National Muslim Law Students

Click here to visit the website for NMLSA

The National Muslim Law Students Association is a newly formed organization. Previously, the National Muslim Law Students Conference held three annual conferences for Muslim law students around the country. Last years conference was hosted by the Georgetown Muslim Law Students Association and students around the country. There were approximately 200 attendees including students from 65 law schools across the United States. There were 60 speakers and networking attorneys included elected politicians, federal judges, presidential campaign managers, public defenders, and academics alike.
 

Starting in Fall 2021, the National Muslim Law Students Association partnered with the National Association of Muslim Lawyers to ensure that the longevity of the organization. The inaugural board is focusing on our governing documents, ensuring we have a complete list of Muslim Law Students Associations around the country, ensuring that law schools are accommodating students during Ramadan/Eid, and working on hosting our annual conference, which will be taking place virtually on March 25th–27th, 2022.

Thank you so much for joining us as we continue to establish a national community, network, and support system for Muslim law students to grow alongside one another.

About NMLSA's Executive Board Positions

Chair

The Chair will fill the standing seat on the NAML Board as “Law Student Representative.” The Chair is responsible for maintaining communication with NAML and other professional organizations to further the mission of the NMLSA Committee. In this role you will convene the board to plan the Conference along with other initiatives the board sees fit to oversee. You will act as Conference Director [see below for description]. Chair will lead the executive board meetings. 

 

Vice Chair of Operations (VCO)

The Vice Chair of Operations will maintain a supervisory relationship with the Regional Representatives. In this role you will maintain a master list of law schools with MLSAs and their point of contact. The VCO will work closely with the Chair in planning the Conference as one of the Conference directors [see below for descriptions]. In this role you will take notes at every executive board meeting and be in charge of administrative organization.  The Vice Chair of Operations will be responsible for board transition at the end of each academic year including the board election. The Vice Chair will take over any of the Chair’s responsibilities should the need arise.

 

Vice Chair of Finance (VCF)

The Vice Chair of Finance will maintain a relationship with the treasurer (or equivalent position) of NAML. Each year the treasurer will prepare a budget for any programming NMLSA wants to plan including the Conference. In this role, you will be responsible for coordinating with NAML regarding funding along with any additional sponsors.  The NMLSA Vice Chair of Finance will act as Finance Director for the Conference [see below for description].

 

Vice Chair of Communications (VCC)

The Communications chair will maintain a relationship with the communication team at NAML. In this role you will be responsible for any outward messaging on behalf of NMLSA including updating the website, posting on social media, and sending emails. The Communications chair will also coordinate designing marketing collateral or merchandise for NMLSA. The Communications chair will act as Communications Director of the Conference [see below for description]. 

 

Regional Representatives

There will be a Regional Representative assigned to one of 6 geographic areas around the U.S. The Representative must go to school in the region they represent. The Regional representative will be responsible for communicating with and coordinating with the MLSA’s and Muslim students at their assigned Law Schools.  Representatives should maintain a running list of all the law schools in their region and indicate which of them have MLSAs and ensure there is a both point of contact for each MLSA and an administrative point of contact for each law school. In this role you may need to send emails to each law school introducing NMLSA and its resources, and recommend school accommodations for Muslim students for prayer or important dates such as Ramadan or Eid. The regional representatives will also play an active role in conference planning, taking on any of the positions described below as well as coordinating the recruitment of other Conference Planning volunteers.

  • Region I: ME, VT, NH, MA, NY, PA, CT,  RI

  • Region II: NJ, OH, WV, DE, MD, DC, VA, MI

  • Region III: NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, TN, KY

  • Region IV: IN, IL, IA, SD, ND, MN, WI, WY, MT

  • Region V: CO, KS, MO, OK, AR, LA, TX, NM, NE

  • Region VI: AK, HI, WA, OR, CA, NV, UT, AZ, ID

 

Conference Planning Positions

Historically, the National Muslim Law Student Conference (NMLSC) was hosted by a different law school every year. Part of the NMLSA Board’s responsibilities will be to plan the annual NMLSC. By establishing NMLSA as a subcommittee of NAML, the NMLSC will be held in collaboration with NAML. Although you are not applying for any of the planning committee roles right now, please keep them in mind because you will fill at least one of these roles when you join the NMLSA Board. The descriptions for the planning committee positions are listed below. There will be a process to assign these roles when the Board convenes each year. 

 

Director 

The Conference Director position will be filled by the NMLSA Chair. The Director will be responsible for communicating directly with NAML’s conference programming team. In this role you will relay to NAML the needs of the NMLSA conference and conference planning progress. The Director will coordinate conference planning meetings and ensure the board’s timely execution of tasks.

 

Registration Director and Coordinators

This team will manage all things involving signing people up for the conference. The REgistration team will be responsible for creating procedures for having conference attendees sign up for the conference and check in once they arrive. The registration team will also maintain and update a post-conference database for future events. 

 

Programming Director and Coordinators

Your creativity and scheduling skills are needed here. Help us craft an amazing program for the conference including but not limited to inviting speakers and building a sustainable community for attendees. The programming team will take the lead on drafting the conference program and communication with speakers or guests. 

 

Communications Co-Director and Coordinators

Whether as Communications Director or a coordinator, you will be in charge of marketing the NMLSA conference and keeping attendees, speakers and the larger community up-to-date. This team will send out newsletters regarding the conference, update social media, design flyers and communicate with other organizations to assist in marketing efforts. 

 

Finance Director and Coordinators

The finance team will budget the financial needs of the conference. In one of these roles, you will keep track of all spending and communicate directly with any sponsors including NAML. You will be in charge of facilitating any merchandise disbursement and speaker payment. The Finance team will ensure compliance with NAML’s funding and reporting requirements.