OPIA Blog

Leslie Griffith, 2L, grew up in Spokane, WA before heading east to attend Duke University. Leslie graduated from Duke in 2009 with a degree in political science. Although she took a couple classes on environmental issues at Duke, she didn’t seriously consider environmental law as a career until late in college when she began thinking about law school.

After a year traveling and working at a coffee shop, Leslie arrived at HLS in the fall of 2010. She knew she wanted to try environmental law during her 1L summer, and she scheduled a career advising meeting with Alexa Shabecoff of OPIA to make a plan. “Alexa was great,” Leslie told me. “She really helped me understand what kinds of options were available to me, how I should approach those options, and what I could expect in terms of the application process.” On top of the helpful advice, Alexa put Leslie in touch with a 3L who had worked at EPA in Seattle the previous summer. That student, in turn, gave Leslie information about the office’s hiring process. Leslie applied for a summer internship position in January and, after a phone interview, they offered her the position in February.

Leslie really hit the ground running at EPA Seattle. She did many of the things you’d expect a legal intern to do—primarily legal writing and research—but her supervisors also helped her see how everything came together. Leslie attended strategy planning meetings and settlement negotiations and visited sites where EPA enforced wetlands violations. Leslie loved getting a chance to see how the national and regional EPA offices worked together and how they collaborated with the DOJ to undertake litigation. She even drafted referrals to the DOJ to launch some enforcement cases.

Leslie’s favorite thing about the position? “The incredible learning opportunity,” she responds. Leslie appreciated getting valuable insight into the environmental issues affecting the Pacific Northwest and Alaska—offshore oil drilling, mining, and salmon conservation, to name a few. Considering Leslie didn’t get a chance to take Environmental Law her 1L year, this was quite the primer!

When I asked Leslie if she had any advice for job-hunting 1Ls, she replied, “Don’t freak out!” Talk to older students, she encouraged, and make sure to come up with a game plan with OPIA. Leslie also suggested that students should consider geographical regions where they have built-in networks or where they ultimately want to live.

I prodded her for any last minute advice. “Go to Seattle!” she laughed. Leslie Griffith is a great example of what happens when you keep your cool, seek out advice and guidance, and pursue the opportunities you know will make you happiest.

Next summer Leslie will intern with Earthjustice in Washington, D.C.

Written by OPIA 1L Section Representative Sean Hamidi

Nina Catalano, 3L, spent the summer of 2011 at the Center for Court Innovation (CCI), an organization that conducts research and development for the court system. The principle location is in midtown New York, although it does have smaller offices in Albany and London. CCI closely resembles the work of the Vera Institute, and the two of them often collaborate.

During the summer, Nina spent eight weeks with CCI and got to work on a variety projects. The type of work included research, programming, and serving as a consultant for judges. Nina was able to focus on the areas that interest her, so her projects involved looking into possible responses to child abuse and setting up a pilot project to do observations in juvenile delinquent hearings. Within her consultant position, Nina attended court regularly and was able to meet with several judges. Nina found her coworkers to be very open to students’ interests, but those who did not speak up about what experience they hoped to get often got stuck with the projects no one else claimed. This included two months’ of Lexis research, so Nina definitely feels that anyone who works there in the future should express his or her interests from the beginning.

Nina described CCI’s office culture as “awesome.” The staff was very observant of others’ successes and celebrations, and birthdays and weddings were frequent causes for office festivities. The office culture was very open and communal. The midtown office has about 50 people, so it is small enough to get to know most of the other employees; however, they have projects all over the city, so there are plenty of opportunities to get out and interact with others. CCI is open to 1L interns, and six out of the eight 2011 interns were 1Ls. The New York location made it very easy to get around, and CCI included a free subway pass for the months of the internship. Since the office is in New York, however, the cost of living is naturally very high.

CCI usually posts their positions for the next summer around December. Nina submitted a cover letter, resume, and writing sample, and she had a phone interview. She also stopped by in person to introduce herself when she was in New York. She spoke with a friend of a friend who had worked there the previous summer before applying, so she had a contact who had experience with the organization.

