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BYU Law Invites Law Students Across the U.S. to Participate in Storytelling Initiative

February 1, 2019

PROVO, Utah, Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — BYU Law School invites law school students from across the United States to participate in BYU LawStories on the Mainstage, a storytelling initiative offering the opportunity to meld law, personal experience and the art of storytelling in written and oral forms to further prepare for their legal careers. Participants are asked to submit – by Feb. 20, 2019, noon (MDT) – a nonfiction narrative of 1,000 to 1,500 words that ties together their life and the law. “The deeper I delve in the study of story, the more I become convinced that it is a necessary part of legal education,” said Gordon Smith, Dean, BYU Law. “I am thrilled to expand this opportunity beyond BYU and encourage law students of all levels and interests to consider participating in this initiative.” A panel of expert storytellers and judges will select ten submissions whose authors will receive an expenses-paid trip to Utah March 13–16, 2019. The storytellers will present their stories at BYU LawStories on the Mainstage, a public storytelling event. Before their presentations, participants will receive a half-day seminar on storytelling taught by Sam Payne, who hosts “The Apple Seed” – a national radio show on storytelling. At the conclusion of the seminar, participants will record their stories for broadcast at the state-of-the-art BYUradio studios. After the campus-based events conclude, the storytellers will travel to Moab to visit one of Utah’s iconic national parks. Applicants are encouraged to go beyond merely writing an anecdote, to create a story that has a narrative arc and illustrates growth, change, or a perceptual shift. Storytelling training materials, including those contributed by The Leadership Story Lab, are available through the BYU LawStories website. More information about the initiative, including submission guidelines, rules and terms, and frequently asked questions are available at: http://lawstories.byu.edu/mainstage/. About BYU Law School
Founded in 1971, the J. Reuben Clark Law School (BYU Law) has grown into one of the nation’s leading law schools – recognized for innovative research and teaching in social change, transactional design, entrepreneurship, corpus linguistics, criminal justice, and religious freedom. The Law School has more than 6,000 alumni serving in communities around the world. In its most recent rankings, SoFi ranked BYU Law as the #1 best-value U.S. law school in their 2017 Return on Education Law School Ranking. For more information, visit http://www.law.byu.edu/.