Campus in the Spring

By Associate Professor Elizabeth Pollman

This year we are celebrating the 50^th anniversary of our law school campus.  I love what an interesting space we inhabit in downtown Los Angeles, and I consider myself lucky to get to teach on such a unique and functional campus that has been designed with an artistic vision.  

But the campus, of course, really comes alive with all of us who spend our time here, and I wanted to share how I’m reminded of that on an almost daily basis. It is the time of the spring semester when law review boards change over and the faculty receives emails with the lists of students who will be taking the helms of the various journals at Loyola.  I’m delighted to see current and former students on the lists, and I remember how busy my students are outside of the classroom.  It is also the season for receiving emails from students, diligently letting me know that they have to miss a class because they are attending (and winning!) a trial competition.  Sometimes I come across other interesting and important activities that Loyola students are up to and here’s a new one: – the dlreporter.com.

The Dotted Line Reporter is a Loyola law student-produced blog that has excellent, timely content focused on business and legal developments in the entertainment industry.  The blog provides lots of interesting info and analysis on a wide range of topics in film, television, music, sports, the arts, and more.   The site is packed with content on trending topics I want to read – everything from the recent “Dumb Starbucks” parody to the Time Warner-Comcast merger.  What is truly impressive is how many of the stories are not just the same sound bites you’d find on bigger, well-known blogs and websites but are rather original commentary and reflect thoughtful research.  The “Dumb Starbucks” piece, for example, was the result of one of the student contributors actually going over to the faux coffee storefront and interviewing folks and sleuthing the story. 

What I also love about this new blog is how it reflects the entrepreneurial spirit of the students who have started it.  I teach business law courses here at Loyola, and I try to bring to life the law we study – how the cases we read, for example in Business Associations, reflect scenarios where real people were pursuing innovative ideas, career or investment goals.  The students creating the dlreporter.com have that entrepreneurial, industrious spark to use their interests to pave their own paths to success.