This image released by Georgia State University shows law professor Moraima Mo Ivory, center, left, posing with Olympian Edwin Moses, center, right, and her Legal Life class at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Ivory is known for bringing celebrities like Steve Harvey and Ludacris into her law class. But now she's taking her Atlanta law students on a free trip to the Paris Olympics this summer in hopes of creating real-life teachable moments.
“I think it's more practical, especially in a legal sense. I think it's really cool to be able to go into an interview and describe what a licensing agreement is or what a record deal entails,” she continued. “You're able to have a more authentic conversation. You understand what you're talking about as opposed to just regurgitating stuff that's coming out of a book.”
“It wasn’t a hard sale,” said Ivory, a Spelman College alum who earned her law degree from Temple University. Over the years, she built her relationships within the entertainment and media industries as a practicing attorney and a radio host and at Warner Music Group, where she worked on artist contracts.
That’s certainly been the case for one of Ivory’s students, Ayanna Grant, who comes from a family of immigrants. She's gained invaluable experience through the course that she feels has given her a “leg up” — even if Georgia State's law school is not as highly ranked as Yale, Harvard and Stanford.