Inside the Master of Science in Law

Building Bridges: MSL Program Welcomes CPS High School Students for Day of Interactive Learning

April 18, 2025

Recently, the Master of Science in Law (MSL) program at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law welcomed 140 students from STEM-oriented high schools in Chicago for a day of interactive learning and career exploration. The event provided the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students a glimpse into potential career paths at the intersection of law, technology, business, and science.

Student-Led Interactive Sessions

MSL students showcased their expertise by leading a variety of interactive sessions, each designed to engage the high schoolers in critical thinking about how the law intersects with other fields. The sessions covered a range of diverse topics of interest to the students.

One session “Deepfakes and Self-Driving Cars: The Legal and Ethical Minefield of AI” focused on the complexities of AI governance and regulation. The session highlighted how emerging technologies create challenging legal and ethical questions that require interdisciplinary knowledge – precisely the type of thinking the MSL program cultivates. The high school participants debated critical questions with the MSL leaders, including:

Who bears responsibility when self-driving cars crash?
How should we regulate deepfakes?
What constitutes "enough" human creativity in AI-generated art to warrant copyright protection?

Other sessions included:

“Shark Tank Jr: From Pitches to Riches” focused on entrepreneurship fundamentals.
“What the Hack?!” focused on the intersection of technology, law, and public transportation.
“Legally SUS” a crash course in criminal law designed to engage students in understanding basic legal concepts.
“Patent Pending: Where Ideas Get Their First Break” discussed intellectual property protection.
“Banned or Brilliant? The Law Behind Cutting-Edge Inventions” examined how law shapes innovation.
“The Good Samaritan Mystery: A Legal Timeout” which considered what happens when bystanders intervene in a medical emergency.
“From Stethoscopes to Statutes: The Law Behind Medicine” which delved into liability, ethics, insurance, and healthcare law.

Career Panel: Diverse Paths, Valuable Insights

Following lunch, students gathered for a career panel featuring three accomplished MSL students:

Kristen Weivoda (MSL ‘25) – Chief of Emergency Services for Yolo County, California, who began her career as a firefighter paramedic.
Ashley Lim(MSL ‘26) – Product Manager at large national bank, whose educational background is in industrial engineering.
Toria Wagner (MSL ’27) – Federal Consultant specializing in public transportation, who began her career as a bus driver.

The panelists shared insights about their professional journeys, emphasizing the unexpected ways their careers have evolved. When asked about the intersection of law and STEM in their work, all three highlighted how legal knowledge enhances their effectiveness – whether in emergency services, financial regulation, or transportation policy, law is extremely relevant to what they do.

The panelists also addressed challenges they have faced as women in male-dominated industries, offering empowering advice to the high school students: advocate for yourself, always be prepared, never stop learning, and remember that diversity brings valuable perspectives to any field.

Building Bridges to the Future

The day concluded with a raffle where three lucky CPS students won MSL-branded merchandise. Beyond the prizes, all participants took home something valuable: a broader understanding of how law, technology, and business intersect in the modern world.

The MSL collaboration with CPS, which has been ongoing for several years, embodies the MSL program's commitment to education beyond the classroom and building bridges between academic institutions and local communities. By engaging with Chicago's high school students today, the MSL program hopes to inspire the interdisciplinary legal and technical leaders of tomorrow.

The MSL program thanks all the student session leaders, panelists, and CPS participants who made this event a success.

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