A Letter from Our President

Fellow Alumni:

Welcome to our inaugural web site! There are some exciting things happening at the Birmingham School of Law (…) and, as the current president of the two groups, I wanted to reach out to let you know all about it.

First, we have organized a not-for-profit organization, the Birmingham School of Law Foundation, Inc. It has received its official 501(c)(3) status from the IRS. One of the purposes of the Foundation is to promote legal education. We are actively working to raise funds – tax-exempt, of course – to use for scholarships. So far, we have hosted a silent auction which has funded seven (7) scholarships, ranging from $500 to $2,500. News of the auction was spread by word-of-mouth, so if we missed you or could not reach you, we apologize – even the State Bar’s web site does not always have good contact information. Also, since these funds were raised in 2016, we had to award them in 2016 to maintain our not-for-profit status. We hope to have another silent auction soon and have even greater participation and more items for bid. In order to get greater participation, we need your help. We want to hear from you! Please send us your contact information (email and phone numbers) so we can find you to let you know when we plan to have more of our events. We are also investigating the possibility of conducting Continuing Legal Education where the net proceeds will also be used to fund scholarships. Please let us know the subjects you want for your CLEs and we will try to offer a variety of subjects, the net proceeds of which will be used to fund scholarships and other Foundation functions.

Second, we have organized an actual alumni association! Our Alumni Association is officially part of the Foundation so it also enjoys tax-exempt status. One of the projects of the Alumni Association is to create an online directory of our alumni. We want to provide a one-stop site for you to contact your classmates and fellow alums, whether it is for referrals or just to reach out to long-lost friends. We are trying to incorporate the “fund-raising-for-scholarships” objective into this project as well. We anticipate offering extended listings in the alumni directory to include areas of practice and even links to your firm’s web page. Don’t be discouraged by our directory goals for firm listing – we want to include all alumni, even if you are not practicing, never practiced, or you are retired. We really want all of our alumni included!

Finally, we want to hear from you! How can we – both the Foundation and the Alumni Association – serve you and serve you better? We will consider all requests and ideas and, if you have a hankering, join us! We can use the help. At this time, no idea is too outrageous. With your help, we can make these organizations part of your everyday life and an invaluable tool for your practice and personal life.

Signed, John Bodie