Students only spend a fleeting three years at Texas Law, but the legal education and career opportunities they gain last a lifetime. Yet, it’s the friendships and connections students form that often leave the deepest impressions. These bonds give crucial support through law school’s trials and challenges and continue to thrive long after students walk the stage at commencement.
A Strong Foundation
For some Texas Law students, friendships begin even before the first day of classes. 1L Savannah Gunter met her friend group—fellow 1Ls Tochi Etufugh, Thomas Gebremichael, Ariana Guerrero, Zara Kabir, Mya Miller, and Maria de los Angeles Villarreal—through the school’s Pipeline Program, which prepares aspirants for the law school application process. Gunter’s group quickly bonded during their four in-person Pipeline academies (workshops that provide mentoring, coaching, and community building for the cohort) and helped each other as they pursued their law school ambitions.
“Everybody was incredibly supportive through every single decision we made on our legal journey,” Gunter says.
Even though they were physically apart in between their academy meetings, the group stayed in touch. During the program’s LSAT preparation sessions over Zoom, when someone aced an answer or raised a good question, their group chat would quickly fill with congratulations and kudos.
Since they were admitted to Texas Law, the students’ bonds have only deepened. Shortly before the first day of classes in fall 2024, they gathered at a local restaurant to compare schedules and reflect on their shared excitement and nerves.
“We got to know each other as people, not just law school applicants or future lawyers,” says Gunter. “That was really special.”
Unexpected Connections
When she enrolled in law school following her years in the professional world, Elizabeth Hamilton ’21 wasn’t sure she would make many friends.
“I didn’t expect to have a great social experience, because I knew I was going to be so much older and in a different life space than a lot of my fellow students,” says Hamilton, who applied to Texas Law after working in various roles at CitiGroup for 18 years.
Hamilton’s assumption was quickly proven wrong when she met Miatta Echetebu ’21 at Admitted Students Day. Echetebu was also a non-traditional student who had enjoyed an initial career in clinical psychology. She recalls knowing instantly that she and Hamilton would click. “We were the first friends we made at UT,” Echetebu says.
They also became each other’s closest. Every Thursday night, after classes ended for the week, they met to watch an episode of “How to Get Away With Murder,” attempting to solve the crimes together. “It would sometimes take us three hours to get through a 30-minute show,” Echetebu says. “We would keep pausing to talk about anything and everything.”
While they can no longer spend their Thursday nights together—Hamilton is now an associate at Milbank LLP in New York City, while Echetebu is an associate at Bradley Arant in Houston—they remain close friends and regularly stay in touch. Echetebu even has a framed photo of herself and Hamilton at their Sunflower Ceremony on her desk.
Building Bonds
Some say that friendships at law school not only can go beyond the classroom, they should. That’s the advice Becca Chang ’18 gives to incoming law students. “Build bonds with classmates doing things you enjoy outside of the law school, like going to a workout class or trying a new restaurant,” she says. During free time, Chang and her close law school friend Casey Shomaker ’18 often worked out or walked the Lady Bird Lake Trail together. “It’s so important to take a break.”
In addition to fun activities outside of class time, students often connect by forming study groups. Gunter and her friends enjoy studying together using the Pomodoro technique, in which extended periods of silent study are broken up by 10-minute breaks to socialize and talk.
So many 2Ls and 3Ls are willing to help you on your journey.
1L Zara Kabir
“I get a lot of happiness in those 10 minutes,” says Kabir. “Just having somebody next to me or a small group of people to study with goes a long way.”
Not only does spending time with friends better their academic experience, but the camaraderie also furthers students’ career goals, including by helping secure jobs and internships.
“So many 2Ls and 3Ls are willing to help you on your journey,” says Kabir. In addition to sharing class notes and case materials for studying, Kabir says they assist with identifying legal professionals in students’ targeted fields. Texas Law friends and peers serve as a foundational network that can lead to opportunities throughout their careers.
Friendships Endure, Despite Distance
While Texas Law grads are scattered across the globe, some emphasize their bonds remain as strong as the day they graduated.
