September 14, 2020
Since her junior year of high school, Lauren Mabie AJD’21 knew she was destined to be a justice-driven lawyer. She started her journey to Vermont Law School at American University where she attended for her undergraduate. While enrolled there, she joined the Army ROTC program. This took her for a short detour from law – she was assigned to an Air Defense Artillery unit in Germany for four years. During this time, she never lost sight of her end goal of studying law.
A close community of justice-driven students, staff, and faculty is what attracted Lauren to Vermont Law School. One of her favorite aspects of the community at VLS is the shared motivation for studying law. The students have the passion to use the law to make a positive impact on the world, whether that is slowing the effects of climate change or ensuring immigrants have access to the legal system. The biggest reason Lauren chose VLS is simply her career aspirations paired perfectly with the school mission.
“My motivation for attending law school was not to work at a big law firm someday, make lots of money or gain privileged status in society. In fact, I want to make sure I avoid or am not influenced by those motivations. Instead, my goal was to become a great lawyer and contribute to justice in some way. My desires seemed directly in line with the mission and community at VLS.”
— Lauren Mabie AJD’21 , Vermont Law School
When Lauren graduates from Vermont Law School in 2021, she plans to pursue work in domestic and sexual violence advocacy in her home state of Vermont. When asked to give advice for anyone taking the LSAT this year, she advised, “Oh boy. My best advice for the LSAT is to ensure you have a system in place to hold you accountable while you’re studying. Although you might be able to perform adequately on it if you study while balancing work, school, etc., if you really want to nail it you need to dedicate a month (ideally 2+), full-time, to studying. Once you are studying, take it seriously and try to focus because the LSAT is not easy. And take lots of practice tests under test conditions.”