETC) recently seized an opportunity to help homeless families in the greater Des Moines, Iowa, area. Hawthorn Hill and Bidwell Riverside Center, two partner agencies that provide assistance to homeless individuals and families, had need of assistance with some complex transactional matters and sought out the help of the clinic.
Hawthorn Hill had a complicated situation with a charitable donation and Bidwell Riverside Center needed employment agreements for its licensed childcare teachers. The ETC student attorneys stepped in and provided much-needed assistance in completing these daunting legal tasks.
ETC students have a history of supporting Hawthorn Hill and Bidwell, too. When the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing in early 2020, ETC students helped them obtain federal assistance to keep their charitable programs up and running.
“The assistance we have received from the Drake Entrepreneurial and Transactional Clinic has been invaluable,” said Tim Shanahan, executive director of Hawthorn Hill and Bidwell. “The student attorneys and faculty have provided support and advice on numerous legal projects. Without this assistance, we would have missed valuable opportunities, overlooked important legal and tax exemption issues, and incurred significant professional fees.
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Health care workers in Mississippi received an unexpected gift recently when snowfall stranded them at their hospital overnight.
Emmy Thrower, a first-year law student at the University of Mississippi School of Law, knew that the protocol for any winter weather was for hospital workers to spend the night at the hospital anywhere they can find room. Thrower’s mother is a neonatal nurse in Georgia, so she was familiar with the situation.
“This puts a lot of nurses sleeping on benches, and without food for the next day if they didn’t see [the weather] coming,” she said.
She messaged her friends in the group of first-year students to see if they could help raise some money to bring food to the beleaguered workers. Within a matter of minutes, she had raised $316, enough to not only cover lunch for the 28 health care workers in the emergency room and ICU of Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi in Oxford, but also lunch for the staff at Rockdale Medical Center in Georgia, her mother’s hospital, and even desserts for the Oxford, Miss., fire department and police station.
“I have some incredible classmates for making this happen,” Thrower said. “A lot of us have parents, friends or significant others in health care, so it meant a lot for us to be able to give back in some way.”
