What Is Law Day?
Did you know there is a day that celebrates the rule of law? May 1st is the national holiday to share and educate people about the legal process, justice, liberty, and the freedoms that Americans enjoy as citizens of the United States. As an attorney, you can embrace this national day and share your passion for the law with others.
Recognizing Law Day gives you a chance to create educational material, develop a month’s worth of social media content, and discuss socially relevant content. Learn more about this nationally recognized day and how you can develop your own celebration of the day.
History of Law Day
The idea of Law Day began with Charles S. Rhyne as the president of the American Bar Association in 1957. He envisioned it as a day to celebrate the legal system. The following year in 1958, president of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower made Rhyne’s vision a reality with a Law Day proclamation.
Congress confirmed May 1st as the official date for the Day in 1961. The program has continued throughout the years up to this day. The idea has also spread to other countries throughout the world.
Yearly Law Day Theme
Each year a theme is chosen to highlight the focus on a particular area of the law. It could be an aspect of the law, a specific process, or how the law impacts our daily lives.
Past themes have focused on the women’s rights movement, free speech, free press, separation of powers, the
Fourteenth Amendment, Miranda Rights, Magna Carta, and the role of the courts in the judicial system. The ABA has a complete list of previous themes dating back to 1969.
Law Day Activities
The American Bar Association works hard to ensure you have the tools and guides that you need to recognize this national day. While May 1st is the official day, several activities and events take place leading up to and following the day. Some people celebrate Law Day for a week or for the entire month.
Anyone can host their own Law Day program. Your local bar group, schools, youth groups, courts, community organizations, or anyone else can host an event.
How to Celebrate Law Day 2021
You can celebrate Law Day in any way you see fit. Think about how you can leverage your celebration of the law with your marketing efforts. Try to keep in line with the initial intention of president Dwight D. Eisenhower when he declared the day.
Organize activities that focus on advancing the rule of law now and into the future. Share your knowledge of the legal profession and the role of law in modern society.
Online Content
Start by publishing content on your website and social media accounts. You could write a series of blog posts about your chosen theme. Then publish them weekly throughout the month or one for every day of the your law week. Promote your content on your social media accounts.
While they could all be long-form blog posts, it’s better to vary the content. You could have one long-form blog post. You could create a listicle with a series of statistics and facts. Another could be a how-to style article that shows the reader how they could apply the theme to their everyday life.
Try to create different media for your blog posts. Include a video that portrays the content in a visual form. There are online services that enable you to quickly and easily create a video. The listicle article would translate well to this medium. Add images and document samples if appropriate. An infographic is also a good visual that makes your content more sharable on social media.
In-Person Events
COVID has made us all more aware and careful about how we go about hosting in-person events. However, this doesn’t mean you have to give up in-person events totally. You could host micro-events where you limit the number of people that attend. Hosting your event outdoors where there’s plenty of space is also an option.
Consider engaging your online followers at your live events. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube all have live streaming capabilities. This gives you a broader reach and allows those who aren’t comfortable attending to still participate.
Webinars
If you aren’t comfortable hosting an in-person event, you can still create interactive content. Record a video that you can then share on your website, social, and emails. To avoid a single video from becoming too long, create a series of webinar videos. The American Bar Association offers comprehensive planning guides that can make your video creation project easier.
Try organizing an essay contest that works in conjunction with your webinar. You could have students share their appreciation of their liberties on this special day of celebration. They could write about any topic from the library of congress to the latest ruling of the supreme court.
Check out www.lawday.org for some virtual event ideas and guides.
Possible Topics
Consider this Separation of Powers Framework for Freedom guide. It provides you with a quick explanation of what the separation of powers is that will work perfectly as a solid introduction. There’s a list of suggested resources that include nonfiction books, documentaries, multimedia, and teaching resources.
There are also lesson plans geared at elementary, middle, and high school ages students. Don’t worry about the grade-level labels of these guides. There’s a reason that content writers say to gear your writing for an 8th to 9th-grade skill level. The average American adult has a reading comprehension ability at this level. So using this as a guide for your content ensures that your audience of potential clients will understand what you’re talking about.
The American Bar Association’s guide on Transforming American Democracy will help you plan a well-thought-out guide. Start with a high-level explanation of what the 14th Amendment is and why it’s important. You can provide timeline highlights and key cases throughout history.
Then transition your webinar series to talk about the four core topics. Create a series of videos about equal protection, due process, incorporation, and citizenship. Dedicating a video to each topic lets you go into a deeper explanation without it becoming cluttered or overwhelming. Delving into each topic also lets you showcase your understanding of the law. Doing this builds your authoritative voice and fosters trust with the reader.
Develop Your Law Day Content
If you have an idea for how you want to recognize Law Day but need help putting it into action, I can help. My ability to make law approachable and easily understandable enables me to create engaging content. With these skills, we can work together to develop a blog, website, and social media content that promotes your theme for Law Day.
