Tamara Cabán-Ramirez ’04 (HUSL) : WEEKEND By the time she began law school at Hamline University in 2001, Tamara CabánRamirez ’04 was long accustomed to being among the youngest in her class. She began kindergarten in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, at age 4, and started at the University of Minnesota at 16. At age 24, Cabán-Ramirez enrolled in the first weekend program cohort at Hamline Law. At the time, she was working as a paralegal in the immigration department at Rider Bennett, and a colleague told her about a new program Hamline was launching that would let her earn a J.D. while continuing to work full-time. Most of her classmates were older, married, had children, and were pursuing second careers. She loved it. “It was an enriching experience because people had had experience in the workplace,” she said. “That is one of the things that I truly appreciated. People had been out there, they had jobs to do, they had families to take care of.” Her classmates had a different approach to learning and to classroom collaboration than she had encountered in previous school settings. There was little feeling of competition, and there were more interesting discussions. Cabán-Ramirez worked full-time at Rider Bennett during law school. She studied anytime she could, finishing in 3½ years. She now has her own immigration and criminal law practice, and her old law school study group still gets together, refers cases to one another, and works together.
Mike Wells, 1L: WEEKEND Mike Wells drives seven hours one way every other weekend to attend classes at Mitchell Hamline, camping or staying in military housing to save money on hotels. The rest of the time, he’s working online. At 51, Wells has dreamt of law school for half a lifetime. He was accepted to Creighton University School of Law in 1992, but only to the full-time program, and he had to work full-time to support his family. Wells went on to earn a master’s degree and a Ph.D. He’s still working fulltime, now as a school principal and superintendent in rural Hamburg, Iowa. He appreciates that the weekend program involves seven weekends on campus each semester, because he learns best in the classroom. Internet service at his home is spotty, so for big projects he’ll sometimes go into work. He says most nights he’s working on schoolwork till midnight or 1 a.m. Wells plans to retire in four years and volunteer his services as an attorney for people in need, including in criminal defense. “We want to do God’s work and help people,” he said of himself and his wife, “and that’s something that Mitchell Hamline is really good about. They are very good about giving back to the community, helping others. “Without Mitchell Hamline’s program, there’s no way I could have done this,” he added. “I really am grateful, and I appreciate the opportunity. Now I just have to pass everything.”
Still the go-to law school for working professionals Mitchell Hamline’s Hybrid J.D. program and Executive J.D. provide working professionals an opportunity to enhance their current career with a law degree or begin a new career, just as the part-time programs at William Mitchell and Hamline Law did for an earlier generation of students. The Hybrid J.D. and Executive J.D. student populations include professionals from a wide variety of fields, including doctors and other health care professionals, engineers, business owners, police officers, teachers, federal and state government officials, and current and former members of the armed forces.
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