The Legal Aid Society

Undergraduate Intern

June - August 2019 • New York City, NY

What I liked

My internship enabled me to interact with highly-skilled, inspiring, and intelligent attorneys and staff members in the Immigration Law Unit. As a result, I was able to learn and witness a lot. Furthermore, I really liked that I was able to directly work with clients and assist with case work. Within the first week of my internship, I started conducting meetings with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to renew their status. I conducted around 35 of these within my eight weeks. Between these meetings, I assisted with attorney case work, often helping prepare many different immigration applications for a variety of filings, including naturalization, adjustment of status, and U-Visa. This direct exposure to immigration law allowed me to gain so much more experience, and greater insight into the field, and to cultivate a greater passion for legal advocacy.

What I wish was different

As for my internship, it was structurally really great. As an undergraduate, I was supervised by both a paralegal and an attorney, and learned a lot of different things and received a lot of different assignments and advice from both of them. Personally, I would change the scope of what I specialized in. At my internship, I primarily met with DACA recipients. If I were to return to the Legal Aid Society to complete another internship, I would try to have more hands-on experience working directly with immigrants of other statuses, such as VAWA, U-Visa, or T-Visas. All of these filings pertain to immigrants who have been subject to domestic abuse, crime, or trafficking. As someone interested in women's rights and violence prevention, I would have been interested in working more directly with recipients of these statuses. In addition, while I mostly focused on affirmative immigration filings, I wish I was also able to witness more of immigration defense--including court proceedings, removal defense, and the circumstances in detention facilities. However, in only eight-weeks, it is completely understandable that I was not able to witness and do everything, especially considering the magnitude and vastness of immigration law. These "short-comings" are things to think about doing the next-time around. To ensure that you are specializing in what you are interested in, just be vocal about what you want to help with and witness--your supervisor should be receptive and can give you these opportunities.

Advice

My advice is to take care of yourself. An internship in legal advocacy and in immigration law exposes you to the tragedies embedded within society and institutions. Immigration law, especially currently, can be very emotionally-taxing as you are working directly with an amazing individuals who have to experience so much hardship and endure so much. The way to sustainably pursue this line of work and do the most for the individuals you seek to aid is to learn how to take care of yourself and to practice self-care. For me, this meant I learned to get a good night's rest, to not check my work email outside of internship hours, and to be realistic with myself and the capacity of my role. It also means finding someone at your internship you can check-in with. Being a young intern thrusted in a really serious and complex environment can be tough, and so these mechanisms will make your experience and internship as positive as can be. It will also allow you to truly experience the privilege and blessing that comes with being able to engage with, help, and learn from individuals in need.

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Paralegal Casehandler

September 2018 • New York City, NY

What I liked

The Legal Aid Society's support staff is unionized through SEIU 1199, great benefits and employee protections.

What I wish was different

Advice

Great stepping stone to get hands-on client experience, especially with low-income community members. Watch for burn-out in high caseload/low-pay non-profit jobs though. Take care of yourself!

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Investigative Intern

June - August 2018 • New York City, NY

What I liked

I enjoyed the comprehensive training I received and the on-the field aspect of the internship

What I wish was different

Advice

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Legal Intern

June - July 2018 • Kew Gardens, NY

What I liked

The willingness of the staff to allow me to shadow and interact with legal tasks and activities. I liked the amount of exposure I had to cases and the independence I was given.

What I wish was different

More structured schedule/tasks. Most days I wasn't being monitored when I was arriving or leaving or what tasks I was working on. This was good because it increased my independence but also meant there were some days where there was nothing for me to work on. Also, a metro card for travel would have been nice since I wasn't being paid.

Advice

Be proactive, find tasks to do even if they don't give you anything to do. Jot down notes and keep an internship journal of what you did each day.

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Paralegal Intern

June - August 2018 • New York City, NY

What I liked

I loved how much hands-on experience I got in the Bronx Family Court courtrooms, as well as all my access to the petitions and medical reports, as well as the opportunity to work with and shadow social workers, attorneys, and paralegals in the field. I also had one specific attorney as a mentor who was so amazing to work with, taught me everything I'd need to know, and created these opportunities for me to meet the kids and go behind the scenes of a lot of the work we were doing.

What I wish was different

I definitely wish I'd had more time to do this internship besides just the summer! And I would have loved more chances to build a relationship with the kids I worked with, rather than just meeting them once or twice.

Advice

Definitely prepare yourself for the things you might hear in family court or read about in the petitions, because a lot of it can be shocking and/or heartbreaking. But go in with an open mind and lots of questions; I started this internship knowing next to nothing about family court and how it functions (or often, does not function) and now working there is something I'm considering as a future career.

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