Each year after the Georgia General Assembly concludes its annual legislative session, new laws go into effect on July 1. This year, the legislators closed out their 40-day odyssey of making those laws on March 28. Sine die, the Latin term assigned to the adjournment of the legislative calendar, was met with the usual frenzy of finalizing bills and the time-honored tradition of scattering the legislative chambers with shredded paper tossed about in a confetti like celebration.
This year, something different happened under the gold dome. Four weeks after the legislators left town, Georgia State University College of Law students in Adjunct Professor Derrick Alexander Pope’s Legislative Drafting Seminar course donned the role of lawmakers.
Pope’s seminar is designed to make a student practice-ready, and it is consistent with the core concerns that the College of Law curriculum must be student-centered, fuse theory and practice, and richly prepare its graduates to be thoughtful, ethical and analytical problem-solvers capable of success in any environment.
“My favorite part of this class was writing my final bill and presenting it at the Capitol, said Angela Rofael, (J.D. ’25). “As someone who watched many bills presented in committee hearings...it was such an awesome experience to present a bill I was really passionate about in the same building.”
This is the type of practice-based learning that Professor Pope wanted for his class.
“I thought it would be of undeniable benefit and practical value to have the students appreciate what it is like to not only develop sound legislative policy, but to advocate for it in the actual setting where policy is determined. Just as the moot court or mock trial participant uses the courtroom, the legislative domain is an equally important forum for advocacy,” explained Pope.

Cady Starrett, (J.D. ‘24) a part-time evening student, presented her final legislation at the State Capitol.
The Legislative Drafting Seminar
Throughout the semester, students learned specific drafting principles that served as the basis for their writing. The principles were introduced in a Tuesday class session, and the Thursday class session was devoted to applying them in one of three legislative measures each student would draft. The first two were selected by Professor Pope, and the third was chosen by each student.
For their first assignment, students drafted resolutions commending the College of Law on its 40th year of providing exceptional legal education.
Cady Starrett, (J.D. ‘24), wrote that the College of Law was “a vessel for innovation” whose “egalitarian vision for the future of legal education will continue to manifest throughout the twenty-first century.”
Alex Fennel (J.D. ’25) noted that the College of Law was established “to draw into service those who had previously been precluded from contributing to the legal profession by economic barriers.”
For their second assignment, students drafted measures that showed the feasibility of establishing a legislative drafting clinic at the College of Law. “I wanted a set of exercises that had a sequential correlation to each other, that could spark their creativity and imagination about the utility of this course,” said Pope.
During the semester, the students presented their first drafts in class to Professor Pope and their second drafts to College of Law Interim Dean Courtney Anderson. Each of these evaluations prepared them for their third assignment: presenting their self-chosen measure at the Capitol, where their imagination and creativity was on full display.

Legislative Drafting Seminar students visit the State Capitol.
A Day at the Capitol
On April 18, a total of nine students met in a hearing room at the State Capitol to present the final projects from a semester of intense legislative drafting exercises.
They ranged from employment to inheritance rights, economic development to establishing alternatives to burial and cremation, and free speech protections for artificial intelligence to robust protections for the health of the imprisoned.
To give the occasion an even more real-life setting, the students made their presentations in front of Kirkland A. McGhee (J.D.’85), vice president and regional counsel at Kaiser Permanente, who served as a guest evaluator for the students. McGhee has a long and storied career as one of the state’s leading minds in legislative policy and advocacy.
Although the students were told in advance that a special evaluator would be a part of their final presentations, it was the first time they had no prior hint of how the soundness, structure and significance of their chosen policy measures would be assessed.
“It was a pleasure to critique their presentations and a joy to witness the display of excellent substantive preparation,” McGhee said.
Each student made a six-minute presentation where McGhee asked pointed questions about why the proposed law was needed, how it fit into Georgia’s present legislative and regulatory schemes, and its impact on the day-to-day lives of those who would be affected by the law. McGhee grilled the students on alternatives and even budgetary implications, but they were more than ready for the questioning.
Cody Choi (J.D.’24), whose bill focused on artificial intelligence free speech protections, credits his preparation to how the course was structured. “The class went far beyond the surface-level insight into the legislative process,” said Choi. “It focused on the delicate choice of language to the weighing of competing policy concerns.”
Angela Rofael (J.D. ‘25) agreed, “Our assignments, our class discussions and our guidance gave me the confidence that I was learning exactly what I needed to know to enter the world of public policy.”
All in Favor, Say Aye
At the beginning of the semester, when asked what they hoped to gain from the course, each student wanted to gain a usable sense of how to be an advocate in the legislative arena.
In addition to the rudiments of drafting legislation, the students were regularly reminded of their professional ethics and the expectations of professionalism, especially in an environment most associated with back-scratching and back-stabbing. “They will not be mere drafters. They will be lawyer-drafters,” Pope urged. “That distinction and privilege carries with it a set of ideals. The expectation of integrity. The heightened sense of service. The continuation of a tradition of statecraft. That is what the larger society needs from them, and what they must see in the work they do.”
Any student interested in taking the course in the future can be assured of its relevance. “If you ever ask yourself, why did they write the laws this way, then this is the class for you,” Choi suggested. “As practitioners of law, it is of paramount importance to understand how the laws that govern our society are crafted.”
After evaluating the final measures of the class, McGhee reflected on his own experiences and about the practical benefit the students gained.
“A significant part of my legal career has been spent fighting on behalf of clients, for and against legislation, which impacted the lives of citizens, the fortunes of corporations, and the powers of governments,” he noted.
“Much of what I learned to do effectively in those fights, I learned in the middle of the battles. I could not help but think, how much more effective I would have been in serving people, business, and government if I had the benefit of a legislative drafting seminar which taught the technical skills of drafting and the art of policy advocacy simultaneously. This class is a must for future crafters of the law.”