Policy
Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School is dedicated to instilling in its students the highest sense of ethical and moral responsibility. In fulfilling its mission of training ethically and morally sound lawyers, all first-year students are required to complete four hours of community service. Upon completion of the four hours of community service, first-year students are required to log the hours into a database for review and approval. The Law School strongly encourages all students to volunteer and perform pro bono work throughout their law school career.
Community service is performed for the benefit of others. It includes work done for those in need, children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, English language learners, animals, etc. Community service can also be performed to improve places, such as local parks, historic buildings, or scenic areas. The work done must be uncompensated work. Please see below for examples of community service. Should you have any questions regarding what constitutes community service and/or how to enter the work performed into 12Twenty, please contact Dr. Harrison.
Examples of Community Service:
Tutoring children after school
Collecting school supplies to donate
Planting a school garden
Visiting residents of a retirement center
Delivering meals to senior citizens
Planting trees
Creating a new trail at a nature center
Passing out food at a soup kitchen
Collecting used clothes to be donated
Making first aid kits for homeless shelters
Collecting donations for a charitable purpose
Volunteering with the Street Law Program or Mock Trial Program at AJMLS or other school(s)
Performing pro bono work
Volunteering at a homeless shelter or food pantry
Community Service Instructions: Overall Process
Access your 12Twenty student account here, then follow the directions
- Create and submit community service experience
- Add hours
- Final Approval
Create your community service record in 12Twenty
- Access your student account in 12Twenty
- Click Experiential Learning in the menu on the left (in 12Twenty)
- Click New Experience at the top right
- Under the Basics section, select Experiential Learning Type, and then click Community Service
- Complete required information
- When all information has been entered, click Save. This action will take you to a preview of your community service experience before final submission
- If you need to make edits to your record before submission, select Action at the top right and click Edit
- If you do not need to make edits to your community service experience, click Submit at the top right
- Once you click Submit, your status will change to In Progress
- Now that your status is In Progress, you may enter your hours into the hour log
- When you have completed your community service experience and all hours are entered, click Submit for Approval at the top right. This will send your community service experience record to the Associate Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Sheryl Harrison, for final approval.
- If your community service experience is approved, your status will change to Complete. However, if additional information is required, you will receive an email detailing next steps from Dr. Harrison.
Add hours to your community service record
- Once you have created your community service experience, you can add hours by clicking on the Hour Log tab at the top of the page
- Under the Hour Log tab, click Add Hours at the top right and a new window will appear called Create New Hour Log Entry
- Under Create New Hour Log Entry, enter the date, hours, and the description of your service
- Once complete, click Save and the hours will be added to your community service experience
- Hours can only be entered on a daily basis. If you are recording hours weekly, put the date of the hours completed and then note the week (e.g. 8/26-8/30/19) in the description box along with your work performed.