Public Service Advisory Board

Taylor Yocom: Hi everyone, this is Taylor Yocom from WashU Law and a producer of this season of our podcast, Applying Yourself. Today I’m so lucky to be chatting with two of our current students and Admissions Ambassadors, Olivia Barrett and Ethan Knoll. We’ll be chatting about the Public Service Advisory Board at WashU Law. Can you both introduce yourselves, what year you’re in, and your role in PSAB?

Olivia Barrett: My name is Olivia, I’m a 2L and I am the co-secretary of PSAB this year.

Ethan Knoll: Hello everybody, my name is Ethan. First of all, it’s an honor to be here talking about public service, my favorite thing. I am a third year and I’m the former co-president of PSAB.

Taylor Yocom: First of all, can both of you kind of take turns explaining what PSAB is and why students should join it?

Olivia Barrett: Yeah, so PSAB stands for the Public Service Advisory Board, and it’s the Student Bar Association approved student organization for supporting students going into public interest careers. And that looks like a lot of different things. It’s also just a really good place to make friends and have an excuse to hang out with your friends and do good work at the exact same time.

Taylor Yocom: Yeah, and any of you want to elaborate on why prospective students should have it on their radar and potentially join?

Olivia Barrett: It can be hard to figure out, like, public interest opportunities and career paths in general, so it’s like a good place to find like a lot of centralized information. And all the upper level students are always like really eager to help. They’re always compiling like, databases of alum and application deadlines and fellowships, and they’re always working really closely with the career center. So I think if you have, like, any inkling of interest in public interest work, it’s probably like your best bet to finding like any kind of information about it. And also, if you don’t really want to do public interest after graduation, they still send out a bunch of stuff about like volunteer opportunities and stuff like that, that you can do during the school year.

Ethan Knoll: Yeah, and I’ll just echo everything that was said prior. I think another great reason to look into PSAB is the people who lead PSAB and its members are incredibly passionate about connecting people with resources for public interest careers and public interest work, no matter what your path to law school looks like. Whether that’s you want to go in a few years or maybe you attend a different one at PSAB, we really care about getting as many people to do public interest as possible and to fill your own niche that you’re passionate about.

So regardless of what your situation is, we would love to connect and help get you those resources to make the best public servant possible.

Taylor Yocom: Yeah, thank you. And so what does the time commitment or day to day look like for students in PSAB? And I know things can kind of differ depending on what role you have in the organization. So if you both want to talk about what your commitment looks like.

Olivia Barrett: I mean, as a 1L, it was not that much. There wasn’t really like a day to day commitment. It was like, I think, once a month, maybe there was like an exec board meeting. And still, if you didn’t have time, you know, you didn’t have to go. I think as a 1L, if you wanted more responsibility, you could take that on. I didn’t have that dog in me, so I did not do that. But I know I had a lot of friends who did.

I think as like a 2L, if you’re on like the exec board, it’s probably a lot more work. I’m a secretary, so I just make flyers, which is graphic design is my passion. So, you know, it’s fun. But the presidents definitely put in the work. But if you’re just like a general body member, there’s really no commitment at all. You can just show up to…

Ethan Knoll: Yeah, my 1L experience with PSAB was pretty chill. I served as a 1L representative, and I was on the pro bono committee, so I kind of just showed up to a few events per year where I helped set up certain things for pro bono work we were doing on campus with a local legal services agency. And I really enjoyed it and decided I wanted to do more.

I think really where you get to establish your niche on PSAB, and most clubs in general as a 2L, is the position you decide to take when you move to the executive board. And I knew that I wanted to help with leadership within the organization. I think it’s a fantastic organization. I really believed in its core mission.

So as a co-president, there were a lot of responsibilities. PSAB is a very large organization that hosts a ton of events, has a lot of programming, and is actively trying to do work in the St. Louis community. But it is a job that I will never regret taking.

Taylor Yocom: Thanks. And so what type of work have you done on PSAB and what are you proud of?

Olivia Barrett: Well, this year we did a brand new Day of Service style that the presidents and like other people on the board really, like, established from, like, the ground up, which was pretty wild because they just planned it over the summer for, like, all the incoming 1Ls to have, like, a full service project that they would complete in a day that would actually have, like, a tangible output that would go to the community.

