Thirty 2L and 3L Stein Scholars discuss their summer internships: what they learned, why they decided to work where they did, and how it fits into future career goals.
Hannah Ahern ’17: This summer I interned at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica. I worked primarily with an attorney who works directly for the seven judges on the Court, and the work included everything from speechwriting to legal research and article writing. My very first week the Court was in session, and I was able to attend public hearings for two different cases, against Guatemala and Colombia, respectively, and another hearing regarding a consulting opinion about clarifying the definition of juridical/legal personhood as it is used in the American Convention on Human Rights. In the first two cases, victims and family members of victims of grave human rights abuses were able to tell their story in a legal, international and public forum. Hearing them, and seeing them given the opportunity to achieve some kind of justice through the reparations decided by the Court, was the most powerful experience I have ever had.
Rodrigo Ricxu Bacus ’16: I interned at The Door, which, among other things, pushes for the recognition of the fundamental need for a humanitarian form of immigration reform that will facilitate and enable the justifiable movement of people between countries. While at The Door this summer, I advised and represented immigrant youth in their Special Immigrant Juvenile Status cases. I worked on all aspects of the case: intake interview; drafting and filing the guardianship petition, motion for special findings and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services application; and interview preparations for the hearing.
I also interned at the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, which offered full exposure to the lived experiences of directly impacted Filipinos, who fight day to day to defend their human rights through educational discussions, participation in movement organizations, defense against illegal demolitions and evacuations, infringement on free speech rights, and military invasion and sequestering. I was exposed to legal work in all sectors of the Philippines. For the urban poor sector, I visited various communities dubbed as “informal settlements” and relocation sites and documented various human rights issues in the area. For the political prisoners, I visited and documented prison conditions and due process violations and attended defendants’ hearings. I was also part of the quick response team during a demonstration, participated in reviewing and filing a Supreme Court case on water rights, attended budget hearings in the House of Representatives to expose hidden pork barrel, and was an interpreter for Latin American delegates in the International People’s Mining Conference.
DeAnna Baumle ’17: I had an incredible experience this summer at Day One, a small nonprofit that provides legal services, social services, and educational advocacy to young survivors of intimate partner violence. I spent most of my time on family court cases, working on order of protection, custody, visitation, and child support proceedings. At court, I saw the entire arc of proceedings—from the initial filing, to preliminary conferences and adjournments, to full fact-finding and dispositional hearings, to back room settlement. I did a lot of work to prep for each of these court dates, including drafting petitions, researching case law in support of our case, and drafting examinations of witnesses. The work included a lot of client interaction, and I was continually amazed by the strength, compassion, and resilience of our clients, many of whom were still in high school. In addition to litigation work, I worked on other legal research projects for the office, attended various trainings and events, and compiled U-Visa applications.
Katie Campbell ’17: I spent this summer working at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. I was working primarily on expungement and driver’s license restoration issues, dealing directly with clients who sought expungement of their criminal records or to have their driver’s licenses restored. I also helped draft some findings to go with a proposed amendment to a bill that would remove an exemption in NJ General Assistance for those who have felony drug convictions. In addition, I wrote letters to inmates who wanted information about whether their convictions would disqualify them from certain professional licenses.
Hopi Costello ’16: While at Quinn Emanuel, I spent a significant part of my summer on a pro bono matter that was extremely interesting and rewarding on an issue that is incredibly important to me. One attorney and I wrote an amicus brief for the Supreme Court supporting a petition for a writ of certiorari. The case is a due process challenge to Virginia’s policy of automatically sending all death-sentence prisoners to solitary confinement for the entirety of their time in prison. We wrote on behalf of a group of correctional officers who have extensive experience administering solitary confinement and oppose this practice.
Sasha Fisher ’16: This summer I interned at The Legal Aid Society in their Criminal Defense Practice in Manhattan. My favorite part of the summer was working in arraignments. During my summer internship I worked day arraignments, night arraignments and hospital arraignments. I enjoyed meeting new clients as well as the challenge of taking on new cases.
