Letter From The President

My name is Samuel Collins, and I am honored to serve as the incoming president for the Texas Business Law Society (TBLS) for the 2025-2026 academic year. I believe passionately in the organization’s mission: Help my friends and future colleagues become more successful lawyers engaged in more fulfilling work. Today, TBLS provides UT law students with hands-on transactional experience, ample learning and networking opportunities, and academic support and resources, all to achieve that ultimate mission, but we can do better.

At its core, I view TBLS as a four-legged stool, each leg essential to our mission: professional education and networking, practical experience, academic support, and intellectual growth. Let me share my vision for each.

Professional Education & Networking: We come to law school to be lawyers, yet very few understand what that means in the transactional context.

The legal profession is highly specialized, nuanced, and complicated. As UT Law students, our opportunities are nearly limitless, but it is very easy for us to be overwhelmed by the abundance of choices. Given that we have twenty weeks of clerking spread over two summers, it is imperative that students narrow the universe of possibility to make better, more informed decisions.

Against that backdrop, TBLS offers networking opportunities and a professional educational series that benefits our members and our sponsors. Our members, my future colleagues, can find a more meaningful and fulfilling career, and our sponsors can be assured that our members are informed, focused, and committed when accepting a full-time position

For the upcoming year, I aim to expand and improve our networking and educational opportunities by bringing more practitioners to campus, enhancing the student-to-lawyer ratio at our events, and reaching students who may be unsure about transactional work or unaware of its potential.

Practical Experience: For all of the networking and learning that a 1L student can do, there is no real substitution for experience. Our legal education, supplemented by mock trials, moot courts, and a slew of clinics and practicums, makes it far easier for students to picture a career as a litigator than a transactional attorney.

That is why our skills competition is so important—it provides 1Ls with the opportunity to get firsthand experience before they start interviewing in the fall. Whether they love that taste of transactional work or realize it is not for them, that clarity is invaluable for everyone involved, including our sponsors. Members who have completed the competition and want to pursue a career as a transactional attorney give firms the added assurance that a potential clerkship offer will not go unwasted. Without our sponsors and the commitment from our professional partners, we wouldn’t be able to provide students with that clarity as they navigate a highly condensed recruiting period that is an essential part of their careers.

This year, I aim to increase the number of 1Ls competing in the competition to at least half the incoming class. Beyond our signature event, I aim to give more year-round opportunities for our members to practice their negotiation and drafting skills or explore the field for the first time.

Academic Success: Things might change in the future, but for now, grades still matter. GPA cutoffs and the accelerated recruiting timeline create a Michelin-star recipe for stress and an extreme emphasis on 1L fall grades, irrespective of the quality of the student applicant.

That is why academic support is a vital part of our mission. Last year, we launched our peer mentorship program, connecting our 1L members with 2Ls and 3Ls to help them navigate the 1L fall academic semester. This year, I expect to expand this program to have a one-to-one ratio of mentors and students.

We are in a mentorship-based and service-oriented profession, and I want every member to feel supported.

Intellectual Growth: I plan to revive and modernize the Texas Journal of Business Law, providing upperclassmen with an outlet to develop their legal business knowledge. This will be a multi-year undertaking, so I will lay the groundwork and deliver a proof of concept during my time as president.

I’m excited for the year ahead and incredibly grateful for the opportunity to serve. Together with our sponsors and supporters, we’ll continue improving our organization so that every TBLS member walks away with meaningful connections, clarity, confidence, and conviction in their path forward.

Warmly,
Samuel Collins

President, Texas Business Law Society
2025–2026