24 Oct 2022
Third-year student Lauren Olsen has been selected to serve as this year’s Legal Education Police Practices Consortium Fellow for Nebraska Law. Organized and housed within the American Bar Association (ABA) Criminal Justice Section, the consortium contributes to the national effort to examine and address legal issues in policing and public safety, including conduct, oversight and the evolving nature of police work.
This is accomplished through leveraging the ABA’s expertise and that of participating ABA-accredited law schools to collaborate on projects to develop and implement more effective, human rights-compliant police practices throughout the United States. For the 2022-23 academic year, each participating law school chose one law student to engage in the project as a Consortium Fellow.
The Consortium was established in 2020 and is still in its early stages. Olsen said the current goal is to collect as much information as possible about the state of policing in America. In order to enact change, she said, you must first figure out what you are working with. “Education and research is a huge part of driving change,” she said.
Olsen found out about the consortium after she was hired to assist the city attorney of Lincoln last year, who serves as the legal adviser to the Lincoln Police Department. She had no say in where she would be placed but wound up loving the position and discovering a newfound interest in the inner workings of the department. “I stumbled into it kind of by accident,” she said. When she learned about the fellowship, she seized the opportunity. “I thought it would be an interesting way for me to use my experience and interest in transforming policing in a tangible academic way," she said.
Looking forward, Olsen said she hopes additional schools decide to participate in the fellowship. The more people involved in the program and providing data, the better, she said. “We’re not going to see long-term change if we don’t have people participating in the conversation around the change,” she said.