By Rob Bradfield
Staff Writer
If you’ve ever wanted to date a law professor, now’s your chance.
For the second year in a row, the Baylor Law School chapter of the Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity, International will auction off “dates” with Baylor law professors.
Friday between 12:30 and 1:30 p.m., students can attend a live auction in the student lounge of the law school to help raise money for the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) association. CASA volunteers are appointed to abused or neglected children to help them through the legal and social service systems.
“We’re very appreciative of how generous the professors have been and how generous our sponsors have been, and we’re overwhelmed by the generosity of the students bidding on these events,” Cameron Redding, Phi Alpha Delta justice, said.
The silent auction bidding began earlier this week, and continues until noon Friday. During the live auction, students will be able to bid on spots at events hosted by different law professors.
Events include golf and cooking lessons; an eight-person shooting contest; and an opportunity to attend a Lady Bears practice session, tour the locker room and meet the team. Baylor President Ken Starr has also opened up six spots at his lunch table for top bidders.
Funding for the events has either been covered by the hosting professors or donated by event sponsors like Themis, Barbri, Westlaw, LexisNexis and Kaplan, so nearly all of the money raised by the auction will flow directly to the McLennan and Hill Counties CASA group.
“It’s a little easier to get law students to part with what little funds they have when they know it’s going to such a worthy cause,” Ashley Parker, treasurer and former justice of Phi Alpha Delta, said.
Phi Alpha Delta and Baylor law students have been involved with CASA for several years, but last year was the first event they hosted of this scale. Both Parker and Redding were on the committee that organized the first Baylor Law School Faculty Auction.
The committee wanted to have more students involved in helping area children lost in the legal system.
“We were trying to come up with a good fundraiser that would spur a sense of community between students and faculty,” Parker said.
According to those involved, the reaction of the law school faculty was enthusiastic. This helped the first auction raise close to $2,800, with the highest single bid at $430.
This year’s preliminary bidding has already netted more than $2,000 and the organizers are optimistic about the live auction.
The organizers hope that if this year’s auction is successful enough, Baylor will follow the example of institutions like Harvard Law School and make it a tradition so generations of young Baylor lawyers can start making the world a better place before they ever take a client.
