Month: August 2018

U.S. Department of State Office of the Legal Adviser – Washington, D.C.

I spent the first eight weeks of my summer as an intern with the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser. During my internship, I worked with the Human Rights & Refugees and Western Hemisphere Affairs offices to advance U.S. diplomatic efforts in these areas. As a dual degree student enrolled in the joint J.D. / LL.M. program in International & Comparative Law that is also very interested in public service work and is part of the Public Interest & Public Service Law Certificate program as well, working with the Office of the Legal Adviser was an excellent opportunity for me to engage with my varied areas of interest.

I was able to repeatedly utilize my research, writing, and foreign language skills during the course of the internship while working on diverse and engaging projects. The offices I worked with covered both the Office of the Legal Adviser’s thematic and regional obligations, and my portfolio ranged from work relating to specific country issues, to treaty analysis and interpretation, to research on state responsibility and the immunity of various organizations under international law. I gained experience both in drafting longer research memoranda and in providing concise, bulleted information sheets with only the most necessary information included. I contributed substantively to every project I worked on, and I felt like a valued member of my project teams. I even had the opportunity to provide input during an oral briefing for a U.S. Ambassador during my first two weeks at the State Department.

The work I was doing was also directly relevant to securing my post-graduate clerkship with a U.S. Court of Appeals. I was able to speak intelligently on various substantive issues during the clerkship interview, which was held during the course of my internship, given the substantive responsibility I had on my projects. I have no doubt that this experience was a strong contributing factor to being offered the clerkship position.

Finally, I developed very fruitful relationships with numerous attorneys during my eight weeks with the Office of the Legal Adviser, including numerous Duke Law alumni. I was provided two attorney mentors, and there was a dedicated team of four attorneys that were in charge of all intern programming during the summer. My offices also had multiple social gatherings during my eight-week internship. These opportunities allowed me to connect with various attorneys, and this experience should be invaluable when I seek to apply to the Office of the Legal Adviser following my clerkship.

Submitted August 13, 2018

US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Disability Rights Section – Washington, D.C.

I spent my summer working with the Department of Justice, in the Civil Rights Division, for the Disability Rights Section in Washington, DC. The mission of this section is to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act and related provisions of law protecting individuals with disabilities. Additionally, the section works to spread the word about protections for people with disabilities under law. Our only client is the United States, and we take on cases that are impactful for the individuals as well as for people with disabilities in general.

During my time with the DOJ, I was able to draft settlement agreements, observe settlement negotiations, research and draft memorandums of law, and provide support for cases that are in litigation and active investigation. This experience gave me the opportunity to apply my knowledge after my first year of law school and expand my understanding of the life of a civil rights lawyer. Additionally, it confirmed my passion for civil rights law. I was able to work on matters in which individuals alleged discrimination on the basis of disability. These matters ranged from employment contexts, to schools and prisons. The stories behind the matters are what gave me the motivation to put in hard work and expand my knowledge. I was also inspired by the attorneys and staff I worked with who were brought to the section by their passion for advocacy and the rights of people with disabilities.

My summer in DC gave me both the experiences and connections that I need to pursue a career in civil rights law after graduating from Duke Law. I met with many attorneys throughout my internship who do the work I aspire to do and learned about their paths to civil rights work. Being in Washington, DC enabled me to connect with individuals across the Department of Justice, Department of Labor, EEOC, and other offices. I also attended lunches and presentations provided by the DOJ that informed me about the work of various components of the DOJ. This gave me the confidence to focus my career on public interest work right after graduation, and left me with a greater understanding of what civil rights work looks like in both government and non-profit contexts.

Finally, I developed close relationships with the fellow interns and the attorneys in my office. These individuals made my summer enjoyable, and will be great connections going forward in pursuit of my career. Being in Washington, DC and working for DOJ was an outstanding opportunity to envision my future career, and develop the skills I will need to be a successful attorney.

Submitted August 10, 2018

Advocates for Children’s Services – Durham, North Carolina

As an intern with a LANC project team, being able to work on statewide issues in a specialized area of law has been both challenging and rewarding. Although I have prior experience working on issues related to youth rights and education, litigation and representation of youth clients in education matters is unfamiliar territory for me. The opportunity to meet parents, youth, and their legal and community advocates has been empowering and highlights the importance of the work that ACS and LANC attorneys, staff, and volunteers do. In these ways, I have enjoyed my internship experience, which has reinforced my commitment towards pursuing a public interest career after graduation.

