The UCLI Team

Salt Lake City, Utah: The Utah Center for Legal Inclusion (UCLI), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion within Utah’s legal profession, has announced that the organization has opened  enrollment for its mentoring program. UCLI is seeking current law students from historically underrepresented backgrounds to enroll in this program where they will be paired with two current attorneys.

The main purpose of this program is to empower students from historically underrepresented groups to thrive in the legal profession by connecting them with current attorneys as mentors. It is designed to build a sense of belonging in Utah’s legal community, to expose mentees to a wide range of career opportunities, and to help mentees develop the necessary professional skills to succeed in law school and beyond.

The mentoring program benefits law students from numerous backgrounds who may not traditionally have access to mentorship. As one student wrote, “My mentors seem like they are very dedicated to their roles as mentors [and] they’ve made it clear that no conversation is off the table. I love this. […] [They are] incredibly valuable to those of us who are embarking on this journey somewhat blindly.“ 

Follow this link to enroll as a law student mentee. To learn more about the program, please visit utahcli.org/law-student-mentoring.

Salt Lake City, Utah: The Utah Center for Legal Inclusion (UCLI), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion within Utah’s legal profession, has announced that the organization has opened enrollment for its mentoring program. UCLI is seeking current Utah attorneys from all backgrounds and expertise to enroll in this program. Enrolled mentors will work in tandem with another attorney and law student as a mentoring group.

The main purpose of this program is to empower law students from historically underrepresented groups to thrive in the legal profession by connecting them with practicing Utah attorneys as mentors. It is designed to build a sense of belonging in Utah’s legal community, to expose mentees to a wide range of career opportunities, and to help mentees develop the necessary professional skills to succeed in law school and beyond.

For those law students from numerous backgrounds who may not traditionally have access to mentorship, attorney mentors can make all the difference. As one of our enrolled law students shared, her mentors “made it clear that no conversation is off the table… [They are] incredibly valuable to those of us who are embarking on this journey somewhat blindly.“ 

For this and other law students, real mentorship can be hard to come by and we need your help to close that gap. 

Become a mentor today by enrolling here. To learn more about the program, please visit utahcli.org/law-student-mentoring.

Attorneys across the state of Utah want to help build Utah’s students dreams–– including those of being a lawyer. The busy life of an attorney can make it difficult, however, to prepare effectively for a student presentation.

In order to make it easier on attorneys to feel prepared to present to these students, UCLI has begun building out a curriculum for attorneys visiting different elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and even universities across the state. This curriculum will include PowerPoint presentations, printable handouts, demographic-specific videos, and law-related activities.

Anyone who wants to will be able to access and download these free materials at utahcli.org/school-presentation-curricula. 

At UCLI, we aim to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Utah’s legal profession. This week, three Utah-based law students–– Sarah Martinez, Ryan Williams, and Jackie Rosen–– published a status report of current trends, and we are thrilled to share “Looking In and Leading Out.” It is illuminating, important, introspective, and extremely well-done. Take a look!

https://www.utahcli.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/UCLI-Justice-Lab-Report.pdf

The Utah Center for Legal Inclusion is pleased to announce this year’s recipients for the Bar Review Diversity and Inclusion Scholarship.

The winners are: Laura Kyte, Alex Sanchez, Sarah Martinez, and Emily Walter. Photos and short biographies included below.

Laura Kyte is a recent BYU Law grad and has a B.A. in history from UVU. Before law school she worked for several years as a real estate agent and was a stay at home mom before that. She is now a single mom of two teenagers and decided to go to law school after a history professor, while completing her undergrad, encouraged her to think about it. Laura realized that early in childhood she had formed the belief that girls and “poor kids” like her didn’t become lawyers. Now she could see that a career in the law was an ideal intersection between a career and her interests in helping historically marginalized groups. Laura hopes to make sure little girls and kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds don’t have to wait until they’re forty to realize they’d be great lawyers. After the bar, Laura has a Fellowship in the litigation division of the Utah Attorney General’s Office and then, starting August of 2022, will clerk for Judge Hagen of the Utah Court of Appeals.

UCLI’s Associate Director, Ling Ritter, has officially begun preparing for her legal career. Accepted into Stanford Law School as a Knight-Hennessy fellow–– one of the most competitive fellowships in the country–– she is taking a few months to be with family before she enrolls this fall semester. “Quote about UCLI”

As Ling steps into this new phase, she will be replaced by former Education Program Director, Kacey Sorenson. Kacey joined UCLI’s team in 2020 as an intern and transitioned into the Program Director position at the beginning of 2021. During her time as Program Director, Sorenson focused her efforts on building and rolling out UCLI’s pilot of the Utah Law Student Mentoring Program. She is looking forward to this new position, saying that “The team and work at UCLI is unmatched, and I am so excited to work closely with our beneficiaries and continue in this new capacity.”

