Real-World Application of the Law, in RL’s History Classrooms

One of several changes to the Roxbury Latin curriculum this year is the year-long, dual-course offering of Honors Law in the fall and Honors Philosophy: Creating a Common Good in the spring. These paired courses are history electives offered to students in Class I. The fall portion, taught by Stewart Thomsen, serves as a hands-on, in-depth introduction to law and the workings of the American legal system. 

“It feels like I’m taking a pre-law course right now; it is incredible preparation for what I want to do,” said Aiden Theodore (I), who hopes to pursue a career in law and also participated in an internship placement with a judge this past summer. “In class we study different laws and scenarios, like probable cause and reasonable suspicion, and we also get cases where we get to argue different sides as if we were lawyers in a trial.”

Mr. Thomsen, an attorney himself, incorporates lived experiential knowledge into his teaching and relies on his strong professional network to host a variety of guest lecturers in the classroom. One class this fall was led by Frank Kanin ’06, an attorney with Zangari Cohn Cuthbertson Duhl and Grello. In class, Frank ran a simulation of a trial, explaining step-by-step the events that occur just before, during, and after a court hearing. Prior to his current role, Frank was an Assistant District Attorney for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in Boston for eight years, investigating and prosecuting a range of criminal offenses. In that role, he represented the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as sole counsel in more than fifty Superior and Municipal Court trials. 

A second guest this fall, Alan Untereiner—a retired appellate lawyer—joined Mr. Thomsen and his students to run a Supreme Court trial simulation. Alan began working in private practice in Washington, D.C., in 1989 and has argued and won three cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The final guest in the class was Jamal Meneide ’15. According to his LinkedIn profile, Jamal is “a creative storyteller and self-starting filmmaker excited to craft narratives with a strong identity.” Jamal spoke to the class about his experience as creative lead, director, and producer of a mini-documentary with Harvard Business School about Larry Miller—current chairman of Nike’s Air Jordan, former president of the Portland Trailblazers, and former vice president of Nike. Larry Miller achieved these accomplishments despite serving four and a half years in a prison for young offenders and spending most of his teens and 20s in prison or juvenile detention facilities. Jamal spoke to the class about the inner workings of the prison industrial complex in the United States and the impact that had on Miller and his life.    

Students enrolled in Honors Law this fall have just begun its partner course, Honors Philosophy: Creating a Common Good, taught by David Smith. This class explores the philosophical nature of humans and what constitutes good.