Guest blogger Toby Merrill is currently a 2L at HLS.
One of the things that I knew when I was choosing a law school was that I wanted to do public interest work, both at law school and, more importantly, after law school. Two years later, one thing I still remember from my admitted students weekend is Alexa Shabecoff, Assistant Dean and head of the public interest advising office, telling us that she had been doing public interest advising for longer than some of us had been alive, and helping us to understand what benefit that would produce for us. Her experience and rolodex would help with the thing that seemed most important to me: not how much I learned about Contracts (sorry Professor Warren!) but how I would be able to get a job in civil rights law.
A few weeks after the admitted student weekend, I sent my check (I waited so I could send it from in front of Grace Church in San Francisco, for maximum dramatic effect).
Getting started at law school was a whirlwhind, but by the time the dust settled in November, it was already time to start looking for a summer job. I brought my lists and goals to Alexa’s office, and after teasing me just a little about the amount of paper I’d brought in, she gave me a broad overview of some possibilities that fit my interest, and some specifics to check out. In a way, the broad overview was as valuable as the specifics. Unlike some of my classmates, I don’t have any lawyers in my family, and was a little mystified by all the categories of jobs and wasn’t born knowing the reputations of the many public interest organizations. Public interest law is a huge field, and so that first meeting helped me get the lay of the land. I had a lot of research to do to start to figure out what I might want to do for the summer.
Around the same time, a college friend who was two years ahead of me had put me in touch with one of her 1L section-mates who shared some of my interests. Even though he was in the throes of preparation for the Ames (moot court) Final Round (it’s a big deal—you’ll understand when you get here), he sat with me for an hour, telling me about the classes and professors he’d enjoyed, the summer jobs he’d had, and his plans for the future. He offered to speak to his supervisor from his summer working at the Civil Rights Housing division at the Department of Justice on my behalf. He also recommended that I meet his friend, Jake, who he thought might have interests more similar to mine.
Jake, too, spent a lot of time with me, telling me about his 1L summer (2007) in Jackson, Mississippi, as well as his subsequent work and future plans. I was blown away, and thought I probably wanted to do anything and everything that he had done. Around the same time, Alexa also mentioned Jake’s former employer, Rob McDuff. Rob is an HLS alum who does civil rights and criminal defense based in Jackson. Coincidentally, Rob was on campus shortly thereafter, and I got to sit down talk with him about his work, about his summer interns, and about Mississippi. I also got the chance to spend time with some of Rob’s interns from summer 2008 and hear about their experiences.
Six months later, I landed at the Jackson Evers international airport. When we weren’t in court or in prisons, we also got to meet B. B. King, to see what Hurricane Katrina had done to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Biloxi, and to do a fair amount of driving around the state.
Since it was my first trip to the South, I also managed to squeeze in some Beignets in New Orleans, and a visit to Mr. Faulkner in Oxford. My 1L summer demonstrated the combined power of the the Office of Public Interest Advising (OPIA), the public interest alumni network, and my amazing and amazingly generous classmates. Did I mention that Harvard paid for my summer?
This fall, again, my first stop was Alexa’s office, and again, she helped me to construct a list and consider my options. Six weeks later, I had more options than I knew what to do with, and another stroke of luck: OPIA was hosting a happy hour at an on-campus pub on the night before I had to make my decision. I got the benefit of not just one but a whole group of OPIA advisors, and a lot of my friends, not to mention a free beer.
Last week, Alexa gave a presentation to 2Ls about our impending job search, and, on Friday, is hosting a pot luck dinner at her house. I’ve also been busy preparing to present the Gary Bellow Public Service award (coincidentally, to both Jake and Mike) to reward outstanding service to the HLS public interest community. Reading my classmates’ nominations of each other reaffirmed my amazement at the breadth and depth of their accomplishments. And hundreds of students voted for both Mike and Jake.
– Toby