Hailey Flynn ’16: This summer, I was a legal intern in the Global Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. I went to law school because of my interest in international reproductive rights issues and decided to intern at the Center to cultivate this skill set. As a legal intern, I had the opportunity to draft shadow letters to treaty monitoring bodies, prepare background research memos for petitions in domestic litigation matters, and develop other advocacy materials. One of my assignments was to draft a shadow letter about Chile to the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, arguing that Chile’s complete ban on abortion violates its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. The Committee asked questions about abortion access during Chile’s hearing and issued Concluding Observations urging Chile to decriminalize abortion. Currently, a bill is advancing through the Chilean government that will allow abortion in instances of life endangerment, fatal fetal impairment, and sexual violence. My internship enabled me to put my human rights training from Fordham Law into practice, advocating for women’s access to reproductive rights around the world.
Claire Glass ’17: I spent my summer working for Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, a public defender’s office representing Harlem residents. My job included some legal research and motion writing, but involved significantly more interviewing clients and their families. I also did a lot of running around the courthouse, and sometimes jails and Bellevue Hospital’s inmate ward. It was exciting to see my supervising attorney do her first ever hospital arraignment and to be involved with every part of the case until the end of the summer.
Marissa Gluck ’17: I interned in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York in the Brooklyn Office. I worked in the Public Integrity Department within the Criminal Division under the Chief of the Department, AUSA James Gatta ’02, a Stein alumnus! I worked on my legal writing and research skills by drafting memos on topics related to ongoing investigations in the department. I also conducted some document review in order to create a timeline of transactions for another AUSA who was preparing to charge this September. While these projects were very important for building my skills, I most enjoyed the part of my internship that allowed for me to directly observe two ongoing trials, proffers, and interviews with witnesses. The tours that were a part of our internship were also fantastic, including the Secret Service and the Office of the Medical Examiner in NYC. All in all it was an amazing summer and I learned so much.
Olivia Gonzalez ’16: A highlight of my summer working at the Department of Justice’s National Security Division was getting to attend a terrorism trial and watch the attorneys in action. After having helped with the motions that led up to the trial itself, seeing the arguments play out in a courtroom made the legal principles come to life. National security law is exciting precisely because so much of it involves legal gray area. This summer allowed me to get a small snapshot of how litigation in this field is growing and changing day by day. Additionally, getting to work with a brilliant team of other interns from diverse political backgrounds made me grow as a student and future attorney. My co-interns catalyzed important debates, provided diverse perspectives, and brought an element of wit and humor as we discussed the cases we worked on daily. I learned from my co-interns and the DOJ attorneys how important it is to remember and think critically about the bigger policy picture that motivates the activities we carry out every day.
Ridhima Goyal ’17: I worked in the chambers of the Honorable Paul A. Crotty where I drafted orders and internal memoranda. I also had the privilege of attending courtroom proceedings and district-wide events. My work was very research and writing heavy, allowing me to improve my legal writing skills. I valued the opportunity to work on cases and areas of the law that were not covered in 1L classes. Finally, Judge Crotty and his clerks were excellent mentors and provided detailed advice and feedback.
Jake Hays ’17E: This summer I worked for Riverkeeper on a number of different projects related to environmental protection in New York State, including crude oil by rail, pipeline development, and microbeads. Riverkeeper is an environmental nonprofit that focuses on protecting the Hudson River and its tributaries as well as safeguarding the drinking water of NYC and Hudson Valley residents. I worked with Kate Hudson, the Director of the Cross Watershed-Initiatives Program, to draft model local legislation to ban the sale and manufacture of microbeads. Microbeads are tiny plastic beads used in cosmetics and personal care products, such as toothpastes, scrubs, bath products, and facial cleaners that are entering our waterbodies in large quantities (an estimated 19 tons are entering New York waters per year). These plastic pollutants act as sponges for hydrophobic toxic chemicals (e.g., PCBs, DDT, PAHs) and, in addition to their effects on ecosystems and biological diversity, they present a risk to public health since they are made bioavailable throughout the food chain once eaten by aquatic organisms (e.g., fish, etc.). This experience provided me with tremendous insight into the legislative process and the value of influencing policy at the county level. In the absence of state or national legislation, local bans on microbeads can influence surrounding counties, put pressure on the state legislature to act, motivate the industry to seek a state law/ban rather than deal with a patchwork of different local regulations, and potentially result in retailers that operate in more than one county voluntarily beginning to take products with microbeads off their shelves. My experience presenting on this issue to the Putnam County Legislature was fun, informative, and rewarding.
