An aspiring young lawyer from Claremont got a feel for the profession last weekend while hosting the International Youth Law Conference.
Ryan Ferreira, 16, a Grade 11 pupil at Bishops, was selected as the executive producer and host of the two-day virtual conference from Saturday April 2 to Sunday April 3.
The free online event gave pupils the chance to meet and learn from top legal professionals. By participating in mock trials and debates, high school pupils with an interest in law could learn more about the profession while building their university-application portfolio.
Conference speakers included Ahmed Farooq, an incoming law clerk at the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts; David Lyman, the chairman and chief values officer at Tilleke and Gibbins and author of Lyman’s Laws for Lawyers; and James Simpson, a University of Melbourne law graduate, among others.
The conference was sponsored by the Crimson Youth Fund, a philanthropic arm of Crimson Education, a global educational technology company.
Ryan got involved with the conference last year while browsing the Crimson Education website, where he connected with fellow Crimson students, Jenna Jokhani and Sohee Yim from Bangkok, and worked together to put on the first International Youth Law Conference last year and now the second edition this year.
Speaking about his experience at this year’s conference, Ryan said: “The conference is, at its most basic, a bunch of passionate people coming together to share their interest in the field of law – an experience that is often scarce in the lives of young people. I had never felt a real collective passion from a group as much as I felt it from the team, so the experience was truly remarkable.”
After school, Ryan plans on applying to top universities in the UK, to study law.
“The conference put me on the path to creating some of my own projects at school, as well as landing me the role of chief editor for international law on the Law Insider website. Working on the conference with students from all over the world really pushed me out of my comfort zone and showed me how much can be accomplished when we work together.”