Evening law school has first graduation

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: May 11, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Already a single mother to an autistic son, a volunteer firefighter and a domestic violence victims’ advocate, Roberta Barton-Patino decided four years ago that she was ready for law school, too.

On Saturday, Barton-Patino, 34, was a member of the first, 11-member graduating class to receive diplomas from Southern University Law Center’s four-year-old evening division.

The evening classes, which currently enroll 105 students, are mostly designed for non-traditional law students who have jobs, children or other responsibilities.

“I’ve been having an ear-to-ear grin for the last week, now that I’m done,” said Barton-Patino, who commuted to classes from her home in Sorrento. “I’m relieved. I’m shocked. I’m surprised it’s finally here.”

Completing her law school dream would never have been a possibility, she said, without Southern’s evening division. Louisiana’s only other accredited night school is at the more expensive Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans.

Cindy Amedee, 48 and a grandmother of two, is the Southern evening division’s top graduate. A longtime legal secretary and then paralegal, Amedee already has accepted a position as a lawyer at the Taylor, Porter Brooks and Phillips law firm in Baton Rouge.

“At some point as a paralegal, I decided I wanted to be the captain of my own ship,” Amedee said. “I wanted to push the envelope.”
Amedee juggled law school with her full-time job and other family responsibilities.

“Law school on its own is extremely challenging and then you add a job on top of that,” she said. “It requires sacrifice.”
While law schools are notoriously known for competitive, cutthroat environments,  Amedee said the evening division was anything but.

“We have shared everything,” she said. “I feel very proud of what we’ve done as a group. There’s an overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude.”

Southern Law Center Chancellor Freddie Pitcher said that starting the evening division in 2004 was a great decision, even though the American Bar Association had some initial doubts.

“The program has been everything we expected and even more,” Pitcher said. “It has given so many students the choice to have what we call a life-changing experience.”

The rigor is just as difficult as the normal classes, he said, but the students often are more focused, mature and driven because they have more going on in their lives. The evening students range in age from their 20s to 60s, he said.

There were initial growing pains, Pitcher said, because Southern lacked evening division experience and then Hurricane Katrina disrupted classes.