Guidance for Leading a Successful Muslim Law Students Association: Planning, Inclusivity, and Supporting the Law School Journey

Bismillah, was-salaamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullah.

I’m Shahin, a 3L at SMU Dedman School of Law, the President of our Muslim Law Students Association (2023-2024), and our student representative to the Dallas-Fort Worth Muslim Bar Association.

This short article serves to advise other MLSAs with what I’ve learned over the last two years of board membership. My advice can be generally split into three categories: planning, sensitivity to sectarian differences, and helping with law school.

1. Plan, plan, plan.

Too often, student organizations die at the end of the year because of poor planning. Ours did at some point, and many student organizations you know probably did as well. Similarly, with the recent demise of affirmative action as we know it, we’re uncertain whether law schools will have similar numbers of Muslims enrolled each semester. So your MLSA isn’t immune—unless you plan adequately.

To combat organization death, it’s important to make student leadership easy. Involve and train three generations of law students—from 1Ls to 3Ls—in your boards, ensuring a stable transition each year. Keep records of budgets, events, and attendance so that future boards can know what events are popular, how much they cost, and how to keep students engaged throughout the year. List attorneys and professors that you’ve collaborated with, zealously recruit others, and keep contributing after you graduate and begin practicing as an attorney.

Student leadership is a form of advocacy, after all. How well can you advocate if you’re disorganized? And how often have we inherited a disorganized case, spending days trying to untangle our predecessors’ webs of confusion? Advocate zealously to ensure that doesn’t happen, and your organization survives.

2. Be sensitive to sectarian differences.

The Prophet (ﷺ) foretold that Islam will have 73 sects and that only one would be saved in the hereafter. (Tirmidhi). Obviously, every Muslim believes that their particular denomination or sect is the correct one. As a MLSA leader, you are responsible for each member, regardless of their sect or denomination.

To avoid alienating certain members, you should view MLSA not as a religious organization per se, but moreso as a religious identity organization. A religious identity organization welcomes anyone who identifies as a Muslim, and focuses on law and networking rather than aspects of spirituality on which people sometimes passionately disagree. Otherwise, we risk promoting our personal sect to the exclusion of other Muslims who might not share it.

This means you should avoid promoting any individual sect in your capacity as a MLSA leader. For example, you should commemorate only those holidays that all people who identify as Muslim agree upon: the two Eids and Ramadan. Generally speaking, your job is to progress the careers of law students, not spark controversial debates about religion. Religious resources exist for those who wish to learn and discuss sensitive issues.

However, this doesn’t mean you need to “sect check” each speaker. Rather, you should get speakers to discuss American law’s impact on Muslims, rather than teaching about potentially debated Islamic practices. At our MLSA, we have welcomed Muslim speakers who discussed anti-Muslim discrimination as a fallout of 9/11, women’s issues in federal prisons, and so on. But we haven’t had a speaker talking to us about what Islam permits in business dealings—in our opinion, those discussions are best left to other sources.

3. Help your members with law school.

A MLSA’s primary obligation is to ensure its members start their career on the right foot. To do so, you should give them academic advice and organize networking events.

Law school advice is vital. My predecessors within the MLSA offered me and my fiancee outlines and guidance on what to expect from exams and OCI. You should do the same. This might sometimes require you to take the initiative: 1Ls typically don’t have enough experience to know what to ask, so give them advice you wanted as a 1L. Stress that you’re available if they ever need any help.

Attorney networking events are similarly important. Arranging these events can create lifelong friendships, mentorships, and collaboration among people from similar backgrounds. However, attorneys are often hard to reach, so be persistent in arranging networking events. One way our Muslim bar chapter solved this problem is by creating a student representative position on their board for each local law school, so we can have frequent and direct contact between ourselves and the MLSA. If there’s no Muslim bar association, consider organizing one after you graduate.

I hope this advice proves useful. If I can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact me at szangeneh@smu.edu.