'Latino Lawyer Camp' connects Latino teens with the legal profession

EMILY BRIGHT: This year's Latino Lawyer Camp just wrapped up in Saint Paul. The camp gets rising ninth graders up close and personal to the legal profession. Jorge Saavedra is one of the attorneys behind the camp. He's on the line. Hello, Jorge.

JORGE SAAVEDRA: Hi, Emily.

EMILY BRIGHT: Soli Rangel is on the line. She's a graduate of this year's camp and a rising ninth grader at Minnetonka High School. Thanks for being here.

SOLI RANGEL: Thank you.

EMILY BRIGHT: So, Jorge, I want to start with you. This camp is your brainchild. So why pair Latino kids with Latino lawyers?

JORGE SAAVEDRA: So the whole idea is to give rising ninth graders an opportunity to look into the legal profession and to see the kind of work that lawyers do and also to connect Latino kids with Latino lawyers so that volunteer lawyers, legislators, judges, and all the other volunteers that are involved with Lawyer Camp can model behavior and conduct as lawyers so that students can see that and see themselves in the volunteers and can also get enough information about the legal profession to be able to see themselves as law students and as lawyers in their own futures.

EMILY BRIGHT: Absolutely. So there are lots of career focused camps for older students. Why reach these kids at the start of high school?

JORGE SAAVEDRA: Targeting rising ninth graders was very intentional. And the reason for that is, starting in ninth grade, that's when grades really start to count towards college admission and ultimately towards law school admissions. And so we wanted to give kids the tools and the knowledge to be able to engage in some decision making and about their approach to school and academics and to get more serious about their studies if they wanted to achieve college level studies and perhaps a professional degree like a law degree.

And giving them this information at this point in their academic careers is really important so that they understand that they need to start getting more focused and ready as ninth graders. If we talk to them as juniors or seniors in high school, for a lot of kids, that might be too late. And so we wanted to put kids on notice, give them this information, show them the pathway at this critical point in their academic careers.

EMILY BRIGHT: Yeah, absolutely. Soli, I want to turn to you. You could've been at a more traditional summer camp swimming or canoeing, but you were in a courtroom. What was that like?

SOLI RANGEL: I think it was pretty cool. I think it was definitely a very special opportunity that I was able to take advantage of because it's definitely not an opportunity that everybody gets to have. And I thought it would be something really important for me right now and in the future to see how I can learn from it. And I thought it was pretty cool opportunity. May not have been the most exciting camp for some people, but I thought it was pretty interesting and really cool.

EMILY BRIGHT: Well, that's what matters. So it sounds like you took a bunch of field trips. You got to do a mock trial. Was there something you particularly liked this past week?

SOLI RANGEL: I thought a lot of it was really cool. One of my favorite parts was probably going to the field trips and listening to a lot of the speakers because a lot of what they had to say was really important. And just the way that all these different speakers and people in high places like in our government system and in our judicial system, just seeing how they got to these places because-- I don't know. Sometimes I don't always see myself getting to these places, or I don't know how to get to these places. And just seeing how they were able to do it and the steps that they took really showed me a path of how I could possibly do it in my future.

EMILY BRIGHT: Did they give you any ideas for after high school?

SOLI RANGEL: Yeah, I'd say especially listening to the different types of law that we got to hear because we got to hear about civil law. We got to hear about criminal justice law and immigration law. So just hearing the different types and which ones I connect with more, I feel like that was really helpful to me.

EMILY BRIGHT: Yeah, what did you connect with?

SOLI RANGEL: Yeah, I think I connected a little bit more with the immigration law because I think that's really important. And I thought it was very interesting. So I think just hearing the different types of law because, in my mind at first, I was only like, oh, there's these specific groups. And then now I know, oh, there's more. Then there's in the courtroom type of law, I can do more than just that.

EMILY BRIGHT: Did the courtroom look like it does on TV?

SOLI RANGEL: Not really.

EMILY BRIGHT: [LAUGHS]

SOLI RANGEL: The appellate court definitely looked more like what we would see on TV. But yeah, the district court and the courts that are actually used like the ones on TV look nothing at all like I've seen.

EMILY BRIGHT: Jorge, did you know you wanted to be a lawyer as a ninth grader?

JORGE SAAVEDRA: I had an idea that lawyers were really important people in our society. And that was pretty clear to me even before ninth grade. But I didn't really understand what a lawyer was or what it took to be a lawyer. So yeah, my interest in the law came really early. For me, it really was in middle school. But it was a long time before I really started to understand anything more about the profession.

EMILY BRIGHT: Do you see your younger self in these campers?

JORGE SAAVEDRA: Absolutely. We had such an amazing group of kids this year. We had 17 students in camp and a lot of different personalities, a lot of different backgrounds. Some are more recent immigrants. Some have lived in the United States their whole lives. And just a great variety of kids.

Definitely, I could see myself. And that was part of the inspiration for me too. My family immigrated to the United States when I was eight years old. And learning about what it is to live in this country, including the opportunity for school or for careers, was a real mystery. And this is something that we want to try to demystify for these kids.

EMILY BRIGHT: What's been the best part for you as you watch these kids learn over the past week?

JORGE SAAVEDRA: I think the most inspirational thing is watching how even in the span of a week-- our camp this year was five days long, Tuesday through Saturday. Normally, it would be six days long, Monday through Saturday.

But watching these kids change even in the span of a week and watching them develop and absorb all this information-- so they show up the first day with a lot of enthusiasm but not quite understanding what to expect. And then by the end of the week, here are these kids making opening statements in a trial or doing an argument in a motion hearing. And it's really amazing how much information and knowledge they absorb and how from zero, they're acting like lawyers by the end of the week.

EMILY BRIGHT: I love it. For people who are listening to this conversation across the state, what do you want them to know?

JORGE SAAVEDRA: So here's something that I think about quite a bit. This is really an intensive academic camp. It's really curriculum based, curriculum focused. We really want to share this information in a very structured way throughout the week.

But I think the takeaway for me is just what tremendous capacity kids as young as ninth graders have for learning. And we set really high expectations. And without exception, every one of those kids stepped up and was able to meet those expectations about how they needed to be prepared to put on their mock trial by the end of the week and how much information we asked them to learn and to absorb.

And it just impresses me to no end how capable these young kids are. That to me I think is maybe the most valuable lesson that I've learned about ninth graders and what they're capable of doing. And it gives me such inspiration and such confidence in what the future looks like for Latino kids coming in into high school and to college and maybe into law school or other really demanding endeavors.

EMILY BRIGHT: Soli, are you grinning ear to ear listening to these wonderful descriptions of you and your [LAUGHS] camper mates?

SOLI RANGEL: Yeah, I think that's pretty cool to hear about yourself.

EMILY BRIGHT: Yeah. Well, good. You should be really proud. And I have really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you for your time.

SOLI RANGEL: Thank you for having us.

JORGE SAAVEDRA: Thank you, Emily.

EMILY BRIGHT: That was Jorge Saavedra, assistant Ramsey County attorney and organizer behind this year's Latino Lawyer Camp that just wrapped up last week. Also Soli Rangel. She's a graduate of this year's camp and a rising ninth grader at Minnetonka High School.

You can read more about this year's camp in an article written in Sahan Journal. That's an online news source covering BIPOC and refugee communities across Minnesota. They do great work. Go to sahanjournal.com. And registration for next year is not open yet, but you can follow any updates by searching Latino Lawyer Camp on Instagram and Facebook.