So, like, this year we had a couple rooms who made something called plarn, which I had never heard of, but it’s like plastic yarn, and then it, like, these women at, like, a church, like, knit it into mats for, like, unhoused people to sleep on. They did, like, flashcards for, I think, like a group of like children, so they could learn their ABCs. And then they did cards for people in nursing homes, and I think something else.

But that was actually pretty cool because it was like really stressful to, like, get it off the ground and deal with all the logistics and everything. And then at the end of the day, like, everyone was like, wow, we actually pulled it off. And the 1Ls had a good time, and the administration was like, wow, you guys pulled it off. That’s awesome. So it was pretty cool.

Ethan Knoll: Yeah, as a former co-president, I feel like I got a really cool chance to serve as the backup for every event. So I think my favorite part of the year was helping with what’s called Donated Day, which is our big fundraising drive, and we have an event every year where we pull raffle tickets. And so we had multiple faculty at the school come, a lot of people at the law school. We just had a really fantastic community.

So it was a bowling night. It was just really fun to help set that up, announce all the winners. We gave out roses to the incoming board. So that was really fun.

But I think more broadly, my favorite thing I got to do as co-president is form meaningful relationships with faculty and just understanding that part of the public interest, really just understanding how jobs and careers are changing in the public interest space and just to make sure that everybody is seeing public interest in some way that there is a potential for them to participate in it, whether you’re going to a large firm or you’re going to a government or nonprofit employer.

Taylor Yocom: Definitely. And so what, you mentioned the Pro Bono Pledge a few times. What is it and how do students get involved?

Ethan Knoll: Yeah, so the Pro Bono Pledge is basically a certification that you can get on your transcript when you graduate, and it indicates that you’ve done 50 hours of pro bono work while you’re in law school. And so we have a specific pro bono officer in PSAB that can gladly help to answer any questions anybody might have about that, because sometimes specific things can be approved, specific things can’t be approved for pro bono.

But basically, we have a portal that you use for your careers at the law school when you become a WashU law student called Simplicity, and there is a tab in there that you can log it within. And typically at least once a year, PSAB tries to make sure a training is done so that everybody knows how to log their hours for the Pro Bono Pledge. Either somebody from PSAB does that or somebody from Career Services does that.

Taylor Yocom: We love to end our episodes with like just hearing about St. Louis things, your favorite thing to do in St. Louis, and especially with fall around the corner, what would be your recommendation of like fun things to do, good places, go eat?

Olivia Barrett: Fall in St. Louis is awesome because it’s a really old city, so it’s really spooky around Halloween, and I am a big spooky fan. Some of my favorite places that are like Halloweeny fall, there’s a place called Terror Tacos on South Grand, which is basically like a big horror movie set, like neon, weird mirrors and paintings and murals all over, and they’re always playing like metal music and like a scary movie on the TV, and it’s like vegan food, which is fun.

Like, honestly, I’ll pay any amount of money. The food is good, but even if it wasn’t, like, I’d still be there. There’s also a bar called the Haunt over in Dutchtown, which is also like Halloween themed, but open all year, which is fun to go to. It’s a very divey bar, which is always fun, and there’s like a haunted house. There’s a couple haunted houses.

There’s one that I found way too stressful and I probably won’t go back to, but it was fun, but it’s like 10 different haunted houses in one. Yeah, so you just keep walking through all the different themes and it’s like, you just want it to stop at a certain point and then there’s like five more to go through, but it was really fun. It’s like a branch of the big haunted house called The Darkness, which is over on Lemp Avenue.

And also, just in general, going on a walk during the fall when the leaves are changing around, like, all the whole-old houses by like the brewery and Lemp Avenue and stuff like that. And there’s always like stray cats for some reason that are really friendly that you can like pet. It’s a good time. I love fall here.

Ethan Knoll: Yeah, I think those are great suggestions. Mine would be to check out the neighborhood Soulard, not specifically any kind of event or even place there. It just is such a beautiful neighborhood that has such classical architecture. It really does not feel like the year 2025 when you go there. I feel like it has very spooky vibes around the fall season, so I would highly recommend just taking a walk around there, try out a new restaurant.

Taylor Yocom: Amazing. Thank you so much, you both. For our listeners, they are our Admissions Ambassadors. And fun fact, you can also sign up to chat with them to just get feedback on your application, learn about life at law school. You can do that through our website and click on Admissions Ambassador Consultations.

It was great to chat again. For everyone, this is Applying Yourself from WashU Law. If you have any questions about the admissions process, feel free to reach out to us at applylaw@wustl.edu. Thanks, everyone.