Marcella Jayne ’18E: This summer I interned at the Federal Trade Commission’s Northeast Regional office in New York through the New York State Bar Association’s Antitrust Section Fellowship. The Fellowship was brought to my attention by another student. Before applying I knew very little about the FTC. I learned that the FTC has a Bureau of Competition and a Bureau of Consumer Protection. I was fortunate to gain experience working in both Bureaus. In the former, I did document review, interview memos and attended presentations from the opposing counsel as they tried to persuade the FTC that their client’s merger would not violate antitrust laws. In the latter, I spoke directly with consumers who had filed complaints and used the information I gathered from them to compile consumer declarations.
Jeff Kinkle ’16: I spent the summer doing post-conviction death penalty work with the Georgia Resource Center in Atlanta. My main task for the summer was to write a draft of a client’s clemency petition. The client currently has an appeal pending in the eleventh circuit, but the Georgia Resource Center likes to start preparing for clemency as early as possible. I spent most of my time in the office writing and doing research, but would also go down to death row every ten days or so. It was both harrowing and inspirational work and I will continue to work on the client’s case indefinitely.
Michael Levario ’16: This summer, I interned in the General Counsel’s office of the NYC Department of Investigation. I was surprised to learn of DOI’s vast oversight powers over all NYC agencies, employees, and city contractors. It was wonderful working on the legal team operating as DOI’s legal counsel by, inter alia, trouble-shooting investigatory techniques with investigators to ensure their methods remained legally sound or liaising with the NYC Law Department on DOI-related litigation. Towards the end of the summer, I was entrusted to perform legal analyses directly impacting the work of investigators, the General Counsel, and Deputy Commissioners. It was a fabulous time and I was personally invited by the General Counsel and a Deputy Commissioner to return for the fall 2015 semester (I accepted).
Josh Liebman ’17: I interned this summer for the Civil Law Reform Unit at The Legal Aid Society. I worked on lobbying and litigation projects advancing the interests of low-income New Yorkers receiving public benefits, including ongoing efforts to reform state welfare sanctions and to increase state housing benefits that have remained flat for many years. I also worked on preparing a prospective class action relating to these initiatives. I enjoyed experiencing the unique challenges and opportunities of impact litigation while learning about federal, state, and city welfare regimes, including the many inequities and inefficiencies of our welfare system.
Lorena Mejia ’17: This summer I worked at New York Legal Assistance Group’s Immigration Protection Unit. My clients all had immigration-related concerns. I helped about three clients naturalize and a few of them to replace green cards. Most of my clients, however, were either victims of trafficking or of a severe crime. We helped them achieve legal status through their cooperation with law enforcement. The most interesting part of my internship was the legal writing I did to actually advocate for my clients. I was surprised when I wrote the cover letter for a case where the legal arguments that would either win or lose the case were presented, and my supervising attorney submitted it without making any changes. It really felt like I was advocating for my client, and that was a good feeling. I learned a lot about the kind of cases that I enjoy working on, and I think this summer really helped me understand what motivates me and what path I want my career to take.
Ashley Mitchell ’16: This summer I interned at Advocates for Children of New York, an organization devoted to protecting children’s educational rights in New York City schools. The organization employs direct service, policy reform, and impact litigation in its advocacy and this summer I was fortunate to work on projects in all three of these areas. I particularly enjoyed client work: going on school visits, performing intakes, and preparing for school hearings. In addition to learning a lot about education law and the New York City public school system, I found there was a lot of overlap with other areas of law, particularly immigration and criminal justice.
