Bar in Brief > The Next 250 Years Start This September. Are You Ready?

COLUMN > A Note From the WSBA Executive Director

BY TERRA NEVITT

On Law Day 2025, the WSBA launched its Rule of Law Ambassador Program and hosted events around the state where almost 2,000 legal professionals retook their professional oath. This year on Law Day, we asked legal professions to commit to connecting with and visiting a classroom this fall, in commemoration of Constitution Day on Sept. 17. Hundreds have responded, but we’re hoping for even more. Our audacious goal is to have a lawyer in every school across our state, heck, maybe even every classroom!

Why? This year, our nation turned 250. That’s not a small thing, and for those of us who have devoted our careers to upholding its founding promise, it is worth pausing on. We became legal professionals because we believed in something: that the law belongs to everyone, that fairness is worth fighting for, that the system—imperfect as it is—is worth defending and improving. School is out, but that belief doesn’t clock out for summer.

But here is what keeps me up at night: Fewer than one in four eighth graders are proficient in civics nationally.¹ These are the students who are just years away from casting their first vote, and many of them have never met a lawyer, judge, or anyone who works in the legal system. Civic participation starts with feeling like you belong in the conversation and your voice matters. When a legal professional walks into a classroom in September, they send a message to students that no textbook can: The Constitution belongs to you, too.

The law establishing Constitution Day was modified in 2004, and it mandates that all publicly funded schools provide education programming on the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17. That’s more than 2,200 public K–12 schools in Washington alone—all of them legally required to deliver Constitution Day programming, and many without a plan for how to do it. The result is a need that is almost perfectly shaped for us. Legal professionals are the people best positioned to speak to the ideals and pursuit of liberty, justice, and freedom.

And the need is more acute than the mandate alone suggests. As legal professionals, we don’t just understand the Constitution, we are bound by it. Our rules of professional ethics remind us that “legal institutions in a constitutional democracy depend on popular participation and support to maintain their authority.”² When that participation erodes, so does our institution. We are the ones who understand that best, and we are also the people who can do something about it—one classroom at a time.

Civic participation starts with feeling like you belong in the conversation and your voice matters. When a legal professional walks into a classroom, they send a message to students that no textbook can: The Constitution belongs to you, too.

Here is what legal professionals who have already visited a classroom will tell you: The students will surprise you. You yourself—with your unique perspective and experience, as a representative of the legal system—are just as important as the lesson. The students begin to think: “They look like me, they care. Maybe I can do what they do to help my community.” When legal professionals share their personal journeys, those seeds grow—into future voters, jurors, advocates and hopefully, future lawyers. Students will want to know all about you, your strangest case, how you became interested in the law, what you wear to court, and whether you drive around in a Lincoln brainstorming legal solutions.

If you have been on the fence or haven’t contacted a school yet, you still have time—but don’t delay. Schools return to session in August, so the window to schedule your Constitution Day visit closes sooner than you think—we are less than 12 weeks out. We have made it as easy as possible to invest in the next generation.

Go to http://www.wsba.org/classroom-ambassadors for a step-by-step guide that walks you through finding a school, choosing a ready-made lesson, and planning your visit. In the coming weeks, we are hosting lunch-and-learn sessions for those who want to hear from lawyers who present in classrooms regularly (and successfully). These sessions will be recorded too, so if you’re unable to attend live, you’ll be able to access them before September.

If students are to believe that the legal system can be fair and represent them, what they need from us are the tools to understand how it works and how to make it better. Walk into a classroom this fall and show students why the Constitution is not a museum relic. Show them why it’s their instrument and they will remind you, in the way only this next generation can, why you chose this work in the first place.

They need us in the classroom. But if we’re being honest, we need them too.

Please join us. Sign up today: https://forms.office.com/g/Da8XKHu2UP.

LEARN MORE AND JOIN US

Hundreds of your colleagues have already committed to be in classrooms throughout the state this fall—and Sept. 17 is just weeks away. If you haven’t taken that step yet, or haven’t found your school, we have made it easy. The resources and ready-to-use lesson plans are waiting at www.wsba.org/classroom-ambassadors.

This summer, we’re also hosting lunch-and-learn sessions to help you prepare for your visit (details coming soon). Any day can be Constitution Day, all we need is YOU! Sign up at https://forms.office.com/g/Da8XKHu2UP.