The SU Criminal Justice Society Presents TAD:

Take an Attorney to Dinner

TAD (Take an Attorney to Dinner) is a program created by the Criminal Justice Society to promote the goals set out in our mission statement: to provide camaraderie, education and opportunity to students who are interested in the criminal justice field. Each dinner is attended by no more than six students and one criminal justice professional (prosecutor, defense attorney, judge). This allows an intimate and personal setting in which the students become familiar with the attorney and the attorney with the students. Each attorney provides a roadmap of their personal journey from law student to criminal justice professional. Their insight and experience is shared in an environment where students are free to ask questions and receive feedback from someone who has an honest desire to guide and mentor.

If you are a law student and are interested in participating in TAD please:

• Email larsend2@seattleu.edu with your name, gender and phone number.
• If you have a preference, please include whether you’d prefer to go to a dinner with a prosecutor, defense attorney or judge.
• Include some information about yourself that I will forward to the attorney, such as if you are a 1L, 2L, etc. and why you are interested in criminal justice.
• Students may attend more than one dinner if they’d like to go to dinner with both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, but not in the same month.
• Also, list any restrictions such as days of the week in which you can’t attend.

About the Dinner

• Dinners are held at the Cellar Bistro not far from Campus, at 6pm.
• Each participant pays for their own dinner and pays a portion of the attorney’s dinner, which usually winds up being $5 to $7 per person.
• Dress is semi-formal.
• Dinners last between two and four hours, depending on how talkative the attorney is.
• If you cannot afford the attorney portion of the meal, please let me know. The CJS will cover your portion.
• Note about getting to the restaurant: In order to get to the Cellar Bistro you have to walk behind some other restaurant called "the something Bistro" and people at one of our dinners got confused and went in the wrong place. This is intended to give you a heads up that the Cellar Bistro has its name over the door.

Previous Dinners

Pictured, left to right: Robert Goodwin, attorney Christine Jackson (public defender), Donna Larsen, Andrew Rice, Abraham Ritter, Sarah Hoffman, Robyn Mellen

The first dinner was held on January 16th and was attended by Wyman Yip, who is the head of the Juvenile Justice Division at the King County Prosecutor’s office. Beverly Yuodelis, a 1L who attended the dinner, said, “Mr. Yip had so many insights to share with us from the many departments he has been involved in. I feel like I have a much better understanding about the juvenile justice system.” Mr. Yip has agreed to be a contact at the prosecutor’s office for those students who attended his dinner and as agreed to come and speak at the school sometime soon. The second dinner was held on January 20th and was attended by Christine Jackson who is the head of the Misdemeanor Unit at the Defender’s Association. Ms. Jackson led the students from her humble beginnings attending SU (back when it was the University of Puget Sound Law School) to her current position at the Defender’s Association. She talked at length about Clarence Earl Gideon, whose case it was that led to the current system where every defendant has a right to legal counsel, and what that means today. She seems determined to educate potential, future public defenders on the ethics and determination it takes to offer quality representation to accused persons.