Medical Legal Partnership<\/a> (MLP), which is also the nation\u2019s first program to connect medical and legal partners like Greenville Health System and South Carolina Legal Services with an undergraduate institution like Furman.<\/p>\n\u201cI saw the struggles and dynamic issues and understood it even more,\u201d Dennis said. \u201cIt drove me to advocate for their rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, as she finishes her senior year, Dennis is interning with the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office in Greenville. Her work has primarily supported prosecution of human trafficking.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Fisher Sherard is the human trafficking coordinator for the district of South Carolina and supervises Dennis and other interns. She said Dennis walked in the door ready for her assignments, proving she \u201cfunctions outside of the classroom and in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Experience in the field is becoming increasingly important to law schools when considering applicants, Russell said. A holistic view takes into account more than just excellent grades and high LSAT scores, but work ethic and leadership as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want students who are going to come in driven to jump in,\u201d she said. \u201cHaving the exposure in the undergraduate years gives them [students] the confidence to know they can do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dennis is guessing many students mention wanting to make a difference in their law school applications. She\u2019s already tasted that in the real world and is hungry for more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my story and it\u2019s why I want to go to law school,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Kirby Mitchell \u201990 is a senior litigation attorney with South Carolina Legal Services and is designated fulltime to the MLP, where he worked with Dennis during her internship.<\/p>\n
Her experience \u201cshows the value of hard work,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cClearly something got lit on fire. She earned it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dennis said she is prepared and excited for her next step.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything I\u2019ve learned in these last few years is tying together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Law school was little more than an idea four years ago. But last month, Mary Frances Dennis \u201918 accepted an offer \u2013 and a significant merit scholarship \u2013 from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":7354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,75,61,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-pre-law","category-the-furman-advantage","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}