Sahar Moazami ’17: As a summer intern with South Brooklyn Legal Services, I worked with the LGBT/HIV Unit, advocating for low-income clients on an array of social justice issues, including housing, public benefits, and healthcare. I chose to work within this specific unit at South Brooklyn because of my past relevant work within the dual communities that the unit serves. I was specifically assigned to work with a senior staff attorney in the unit who handles Social Security Administration cases. Among the various research, writing, and case handling assignments I worked on, I had the great opportunity to handle a client’s case from start to finish, which included representing the client at a federal fair hearing regarding his benefit eligibility. My time at South Brooklyn was enormously beneficial and educational and greatly impacted my personal ideas about my future legal career.
Sean Murray ’17: In pursuing my interest in antitrust law enforcement, I spent this summer at the DOJ Antitrust Division’s New York Field Office. This was a very fruitful and rewarding experience because while I had some work experience in civil antitrust law prior to law school, the New York Field Office engages in criminal antitrust enforcement. I learned a lot about how the DOJ approaches criminal antitrust enforcement as opposed to civil antitrust enforcement, where the former is more covert, formal, and guarded than the latter primarily based on the nature of criminal law prosecution. Additionally, I was able to develop and refine my legal research and writing skills by contributing research and memos to be used for motion practice in cases that were soon to be going to trial. Lastly, my favorite part of the summer was being able to attend a mock trial, where I was fascinated watching the mock jurors grapple with the various issues of the case and learning generally how a jury deliberates.
David O’Brien ’16: This summer I interned at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, an affiliate of the national ACLU headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. I chose this post for two reasons: for one, I have admired for years the difficult work that the ACLU has done, and secondly, I have only worked in direct client services (e.g., at public defender offices), and wanted experience working in affirmative impact litigation and policy work. While at the ACLU-NJ, I worked in a number of practice areas, including criminal law reform, juvenile justice, drug policy reform, and Fourth Amendment law vis a vis the Patriot Act. Some of the more enlightening and empowering experiences came during legal department meetings, when the legal team would discuss intake, and the merits of taking up a particular cause. These discussions brought to the fore the purpose of the organization, and the importance of remaining alert to the erosion of civil rights or liberties, both large and small. All in all, this summer was a great experience, and my admiration for the ACLU only grew.
Saundra Ramirez ’18E: This summer, I continued my work as a full-time paralegal at DOJ’s Antitrust Division’s New York Office, where one of my assignments is sending me to Newark to assist in trying a case this fall. The case, In re: New Jersey Tax Sales Certificates Antitrust Litigation, case number 3:12-cv-01893 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, involves a consolidated class action accusing several tax companies of bid-rigging in municipal tax lien auctions.
Daron Ravenborg ’17: I worked with the Immigration Protection Unit at New York Legal Assistance Group this past summer. I was able to take part in a wide variety of activities, including interviews, filing applications, legal research, and legal writing. NYLAG has also been developing a clinical program where attorneys and legal interns go to different parts of New York and bring pro se legal services to people that are reluctant to enter a large building in the financial district. The clinics enable NYLAG to serve some of the neediest and underserved people of the City, and it was an amazing experience. I was able to learn from and communicate with individuals who had heart wrenching stories that opened my eyes to a myriad of issues. NYLAG permitted me to work directly with clients and enhance many of my interpersonal skills. In addition to client work, the supervising staff ensured that no legal intern would be overloaded on any single type of immigration issue, and thus I experienced a wide breadth of immigration law. I would definitely recommend this position to any person interested in immigration law.
Herbie Rosen ’17: I worked in the chambers of Judge Gerald Lebovits in the New York City Civil Court. I helped draft opinions, observed proceedings and researched for articles the Judge was writing. I dealt with a wide variety of legal issues, including: landlord/tenant, hospital hearings, small claims, name changes, evictions, credit-card debt collections, infant compensation, contract disputes and wills and estates. I developed a great deal of respect for the hardworking members of the Unified Court System, who make sure that everyone gets their voices heard in the justice system.
