Uganda: A Trip Nothing Short Of Life-Changing For Law Students And Lawyers

Pepperdine Beacon, Uganda: A Trip Nothing Short of Life-Changing:

“I came away from that moment, saying if that’s all I ever got to do with my law degree, it was one hundred percent worth it.” ...

Sherri Sturgeon, professor of law at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution and associate director for Student and Professional Engagement, had the fortunate opportunity to travel to Uganda last spring to plea bargain alongside U.S. attorneys and law students. ...

Aware of Pepperdine’s Uganda programs, Sturgeon applied for and worked toward a Master’s in Dispute Resolution at the Caruso School of Law. She planned for a trip to Uganda during her 2L year in 2020, only to have it canceled due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Fortunately, an opportunity arose in the spring of 2023 after she had graduated, making her a U.S. attorney on the trip rather than a U.S. law student.

Spending ten days in Uganda, Sturgeon and fellow students and attorneys went straight to work on plea bargaining cases. After studying the defendant’s files, Sturgeon and her team would meet with the defendants, preparing for their appearance before the judge. Discussing with both the prosecutors and the defendants, Sturgeon would negotiate the most optimal sentence for her client.

In certain cases, however, Sturgeon would come across defendants who were clearly not guilty of their accused crime, and thus, she would take on a more defensive attorney role to work towards the defendant’s release. In the case of a young teenage boy who was accused of stealing a bike, Sturgeon and her team saw insufficient evidence to claim that he was guilty. ...

Working hard towards the young boy’s innocence, Sturgeon and her team managed, in the end, to set their client free. “When we saw the judge sign off on the release, honestly, the hardship and the pain and the toil I went through to go to law school, to sit for the bar exam, not once but twice, and to become an attorney became completely worth it,” Sturgeon explained.

Being able to give back the young boy his liberty was a deeply impactful moment for Sturgeon. The service she poured into and received from the Ugandan justice system would forever impact her view on the role of an attorney. When reflecting upon the young boy’s release, Sturgeon stated, “I came away from that moment, saying if that’s all I ever got to do with my law degree, it was one hundred percent worth it.”

REMAND: A True Story of an African Boy, an American Lawyer, and Their Long Road to Justice Narrated By Angela Bassett: