Month: November 2017

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Anea Moore, COL ’19

When my dad first told me he wanted me to be a lawyer, I was five years old and instantly intimidated by the word. Lawyer. Nope, this profession definitely wasn’t for me. Big-eyed, three and a half foot me quickly retorted that I had no desire to be a lawyer whatsoever. Lawyers were mean. They were scary and they most certainly didn’t do what I wanted to do, help people.

It’s been a decade and a half since that conversation with my dad and a lot has changed since then. I’m taller and I’m a little bit less quick in my replies. My dad passed away two and a half years ago and instead of ignoring his suggestions, I’ve learned to cherish and carry them with me. It was probably my dad’s spirit that first pushed me to looking into being a legal intern at the Public Interest Law Center this summer.

During my time at the law center, I learned a variety of lessons. First, not all lawyers are mean and they are all definitely not scary. Within the walls of the second floor of a downtown Philadelphia building, I found wisdom, support, and patience in my supervising attorneys. When I made small mistakes in my legal assignments, I wasn’t met with negative reactions. The attorneys of the center supported me as a young college student trying to decide if she really wanted to pursue a legal career. They encouraged me to review and rework my assignments. Through this editing process, I learned how to become a more detail-oriented researcher and writer. My reading, writing, research, and analytical skills improved immensely. I learned how to look at things from a different perspective through deep engagement with the real life cases of the attorneys. Once after a deposition, I had to asses the gathered information and begun looking into loopholes and other possibilities. Paying attention to the details and really getting to know the ins and outs of the cases was so important. Those actions are what helped the clients the most.

This brings me to another point, lawyers can and do help people everyday. I watched the attorneys pursue incredibly interesting cases and work this summer that can potentially help so many people. In June, the law center filed a class action lawsuit against the state of Pennsylvania that took a stand against gerrymandering and called for the redrawing of fair districts because every citizen’s vote should matter. I created a 40-page report on the least restrictive environment requirements of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act and Philadelphia schools because every special education student in Philadelphia (and around the country) has the right to a proper, fair educational environment. I also spent a large proportion of my summer helping with cases that were fighting for fair housing for low-income citizens.

My summer was filled with so much inspiration, passion, and vigor. The attorneys and staff at the center genuinely want to help people and often work long hours in pursuit of a better, more just society. I will be forever grateful to them for letting me work under them and witness such an amazing process. I definitely want to be attorneys like them in the future, all hesitation and quick-witted responses aside.

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Hayley Boote, COL ’20

Living at Penn this summer was an unforgettable experience that opened my eyes to the many academic and social opportunities that Philadelphia offers. I was lucky enough to work as a research intern for the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the Lauder Institute for the first months of the summer. The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program is run by Dr. James McGann and it is a yearly publication that ranks think tanks by country, region, and specialization.

In this capacity, I explored trends with Think Tanks internationally and helped organize the data found by serving as Data Czar. I was responsible for organizing all 8,000 think tank entries in our database, as well as assigning tasks to teams to further our research goals. At the end of the internship, my partner and I communicated our findings in a PowerPoint presentation with interactive graphics and key quantitative and qualitative trends. We were also able to attend a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with leaders at some of the nation’s top think tanks, which is an exciting venture and a great ending to the internship. I certainly improved upon my research, delegation, and data-managing skills in this role, and it was an invaluable experience for progression in my academic career.

This experience also helped me expand my knowledge of Philadelphia and the numerous significant attractions that it contains. At that point, even after living in Philadelphia for a year, I still had not been to key Philadelphian charms including the Philadelphian Museum of Art, the Franklin Institute, Citizen’s Bank Park, South Street, Penn’s Landing, and Independence Hall. Being a student a Penn does not usually allow free time to explore these places, and most students at Penn go their four years without visiting most of them. Spending the summer at Penn allowed me the opportunity to visit these amazing places and learn so much more about the place that I call home.

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Jonathan Guevara, COL ’19

This past summer I had the opportunity to intern at Friends of Farmworkers in Philadelphia. Friends of Farmworkers is a nonprofit organization that provides free direct legal services, education, and advocacy to low-wage immigrant workers in Pennsylvania. I was engaged in many different tasks such as conducting Know Your Rights presentations in Spanish to members of immigrant communities in central and eastern Pennsylvania; assisting attorneys with client interviews, drafting of affidavits, and fact-gathering for labor trafficking immigration cases and other litigation-related tasks in wage and discrimination lawsuits.

I really enjoyed my time at Friends of Farmworkers because my experience there helped me understand the struggle that agricultural and other low-income workers have to deal with on a daily basis. Workers deal with many problems such as not getting paid, getting discriminated against, getting abused physically and verbally, being detained in unjust manners, and even labor/human trafficking.

I began to see the world from two perspectives. While listening to clients tell their stories, I sought to see situations from the perspective of workers, and from the perspective of the attorneys who were managing their cases. I was exposed to many legal processes such as class action lawsuits against employers, the processing of T-visas for victims of labor trafficking, and services for victims of “notario” fraud.

In one situation, a team of interns and I were responsible for submitting an Occupational Safety and Health Administration complaint to the Department of Labor. I was in charge of contacting the client, creating an affidavit, and explaining the affidavit to my team. Something else that was emphasized regularly, and that I learned to value, was confidentiality. The concept of keeping information confidential seems very simple, but it’s of vital importance to a nonprofit organization handling very delicate information.
Outside of the office, I was able to go to new places in Pennsylvania that I had never visited before such as Kennett Square, Chambersburg, and Harrisburg. At Kennett Square, I met with community members/workers to discuss issues surrounding the unfair deportation raids occurring in the state of Pennsylvania. In Harrisburg, I attended a two-day Victims of Crime Act Grantee training session hosted by the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network. In Chambersburg, an attorney and I did outreach to workers and immigrants at a Guatemalan Mobile Consulate.
Thanks to the wonderful staff at Friends of Farmworkers, I was able to get a taste of how nonprofits provide legal services to vulnerable populations. My work didn’t feel like a job at all. I loved every moment that I spent talking to my people. I will never forget the memories I made at Friends of Farmworkers; those memories will continue to push me forward so that one day I can give back to the community that I came from. I am thankful for all of those who made my dream to intern at Friends of Farmworkers come true.