First-year Texas Law students were welcomed into the school’s public interest community on September 11 during Change It Up! 2026: Texas Law’s Public Interest Orientation.
Founded by students in 2013, the annual event introduces new students to public interest opportunities and to the faculty, staff, alumni, attorneys, and students who make up the community at Texas Law. This year’s program was hosted by the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law and co-sponsored by the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, the Budd Innocence Center, the Capital Punishment Center, and the Career Services Office.
Justice Center student advisory board members Isha Mehta ’27, Camila Soler ’27, Valeria Arguelles ’28, and Ariana Guerrero ’27 helped organize the event.
Justice Center Director Nicole Simmons ’07 welcomed students and encouraged them to view the orientation as the beginning of their engagement with the Justice Center and Texas Law’s public interest community. Dean Bobby Chesney reflected on the responsibility that accompanies a Texas Law degree, particularly at a time when the need for legal services far exceeds the number of people equipped to provide them. He emphasized that the responsibility to provide pro bono service extends to graduates in every area of practice.
Soler spoke about Change It Up!’s student-led history and expressed her hope that the event would continue for many years.
“When I experienced Change It Up! as a 1L, I felt supported and encouraged by the public interest community at Texas Law, and I learned so much,” she said. “This year, it was incredible and heartwarming to see the 1Ls, the next generation of public interest lawyers, build and foster community with each other, alumni, and practitioners. Throughout and after the event, I felt deeply inspired by talking with people who are so passionate about pursuing a public interest career path.”
An alumni panel moderated by Rhiannon Hamam ’16 explored an open-ended question: What does it mean to do what you do? Panelists included Emani Brown ’24, Assistant Public Defender at the Harris County Public Defender’s Office; Gwynn Marotta ’25, Manne Reproductive Justice Legal Fellow at the Texas Civil Rights Project; Justin Atkinson ’24, Staff Attorney at The Legal Aid Society; and Maryn Rolfson Taylor ’25, an immigration attorney at American Gateways.
The panelists discussed how they found their current practice areas and what they have learned during their early years as attorneys. Across the conversation, they encouraged students to consider not only the issues they care about but also how different kinds of legal work feel in practice. They recommended participating in clinics, exploring more than one area of law, and reaching out to alumni for guidance. They also reminded students that their first position or practice area does not have to determine the course of their entire careers.
During the question-and-answer session, students asked how to become involved in public interest work, how the panelists’ career paths had developed, and how they set boundaries while doing demanding work. Hamam closed the discussion with a reflection of her own: “It’s amazing to step into practices that align with your values. There’s something so beautiful about giving a piece of yourself to this work.”
The afternoon continued with Community Connections, a series of small-group conversations that gave students the opportunity to meet faculty, staff, alumni, and attorneys working in a range of public interest fields.
“My immediate takeaway after Change It Up! was just how many opportunities there are in public interest law,” said Ali Arwani ’29. “Hearing from the alumni panel and learning about their experiences left me deeply excited about the kind of fulfilling and life-changing work I’ll be able to do as a future attorney.”
For the student organizers, the event was also an opportunity to welcome a new class into a community that had shaped their own Texas Law experiences.
“As a 1L, Change It Up! was one of the first events that truly brought me into the public interest community here at Texas Law, and that has completely changed my law school experience for the better,” said Mehta. “It’s so special to be able to organize the event this year for a new batch of public interest students who will no doubt have a meaningful impact on our small but mighty community.”