Through the Advocates for Children’s Services project, I have shadowed attorneys and our social worker as they represent clients in education hearings. These opportunities allowed me to meet with clients, their parents, and see how school administrators and education laws protect and inhibit access to free and appropriate public education. One of the benefits of working on a statewide project is that clients and advocacy opportunities are not limited to the more urban counties like Durham and Wake. For example, I went several times to Warren County and saw stark differences in the availability and access to resources, and how directly influential the administrators, law enforcement, and court systems were in shaping the lives of residents. In contrast, Wake and Durham counties serve many more students, who have access to more programs and alternative placements for students. The school districts are also represented by large private firms, unlike the Warren County schools, where it seems that an attorney in the district attorney’s office also represents the school district on education matters in a private capacity. The interplay of communal relationships and resources is important in how ACS attorneys can effectively represent clients and collaborate with clients and their parents on their desired outcomes.
Developing this perspective has been important as I represented a client. Although the client resides in Wake County, seeing how relationships between administrators, students, families, law enforcement, and mental and behavioral health service organizations form is important in providing legal advice and developing legal strategy to better serve the clients. A relationship between a child and his or her school is likely long-lasting and may precede and continue our involvement as attorneys. The consequences of a student not receiving appropriate education based on academic or behavioral needs, and the environment in which a student with a disability should be educated in, are significant if not addressed or insufficient. Relationships between parents and students with school administrators plays an important role in preserving the opportunity for students to receive the best education available, so part of the legal advocacy I am learning about is discovering how to preserve or create positive relationships between families and the school despite the adversarial nature of legal advocacy.

Submitted July 28, 2018

Law and Policy Forum for Social Justice (LAPSOJ) – Kathmandu, Nepal

In the summer of 2018, I had the wonderful opportunity to intern as a rising 3L with the Law and Policy for Social Justice (LAPSOJ) in Kathmandu, Nepal. This young, but ambitious, non-governmental organization (NGO) is working on transitional justice and human rights issues in Nepal. After years of socio-political conflict and transition, Nepal adopted a new constitution in 2015. LAPSOJ works to dismantle barriers to the access of justice in order to ensure that the fundamental rights guaranteed in the new constitution are practically realized and that the new Nepali government adheres to its international human rights obligations.

At its core, LAPSOJ is a strategic litigation NGO. LAPSOJ’s current project, which I primarily worked on this summer, focuses on migrant worker issues. In recent years, Nepal has emerged as one of the most prominent countries of origin for foreign labor, averaging more than 1,500 Nepalese migrant workers leaving Nepal every day for foreign employment. Migrant workers are extremely important to the modern Nepalese economy, with remittance from foreign labor making up over 31% of the national GDP. Unfortunately, Nepalese migrant workers frequently experience a wide-range of abuses, including human trafficking, at the hands of the private and governmental actors that facilitate Nepal’s foreign labor regime.

So far in the project period, LAPSOJ filed five Public Interest Litigations (PILs) directly with the Supreme Court of Nepal, which have tackled issues including disproportionately high rates of migrant worker deaths in destination countries, legal aid and legal assistance to migrant workers in destination countries, out-of-country voting rights for Nepali migrant workers, Nepal’s Zero Recruitment Policy, and the regulation of foreign employment agents. LAPSOJ is currently expanding its efforts to follow up on the implementation of those Supreme Court decisions and is seeking to build upon the judgments’ foundational rights. It was just approved for a grant renewal (from the concept notes that I drafted!) that will support a more holistic approach in engaging stakeholders, finding routes to effective implementation, start a direct services legal aid program for migrant workers, and publish an annual legal journal centered on the foreign employment sector.

I originally pursued this summer internship to generally cultivate greater experience in the international policy field. Ending up specifically at LAPSOJ was the product of a series of coincidences. I was unfamiliar with much of Nepal’s history, political system, and the degree of difficulties facing migrant workers. After this summer, I cannot properly express to you the passion that I have developed for the wonderful work that LAPSOJ is doing. I admire my supervising attorneys at LAPSOJ, who have been wonderful mentors, because they exhibit great perseverance and flexibility in working not only in a developing country, but also in a transitional state on behalf of some of the most marginalized members of their society. My personal highlights from this summer include drafting concept notes for a grant that were approved by Humanity United and writing a journal article/recommendation to the Nepalese government on the benefits of international sentence transfers. Next week, my supervising attorney plans to use my research to amend the organization’s PIL on mutual legal assistance to include the state’s obligation to organize international sentence transfer agreements.
My advice to future students considering an internship with this organization is to be unafraid in reaching out to the LAPSOJ attorneys prior to applying. Even though I do not speak Nepali and I had no prior training in transitional justice mechanisms, I feel that I was still able to succeed here because I am extremely detail-oriented (much of my job involved editing and drafting English language documents) and I am flexible regarding the inevitable logistical difficulties that come with living in a developing country. Interns here should also feel comfortable in requesting certain types of assignments or pitching their own ideas—the attorneys appreciate initiative and are very accommodating.

LAPSOJ will likely not solicit interns on any American public interest website; I was introduced to the organization through a former Duke Law LLM. However, I believe that students should definitely reach out to the organization because they will receive an unparalleled experience in international human rights law and policy.

Submitted July 25, 2018