Written by OPIA 1L Section Representative Kimberly Newberry

Jason Gelbort, a 2L and dual degree student with Fletcher, spent his summer working with lawyers in Sierra Leone. He found the placement through the U.S. NGO International Professional Partnership for Sierra Leone, who then arranged a placement in the Sierra Leonean government for him with the Law Reform Commission (LRC). Working primarily in Freetown, Jason said that he loved his summer and enjoyed the laid back atmosphere combined with important work related to Sierra Leone’s constitution and legislation.
The only expat at his organization, he spent his time in a room with three local lawyers doing comparative research looking at other African countries, doing legal and policy analysis, and making recommendations to Sierra Leone’s Department of Justice that would ultimately go to the cabinet and parliament. Committees at the LRC were headed by a mix of LRC staff, commissioners, or judges and included chiefs, private lawyers, UN mission representatives, government representatives, and members of civil society groups. With a background of banter in Sierra Leonean Krio, Jason helped his committee host meetings, recommend new legislation and recommend amendments to existing legislation to the rest of the government. Substantively, he was working on electoral legal reform, an issue of particular importance to the country whose elections are coming up in 2012. Jason worked with the local lawyers in his office to try and fix the provisions related to the elections at least 12 months before the elections took place. He worked on issues related to petitions challenging the elections, electoral offenses like violence and fraud, qualifications for candidates to run for elected office, access to the media, and electoral monitoring and observing. Recently, there has been a major rise in economic development in the country. The UN presence in the country is also very high, having increased as a result of the war. There will be heightened scrutiny of the 2012 election because now the country is 10 years out of the war, and the election is their chance to prove an acceptable level of stability both for the UN to begin pulling out of the country and for foreign investors to safely engage in business in Sierra Leone. In light of these pressures, the work Jason was doing was incredibly important and exciting.
Jason also made good use of his Harvard connections and worked with a reference librarian here to prepare and give a training workshop for his office on computer skills and legal research, focusing on free resources. He also got to dabble in ADR, updating the 150 year old criminal code, and administrative law. And of course, Jason took advantage of his placement to do some traveling in West Africa and to relax with the expat community in the region.

Written by OPIA 1L Section Representative Becky Wolozin

Matthew Spurlock, ’12, spent his 2L summer working at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Center for Democracy in New York City. The Center for Democracy is a branch of the ACLU that works to “strengthen democratic values, promote human rights and ensure government accountability.” It includes the National Security Project, the Human Rights Program and the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. The work that summer interns received was largely confined to a few specific, minute issues within the department to which they were assigned. Matthew described the work as 20% case briefs, and 80% legal research and writing.

Although the ACLU’s work is broken down into specific centers, projects, and practice areas, the social aspect of Matthew’s intern experience was somewhat more integrated. Eschewing the cubicle model, the ACLU put all of its summer interns, regardless of their project area, in one room that was affectionately dubbed the intern bed. While this provided a sense of solidarity and facilitated a positive social dynamic among the interns, it also meant that all of their stress was concentrated in one confined area, so Matthew eventually moved to an empty private office as an alternative working space.

Matthew described the interaction between interns and their attorneys as limited, but not lacking. Although he did not receive much oversight or guidance from his supervising attorneys, he never felt unsupported. He recommends this position for people who are independent workers that do not require much feedback. The ACLU did organize a mentorship program that paired summer interns with fellows who were available as resources for work or career advice.

To prepare for any job at the ACLU, Matthew recommends that an applicant learn about federal courts and constitutional law, as well as hone their research and writing skills. For Matthew, this position at the ACLU was the latest step in his efforts to launch a career in civil liberties high impact litigation. Following graduation, he intends to clerk and then hopefully return to the ACLU or a similar organization.

Written by 1L OPIA Section Representative Jessica Frisina.

Nicolette Boehland, ’13, came to law school with an interest in human rights and experience working in conflict zones. During her 1L year, she pursued this interest by working with the Human Rights Clinic as a research assistant and taking public international law during her spring term. It all came together when she landed her 1L summer internship with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Not sure what the summer would be like, Nicolette assumed she would do a lot of research and writing. When she arrived, Nicolette was assigned to the special investigations team and plunged into documentation of human rights violations right away. She was given wide latitude to work independently. She took advantage of it by working with two local colleagues to create a work plan that would allow them to investigate incidents of torture and mistreatment at facilities run by the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s domestic intelligence agency.

