3L Stein Scholar Dana Kai-el McBeth was mentioned in a New Yorker article regarding the interaction she had at a Fordham Law event with Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.
Krasner arrived at the Fordham University School of Law, on West Sixty-second Street in Manhattan. Outside the building, he changed his shirt and put on a new tie—his routine when he has three or four speaking events in a day. In a lecture hall, before some thirty students, he launched into another law-school stump speech. After he finished, several hands rose. He called on a young woman in the front row, who looked ready for court in a gray dress and black jacket. “I have two questions,” she said.
“You only get one,” Krasner said.
“Well, I’ll make it a really run-on one,” she said, cheerily. She asked how Krasner balanced the perspective of victims in his work. After he spoke, he turned back to her. “I know I was unkind when I said I wouldn’t answer another question, but do you have another question?”
“I do,” she said, and asked about his plan to address recidivism rates, especially for young people coming out of prison.
After finishing his presentation, Krasner lingered in the hall outside, fielding more questions. The young woman approached, a student named Dana Kai-el McBeth. “I was at E.J.I. this summer,” she said.
“You were at E.J.I.?” Krasner said. “That’s awesome.” There is stiff competition to get a summer position at the Equal Justice Initiative, the progressive legal organization run by Bryan Stevenson, in Alabama.
“I don’t have my résumé, but here is my business card,” she said. Twenty minutes later, Krasner, Listenbee, and Winkelman interviewed the student in an empty conference room. Halfway through, Winkelman sent Krasner a text asking if he wanted to offer her a job on the spot. Krasner flipped over the business card the student had given him and scribbled a note to his first assistant: “Nancy thinks immediate offer. You agree/disagree?” Listenbee agreed. Krasner has rarely made a job offer to a candidate during an interview, but, he said, “She just seemed like a lot of talent, a lot of spunk. Either a perfect employee or a rebel. We’ll see.”