UCLI is excited to also announce a brand-new staff position and member. After a competitive, 3-round application process with 16 other applicants–– the most that UCLI has ever seen–– Layla Shaaban has accepted a position as UCLI’s Administrative Coordinator. Formerly a UCLI intern, Layla says she is “”.

For future opportunities to work with UCLI, subscribe to our newsletter and keep an eye on our “Careers” page.

As a nonprofit “best practice,” one of our goals at the Utah Center for Legal Inclusion is to begin standardizing and making available all of our program materials. In contrast to for-profit industries, this is considered a “best practice” because our focus is an issue, not a product. Thus, in theory, if our answer to a problem works and we can circulate and make available our solution as thoroughly as possible, we won’t need to exist anymore. Again, in contrast to for-profit industries, the goal of nonprofits is to not need to exist anymore. As it stands, however, we are actively engaged in addressing the issue of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Utah legal profession. 

One of our programs includes our intern program. In an effort to standardize and make available our materials, we have created and distributed a program manual. These efforts were led by Lead Intern Isa Buoscio (pictured below). In 2021, we have brought on more interns than ever before, and they have quickly become the heart and soul of our organization. This year’s interns include Isa Buoscio, Layla Shaaban, Lizzie Jarrett, Jacob Buchanan, Lauren Nelson, Aranza Castillo, Bryn Linderman, Taylor Percival, Collin Mitchell, Ivan Brea, and Caity McKee. All in various stages of their undergraduate careers and representing a diversity of backgrounds and identities, we are so grateful for each of their contributions. They consistently demonstrate leadership, thoughtfulness, and passion as they carry out their assigned projects. 

We aim to provide an internship experience that introduces them as much to the nonprofit world as it does to the world of law, that connects them with like-minded individuals who understand the urgency of our mission, and that lays a foundation–– albeit unusual–– of insight into the current realities and future possibilities of Utah’s legal profession. 

Interested in joining the UCLI team as an intern? Send a resume and cover letter to for the chance to join us in Fall 2021.

Pictured: 2021 UCLI Interns (Winter and Summer)

Lizzie Jarrett, Aranza Castillo, Layla Shaaban, Lauren Nelson, Caity McKee, Taylor Percival, Ivan Brea, Collin Mitchell, Bryn Linderman, Isa Buoscio. Not pictured: Jacob Buchanan

As a nonprofit “best practice,” one of our goals at the Utah Center for Legal Inclusion is to begin standardizing and making available all of our program materials. In contrast to for-profit industries, this is considered a “best practice” because our focus is an issue, not a product. Thus, in theory, if our answer to a problem works and we can circulate and make available our solution as thoroughly as possible, we won’t need to exist anymore. Again, in contrast to for-profit industries, the goal of nonprofits is to not need to exist anymore. As it stands, however, we are actively engaged in addressing the issue of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Utah legal profession. 

One of our programs includes the Utah Law Student Mentoring Program. In an effort to standardize and make available our program materials, we have created and distributed a program manual. Law student mentees meet monthly with their assigned attorney mentors and work through the goals they set together at the beginning of their mentorship. By consulting with each other and the program manual, all three can work together to work through some of the more challenging questions that students from historically underrepresented backgrounds face as they consider a career in law. 

We hope you enjoy flipping through our mentoring program manual! If you have questions or suggestions, please contact us at .

In this week’s Wednesday Webinar, we discussed the importance of avoiding burnout while staying actively engaged. We had the opportunity to speak to Amber Stargell and Sadé Turner.  Amber Stargell is an associate at Christensen and Jensen. Sadé is a shareholder at Strong and Hanni Law firm.

Both Amber and Sadé are not initially from Utah. Some of the factors they took into consideration for coming to Utah was that S.J Quinney College of Law was a good law school, safe, and the financial support.

Amber originally transferred from a law school in Texas. During her 1L, she did an internship in Utah with her current law firm. Amber decided to transfer to the University of Utah and stay here because of the legal community. In Texas, she mentioned how the legal community is significant, and she doesn’t have the opportunity to interact with the entire bar. It can also be intimidating and can be easy to overlook your own needs and wants. Amber stayed because the bar in Utah is small, and you can interact with various people in the legal community. Both speakers also talked about different ways that they built their network. Sadé participated in a court activity while in law school. This court activity allowed her to meet judges and attorneys and speak to them about cases that were assigned while making connections. For Amber, since she had interned with her current law firm, the lawyers there supported her and were willing to invite her to specific events.

In this episode, Amber and Sadé give specific practices to maintain a healthy work-life balance. They talk about how important it is to learn how to say no. Sadé mentioned that she always wanted to say yes to everything. However, you are technically saying no to everything because you will not be able to be present and contribute in the way you want to. To solve this, she decided to say yes to tasks she was passionate about. Amber adds that you can determine what is worth your time once you understand your focus and passion. They also provide examples of how to say no while still building on your network and perhaps elevating others.

Pictured: Sadé Turner, Esq. and Amber Stargell, Esq.