Nicolette and her colleagues flew to different detention sites throughout the country. Nicolette interviewed prisoners, guards, relatives, and other community stakeholders about conditions in the prisons. In Kabul, she also worked to build relationships between her office and offices at the UN and the ICRC, holding workshops on monitoring and interviewing techniques.

The summer was a fantastic opportunity to put all she’d learned in school to use in the field. She stayed in communication with faculty at the Human Rights Clinic, who helped her work through interviewing problems as she came across them, and she even remembers pulling out her 1L public international law outline from time to time. She developed her human rights interviewing and documentation skills and built on her community engagement, program planning and networking skills.

This summer experience helped to cement Nicolette’s interest in international humanitarian law, which she continues to pursue through her work with the Human Rights Clinic back on campus. She plans on a career in human rights field work, and this summer experience was an amazing chance to get a taste of that and strengthen the skills she’ll need.

Written by OPIA 1L Section Representative Sarah Wheaton

Last summer Rachel Heron, 3L, interned with the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division Appellate Section in Washington, D.C. The internship lived up to all her expectations and she would highly recommend the experience to anyone who is interested in appellate work and enjoys legal research and writing. Her supervisor assigned only substantive work, the attorneys she worked with offered constructive feedback, and she had the opportunity to write full appellate briefs on a range of environmental issues.

Rachel’s supervisor did an excellent job of controlling her work flow, checking in regularly, and ensuring that Rachel always had interesting projects to work on. In general the projects Rachel worked on took from several days to a week to complete. After completing a draft of a memo or brief, Rachel had the opportunity to discuss her work with the attorneys at DOJ. Instead of editing her work directly, the attorneys would talk with Rachel about how to improve her work and let her make any necessary changes. The experience helped her to strengthen her legal research and writing skills. Rachel also enjoyed working with the other intern at the Appellate Section. They were able to bounce ideas off one another and help each other to organize their thoughts despite the fact that they worked on separate projects.

One of the highlights of Rachel’s experience was getting to observe moots. Rachel is doing an oral argument for the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic this term and found her internship experience helpful in preparing for her current work with the clinic. She particularly enjoyed watching how the attorneys responded to questions and learning what arguments were most persuasive.

The attorneys at the office were mild mannered and flexible about her work hours. In general she worked from 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM each day and she only occasionally did work on the weekends. She was treated like new attorney at the office and given a great deal of responsibility right away. She would recommend taking Administrative Law, Environmental Law, or a course that covers the National Environmental Policy Act before pursuing the internship. In short, Rachel loved her experience and would recommend working at DOJ in general to anyone.

Written by OPIA 1L Section Representative Genevieve Parshalle

2L Hunter Landerholm spent the summer after his 1L year doing legal services work at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County. While there, he worked for the housing and consumer unit and his work included evictions, Section 8 hearings, foreclosures, rent control work, habitability issues and Fair Housing Act cases, and his office was more than happy to let him pursue work in areas he was interested in.

Hunter found this work to be incredible and was happy to find that while his office was full of dedicated advocates, it was also a fun place to work. As with any legal services office, however, Hunter found the work to be challenging and emotionally draining at times. He acknowledged that it could be difficult to separate the anger or grief he felt over his clients’ problems from the professional perspective necessary for effective lawyering. While empathizing with his clients kept him passionate and his work interesting, these emotions did spill into other parts of his life.

Overall, Hunter had a great time last summer and he is hoping to pursue a career as a legal services lawyer. Along with these ambitions, Hunter’s summer experience strengthened his writing and research skills. Perhaps the best skill he honed over the summer was the art of negotiation, as he was able to convince a couple of landlords that generous settlements were in their interest.

For current 1Ls hoping to work in legal services this summer, Hunter also offers some insight into which of his 1L classes proved to be most useful. LRW helped with his writing and researching, but principles he learned in Contracts and Property also popped up. Leg Reg also helped a great deal, as did the Goldberg line of cases he covered in Civ Pro.

Written by OPIA 1L Section Representative Zack Hill

Sachin Desai, 2L, is passionate about energy and committed to innovation. Last summer, he combined these interests with his internship at the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) within the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C.

