by G.J. Ligelis Jr.

Click here to view Fallfest 2008 photos!

Despite the 8:00 AM meeting time, the blustery weather and On-Campus Interviewing, Harvard Law School students turned up in numbers on Saturday October 4^th to participate in Fallfest, HL Central’s annual day of community service.  Members of the 1L, 2L and 3L classes spread out throughout Cambridge and Boston to contribute to community service projects ranging from cleaning up a local park to painting walls to organizing the basement of a community center.  The event, organized by HL Central Directors of Community Service Shelly Schaaf ’09 and Loni Edwards ’10, was once again a resounding success. 

Student organizations across campus were invited to sign up in groups or individually to spend the morning working together on a single project through the morning.  Afterwards, participating students returned to Holmes field to trade stories from the day and enjoy a barbecue catered by Redbones.  While some students found that they had managed to paint themselves more than the walls, others were still coughing up dust from the morning’s work.  Chris Hultman ’09 commented “Fallfest is a fantastic opportunity for HLS students to come together to give back to the community.  It is definitely something I’ve enjoyed participating in.”

Having barely digested their pulled pork sandwiches and macaroni and cheese, students then turned their attention to the 4-on-4 volleyball tournament on the court outside of Harkness Commons.  The tournament was won by the reigning champions, Stiffs on the Court, which included Todd Lantz ’09, Justin Pines ’09, Stephanie Cebulski ’09 and David McCrary ’09.  Despite missing Ryan Fawaz ’09, who helped lead them to the title last year, the Stiffs swept through the round robin field before beating the ubiquitous Motion to Dominate team in the finals.  A team of LLM students put up a spirited fight against the champs in the final game of the round robin but eventually came up empty handed. 

This year’s Fallfest was generously sponsored by Dechert LLP, Bar/Bri and Westlaw.  Dechert sponsored the Volleyball tournament and contributed $500 to the winner’s charity of choice.  The Stiffs elected to contribute the money to the American Diabetes Foundation in memory of John Faulkner.  Both Bar/Bri and Westlaw sponsored raffles at the event, with Bar/Bri handing out $600 in discounts for their bar review courses.  The winners of the Westlaw raffle won a total of $350 in gift certificates to amazon.com and various local restaurants. 

A unique twist was added to Fallfest this year since the event fell on the same weekend as the rescheduled 1L Cup.  Participation in the day of community service was counted as a preliminary event in the 1L Cup and the section with the most participants got a head start heading into the following day’s festivities.  Section II of the Class of 2011 had the biggest turnout at Fallfest this year.

With 1L Orientation, Fallfest and the 1L Cup now in the books this fall, HL Central has many more annual events planned for the spring including Tacky Prom, Charity Bash and the 1L Formal.