Pipeline Spotlight

Girls Rule the Law 

Founded in 2016 in New York City, Girls Rule the Law is committed to fostering a more representative society by creating pathways into the legal, legislative, and judicial fields for underrepresented and underprivileged youth, particularly middle and high school girls.  

We spoke with Mirna Santiago, Esq., Founder and CEO of Girls Rule the Law. 

Please tell us about Girls Rule the Law — What is the organization’s focus and what does it do?  

Girls Rule the Law, Inc. has one mission, and that is to introduce underprivileged and underrepresented girls to the world of law — the legal field, the legislature, and the judiciary. We go into the schools, we travel to Albany and D.C. and meet legislators. In 2022, we were in Washington and were fortunate to be invited to an event with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and she interacted with our girls. We host youth conferences, mock trial programs, resume workshops, targeted legal lessons — so many different ways we meet that one mission of introducing girls to the law. 

How did Girls Rule the Law get started?  

In 2017, I put together a youth conference for about 200 girls at the New York City Bar Center. It was meant to be a one-time program; we wanted to put girls who had an interest in the law in a room with women lawyers, judges, and legislators, and just have conversations. I also wanted to provide the girls with a space to practice their soft skills, like etiquette, interviewing, and networking. And when we had to close registration at 200, we realized, this can't be a one-time thing, because there's a real need for it, a real want for it, and a real interest in it. 

So in 2018, I founded the organization, which is now Girls Rule the Law, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We've been holding our youth conferences every year, in addition to other programs. 

Please tell us about your background. After becoming a lawyer, how did you develop an interest in expanding the legal pipeline for underrepresented girls?  

I was born in Honduras and grew up in the Bronx, and I didn't see women who looked like me who practiced law. I overcame many different obstacles — learning English as a third language, not knowing the culture, not knowing anybody who had even graduated high school until my older sister did it, not knowing anybody who had gone to college, and definitely not knowing any lawyers, judges, or legislators. So you could say I stumbled my way through it. With Girls Rule the Law, we are trying to provide a mechanism, so these young ladies don't have to stumble their way through it and don't have to face the same obstacles that we did. It's about showing them what's possible.  

I believe that if you can see it, you can be it. For me, it was just pure grit and determination that got me to be a lawyer, because I never saw it. But I don't think anybody else should have to make it solely through grit and determination.  

What are your goals for the organization?  

In the next two years, we are hoping to go national, and in the next five years, we want to go global. We're seeing interest from all around the country, especially during the pandemic when we had to go virtual. So we're trying to get the infrastructure in place to bring the whole program to different places around the country.  

We've had around 1,500 girls in our programs so far — and some are following up to ask us questions about law school, which is exciting. Now we're figuring out ways to try to expand our reach and the help that we can give as these young ladies who started with our program are now advancing through their careers. 

What would you say is the most important thing that Girls Rule the Law does? 

It's the representation. For me, it was a culture shock to enter a law firm and all of a sudden be the only Black person there, be the only Latina there. When these girls go to the programs, or there's a law day, and they're seeing all of the lawyers come in — men and women, lawyers from all different walks of life, colors, and genders — they say, "This is possible for me." The kids are so excited to see themselves represented in this career. 

What types of help does your organization need from the legal community?  

We constantly reach out to ask for support in putting on a program, to sponsor events — all on a small scale. One of the things that we do with our mock trial programs is to help dress the kids appropriately with shoes, bags, everything. The kids really love to be able to look professional. So we ask for donations of suits, or for supplies, food, transportation, our custom t-shirts with inspirational sayings. Just donating and sponsoring our events and our programs is so helpful.  

We also need bodies, people at our programs and workshops. When we do the mock trials, we need lawyers and judges to go in and speak to the kids, to talk about courtroom etiquette or to go over the rules of evidence. We do a speed mentoring with judges, lawyers, and legislators, and they sit down and speak to the girls for 10 or 15 minutes about what they do, how they've gotten there, and what their experiences have been. The kids really love that. We've had an interview skills and resume workshop with judges from the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, including [PLI Trustee] Presiding Justice Dianne Renwick and Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer. They gave up three hours of their day to sit there with 50 girls to go over their resumes, and work on soft skills like shaking someone's hand and looking them in the eye.  

We try to show the girls that there are different types of legal careers. For one program, we went to AMC Networks and sat down with their legal team and they told us about what goes into a show like The Walking Dead — the contracts with actors, the locations, insurance, and all of those elements. So the kids learn that maybe they don't want to be a litigator, but maybe they want to work for places like Disney or AMC. If lawyers in those spaces could reach out to us, let us know if we could do a lunch-and-learn of 15 to 20 kids —  we keep the groups small so they can really see and listen.  

What have you learned from the participants since founding the organization?  

Definitely not to judge a book by its cover. Last year, we had one student in mock trial who was very shy, she could barely be heard. Well, that kid worked extra hard, and by the time she did her opening statement, as the attorney for the defendant, she used the softness of her voice and her calm demeanor to her advantage — it was very effective for that case. I've learned over the years to not judge the kids by how they show up the first couple of days of a program, because they really do learn — and they grow into it. 

More on Girls Rule the Law's impact:  

“It wasn't until I joined Girls Rule the Law and began doing mock trials that I got interested in law. … The more I started working with Mirna and being a part of it, I realized this is something I'm passionate about and that I really want to do.”
–Nylia Malave, SUNY-Delhi student, Girls Rule the Law mentee  

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