The ARPA-E is a division of the DOE that works on commercializing small, innovative start-ups in the U.S. energy sector. It is a unique organization as its grants operate more within a venture capital framework than most government agencies. Instead of just disbursing funding, the agency enters into collaborative arrangements with its grantees and builds innovative funding structures into its contracts. This mission creates complicated contracts; there are three to four lawyers in a team of only 60 people. In addition to contracts, the legal scope also includes policy work in energy regulation. Since the U.S. energy industry is heavily regulated, innovative start-ups face significant regulatory barriers to commercial success. The second mission of ARPA-E is to work with other government agencies that are responsible for these regulations and draft memoranda of understanding (MOUs) surrounding ARPA-E’s projects. Since the agency is so small, legal interns have opportunities to work closely with the staff attorneys, even the General Counsel, and contribute extensively to the agency’s goals. Sachin’s assignments included legal research and writing white papers and MOUs. In addition, his presence in D.C. allowed him to meet other interesting people working in the energy field, and he stresses the importance of actively participating in events and networking.

Sachin knew that he wanted to work in energy before he came to law school, and once he arrived at HLS he took steps to integrate himself into the wider energy community. His advice to 1Ls is to follow their interests, even if it takes them outside of the HLS campus. In fact, he first heard about ARPA-E at the annual MIT Energy Conference, and additional resources can be found at MIT, the Kennedy School, or Harvard Business School. Sachin also stresses the importance of being pro-active in the job search. Though ARPA-E did not post a legal intern position, he applied anyway. One tip for students seeking to create their own positions: email the second-in-command, who actually reads his or her emails, and not the General Counsel.

The internship with ARPA-E was a logical step in Sachin’s overall career path. ARPA-E has significant name recognition in the field and helped him land his 2L summer job with Wilson Sonsini in California, where his work will focus on supporting venture capitalist firms interested in energy innovation. He is also writing a student note under the supervision of Professor Roin that examines innovative funding structures, building on his experience at ARPA-E. Overall, Sachin speaks highly of his experience with the agency and recommends it for students interested in energy who want a slightly different summer government experience.

Written by OPIA 1L Section Representative Geng Chen

For her 1L summer, Jessica Levin, 2L worked as a legal intern in the General Practice Unit of the Office of the General Counsel of the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE).

In an office environment that she describes as “high energy and bustling,” Jessica dived into projects on various topics in education law which spanned the local, state, and federal levels. Jessica’s assignments included drafting decisions in student suspension appeals; writing memos on various education law issues including free speech and student discipline; and attending administrative hearings for teachers as well as oral arguments for high profile cases involving the DOE.

During her summer, Jessica learned how to review a record and craft an appeal decision, practiced interpreting statutes and regulations, and honed her legal research and memo writing skills. “I was amazed at how education law touches on so many other aspects of law and policy, such as labor law, contracts, and due process issues,” she says. She notes that her involvement in student groups such as Advocates for Education, along with the knowledge and skills gained from HLS in courses such as Legal Research and Writing, Legislation and Regulation, and Professor Bartholet’s “Child, Family, State,” were particularly applicable to her job.

Jessica was first surprised by the vast size of the DOE and its legal office, which is located in the historic Tweed Courthouse building. However, a collaborative organizational culture, facilitated by an open floor plan, helped make it much less overwhelming. On a regular basis, the General Counsel (an HLS alum) came to speak to lawyers in the unit and made time to have lunch with all the interns and answer their questions.

Jessica’s time at the NYCDOE confirmed her desire to work in education law and provided her a strong foundation for working in other education law settings. Her summer experience prompted her to take classes as a 2L this year, such as Evidence and Fourteenth Amendment, which she says will be useful for related work down the road. Her advice to other HLS students interested in pursuing a similar path in education law: “I think an experience at the local level is very valuable for anyone who wants to work in education law, since so much of education — both law and policy — happens at the district level.”

Written by 1L OPIA Section Representative Connie Sung

Here are two articles featuring Alison Kamhi ’08 and Damon King ’09, both awarded Skadden Fellowships upon graduating from HLS. Alison Kamhi spent her Skadden Fellowship at Catholic Charities in New York and is now at Bay Area Legal Aid serving again as a Skadden Fellow. Damon King is spending his Skadden Fellowship at the Youth Law Center in San Francisco.

Alison Kamhi – NY Lawyer Wins a Safe Haven for Abused Mexican Teen

Damon King – The Bay Citizen; Unclear Oversight Yields Repeated Violations at Home for Troubled Youth