After leaving Austin, Chang and Shomaker initially both landed in Dallas. While Chang has since moved back to Austin, she and Shomaker still regularly see each other and recently celebrated Shomaker’s 30th birthday with a ski trip to Kitzbuhel, Austria.
Law school is challenging, and “having good friends who understand exactly what you’re going through makes it so much better,” says Chang. “Many of my law school friends remain some of my closest friends today.”
Collaboration Over Competition
It’s no secret that the legal profession can be highly competitive, and that nature often trickles down to law schools. At Texas Law, though, many students have chosen the school for its uniquely supportive environment.
At Texas Law, I built friendships that will last for life.
Miatta Echetebu ’21
“You hear horror stories from other law schools of people literally ripping cases out of case books so that nobody else could have the citation,” says Hamilton. “Texas Law is known for not having that culture, and that was important to me.”
Gunter echoes a similar sentiment, noting that “law school is a cutthroat environment in general” but the atmosphere at Texas Law stands apart. “Everybody just wants to support everybody no matter what.”
In fact, many students find that the bonds they form in law school are stronger and more meaningful than those they’ve made in the past.
“It felt more like I was coming into a family,” Echetebu says. “I talk to law school friends generally more than friends from undergrad and grad school,” where she earned degrees in psychology and history and later clinical-community psychology, respectively. “At Texas Law, I built friendships that will last for life.”
Decades of Dedication
Echetebu’s optimism rings true for a special collection of friends from the class of 1974. During their 1L year, in the fall of 1971, nine friends—Judge Marilyn Aboussie, Bruce Broillet, Ray Durbin, Doug and Wendy John, Jane Hayman, Mike McKool, Glenn “Pat” Patterson, and Clark Stanton —formed a study group and began a lifetime of friendship.
In the 51 years since graduation, the group has stayed in touch through Texas Law reunions, life events such as weddings and birthday parties, and the law school alumni association. And, for a few of the friends who are also Notre Dame alums, Fighting Irish football games.
For El Paso native Broillet, being accepted at Texas Law was one of the best things that ever happened to him. “I didn’t realize the lifelong friends who would come out of that. You don’t think that way about law school, and I was really lucky to fall into the group that I did,” he says.
In 2020, the friends started a new tradition, gathering weekly on Zoom, a routine they continue today. Without fail, the group spends the entirety of Zoom’s nonsubscribers’ limit of 40 minutes together every Wednesday night.
“The older I get, the more friendships are important to me,” says McKool. “I look forward to every Wednesday that I’m able to be on this call to see my friends again.”
The group shows up for each other. Doug recounts when a medical challenge required leaving his home state of Virginia for health care in Houston. Hayman would drive in from Austin. Patterson, who lived in the area, would take Doug and wife Wendy out for dinner each night and cheer him on in his time of need. “That’s an example of being there for your pals when it’s important,” Doug says. “I can’t imagine life without these guys.”
Friendship is an integral part of law school, according to Aboussie. “If other law students have an experience anything like ours, they will not only be great lawyers, but they will be great people, and they will have wonderful friends,” she says. “I wish that for all of them.”
“Besides family, friendship is the most important thing we have,” Patterson says. In response, Doug says the group’s connections go beyond friendship: “They are family.”
Tragically, Hayman, who kickstarted the Zoom idea, has since passed away but remains in the group’s memory for her humor and loving nature. As important as she was to this tight circle of friends, they made a point of honoring her and their longstanding bond.
Friendship Bench
At Reunion 2024, Hayman’s friends gathered to dedicate a bench along the north side of Townes Hall. Nicknamed the “Friendship Bench,” it stands as a testimony to the lasting friendships formed at Texas Law and Hayman’s enduring love for her friends. Underneath Hayman’s name, the plaque reads: “She loved the law school, but she loved her law school friends even more.”
It’s sentiment that animated much of Hayman’s life and close connections, and one shared by countless Texas Law alumni who have taken every personal and professional step on life’s journey beyond The Forty Acres with law school friends by their side.
