Letter from the Editor

Upon arriving on campus in the autumn of my first year, I roamed the RSO Fair on the Quad, eager to learn how to join the Undergraduate Law Magazine. Unsuccessful in finding a booth, I looked to my right and aimlessly resorted to weaving through lounges in Pick Hall to see if anyone knew of the organization. After exhausting all resources, I would, in time, learn that after transitioning to a blog in 2020, the College’s sole legal publication had gone defunct.

Gleaning from casual discourse alone, I recognized that my peers host a broad spectrum of perspectives they ought to channel into a space supporting their expression and, more importantly, one that pointedly promotes their education on discussing matters of the law. I reached out to the appropriate school officials, upperclassmen, and magazine members of years past to check my bases and ensure I was not stepping on anyone’s toes in jumpstarting the magazine.

Beginning as a review in 2011, a former editor-in-chief reformatted the publication to become a magazine, better accommodating an undergraduate audience interacting with our content from different legal baselines. While straying from the norm of sister institutions, I felt strongly about retaining this medium to keep ourselves in check from obscuring our messages in tangled legalese or forgetting the magazine’s mission.

Endearingly known as the ULM, today’s magazine aims to represent the College students’ legal response and considerations concerning phenomena within and beyond the United States. As a pre-professional community, ULM prides itself on actively empowering young legal minds to learn about legal mechanics through the collaborative publication cycle. Beyond all else, I have learned the most from our talented masthead and staff spanning academic disciplines. Our collective commitment to intersectionality supports our conviction of becoming an institutional hub for young legal scholarship.

The masthead has given much thought to how we choose to divide ULM. We have divided the bi-annual publication into four sections: Legal Analyses, Op-Eds, Two Views, and Upcoming Chicago Policy. Legal Analyses delve into contextualizing legislation and case studies, Op-Eds spotlight writers’ beliefs, and Two Views positions two opposing rationalities about hot-button topics. Invested in matters concerning Hyde Park and the greater Chicagoland area, the Upcoming Chicago Policy section intends to keep the College’s students aware of legislation tangibly impacting the local community we frequent. Beyond article editors, our masthead is non-exhaustively composed of design talent responsible for layout, content managers creating educational content, and an illustration manager who actualized our beautiful cover image.

I am immensely grateful to Karen Pryor of the Center for Leadership and Involvement for having faith in an unabashedly persistent first-year. Thank you to Rob Cameron, Program Director of Careers in Law, for his enthusiasm for ULM back when it existed as a rough logo and string of emails, encouraging students to give us a look from early on. Moreover, I extend my appreciation to Mary Genevieve Sanner, a former ULM editor now at Duke Law, for taking the time to respond to an unprompted LinkedIn message to elaborate on the group’s former dynamics and empowering me to move forward with re-establishment, as well as recent graduate Jacqueline Lewittes who clarified me of ULM’s activity before sunsetting.

Seventeen months after the RSO Fair, nationally trending on Sidechat with our Little Miss series over the summer, fundraising in Reynolds Club right after restarting, and devotedly researching case nuances together in Stuart 101 to the tune of “family ties,” it is my most contented privilege to welcome you to the first volume of our ULM.

To successfully unite a chorus of student voices, we need yours, too. I invite you to get to know the ULM by reading the next copy you see at the front of the Reg, visiting our website at ulm.rso.uchicago.edu for our interview series, and keeping up with our latest film screenings and application releases on Instagram at @UChicagoLawMagazine.

Thank you for the honor of your confidence, support, and interest in the ULM.

Yours truly,

Aya Hamza

Re-Founding Editor in Chief