Brandon Ruben ’16: I worked at the Federal Defenders for the Eastern District of New York this summer. There, I assisted attorneys with cases from arraignment through trial. My responsibilities included conducting client interviews at the Metropolitan Detention Center, helping prepare clients for direct and cross examination, and writing motions in limine and sentencing letters. The highlight of my summer was working on a trial where a client accused of narcotics smuggling won an acquittal. I would recommend working at the Federal Defenders for the Eastern District of New York to any law student pursuing a career in public defense.
Helen Terrero-Black ’16: This summer I worked in D.C. at Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. Within the Litigation II Section, which deals with banking/finance mergers and acquisitions, I was assigned to the Springleaf/OneMain merger review, a still pending investigation. Over the summer, I was surprised to see how much substantive work I was given to do. I participated in three depositions and wrote up a draft outline to one of the depositions, which was actually used as a preliminary draft to inform the entire team on the deposition points. It was an amazing feeling. I chose to work for the DOJ Antitrust Division because it was an area of law that I thought I’d like to pursue as a career. I had taken a class (Law and Economics), that led to the DOJ offer, that led to my taking an antitrust course, where I then fell in love with the subject matter. After realizing I liked the study of antitrust, I hoped to like the actual practice of it. My biggest take-away this summer was that I absolutely did!
Emily Vance ’16: I had a great summer working at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. Although I ultimately want to work as a public interest lawyer, I decided that it was in my best interest to work at a firm first. I chose Paul, Weiss because of its strong commitment to pro bono work and was fortunate to spend almost half of my time working on pro bono matters this summer. I assisted in the defense of a man on death row in Alabama by reading and assessing every Eleventh Circuit § 2254 habeas decision published since last June. I also interviewed a man who was formerly incarcerated at Rikers Island and is suing the Department of Correction because he was denied access to medication for a medical condition that he had before his incarceration. Additionally, I drafted content for a First Amendment manual for college students, which brought me back to the kind of work that my Stein group did for our 2L Advanced Seminar project. These experiences, in addition to the work that I did for Paul, Weiss’s paying clients, helped me grow as an advocate and I am eager to continue to work on these types of matters in the future!
Kathy Walter ’18E: I worked at the growing general counsel’s division of the Department of Youth and Community Development this summer. When I started, I thought it would just be a way to learn more about the largest agency for youth outside of the Department of Education, where I worked during Bloomberg’s administration. It was far more. The group works with an agency leading a push by the Mayor’s office to invest more in after school programming. They are experimenting with a variety of incentive programs, new after school options and new programming for parents and communities. There were some interesting questions I was able to research and not much case law or statutory precedent to go on. I was able to do real legal research (turns out you don’t always start with Lexis or WestLaw) and practical legal writing (does not always require a certain number of pages) in areas I was not anticipating.
Laura Wooley ’16: I spent this summer at the National LGBTQ Task Force. It was exciting to be at the Supreme Court the morning that decisions on housing, the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality were handed down, but it was even better to know that with full marriage equality, we get to focus on the dozens of other issues impacting queer and trans folks. I spent most of my time working on two projects: writing a report on the intersection of queer, trans, disability, and deaf identities and creating recommendations for the Department of Health and Human Services on how it can work to reduce health disparities faced by bisexual people. Not-so-fun-fact: bisexual people experience poverty, mental illness, sexual and intimate partner violence, and lack of health care at higher rates than gay or straight people. The good news is that most of these disparities seem to arise out of stigma, so simply acknowledging bi peoples’ self-identification and fighting back against ugly stereotypes about bisexuality can help remove many barriers to health.
Razeen Zaman ’16: I was an Ella Baker intern at the Center for Constitutional Rights this summer. The Ella Baker internship at CCR is geared for law students who want to become movement lawyers. I worked most closely with the Guantanamo Bay docket because I was interested in thinking about detention conditions more globally. The bulk of my work involved legal research and writing for one of the attorneys representing Majid Khan, a detainee in Guantanamo who endured egregious torture at the hands of the CIA. I also had the opportunity to help organize a panel for the Law for Black Lives conference, which took place in late July-early August.
