UDSL hosted its 14th annual Interfaith Prayer Service on Wednesday, April 11. About 100 students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff, and members of the Dayton law community attended to reflect on the theme of this year’s service, “Lawyer as Healer.”

Highlighting the program were students who recently returned from the Alternative Spring Break trip to the Gulf Coast. They shared their experiences and reflections from the trip with the crowd.

UDSL student and trip organizer Molly Buckman said that while she walked the streets of New Orleans’ ninth ward she recalled the poem “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, which she saw engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty on a past spring break trip to New York City. “‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore’,” she read. “Helping those people won’t put us on the partner’s track,” she said, “but it is simply the right thing to do.”

Buckman emphasized the responsibility that lawyers have to make a positive impact on people’s lives. “We have the ability to help them heal,” she said.

UDSL student Lauria Lynch-German, who participated in the Alternative Spring Break with Buckman, also described her experience for the law community. “What we did was let people tell us their stories and release some of their pain so they could move forward,” she said. “We learned the awesome responsibility you carry every day, and we look forward to joining you soon.”

Rabbi Judy Chessin closed the service by sharing a parable of a rich man who gave bread to God, and a poor man who took the bread, thinking it was a gift from God. They were both disappointed to discover that the gift of the bread neither was received by God, nor originated with God. She said that human hands often carry out God’s promises, bringing His work to completion. “In bringing justice and wholeness, you are the hands of God,” she told the students and lawyers.