LPS Fellows at Alternative Spring Break

While PILA's Alternative Spring Break program was cut short for many due to COVID-19, our fellows still managed to have valuable experiences volunteering their time with participating organizations. Two of our fellows share their experiences. Caroline Elwig: One of the first things I did after arriving at the ACLU Capital Punishment Project in Durham, NC…

From Former UN Ambassadors to Dinosaurs: Why IRAP’s Student-led Model Gets it Right

  The IRAP-tor with one of the winning school chapters “Sarah, you have to let it go.” My supervisor slowly took the file I was holding out of my hand as I gave her a sheepish smile. It was the last day of my 1L summer internship at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) and…

Getting Radical in the South

This fall I flew to Austin, Texas to attend the GRITS Conference hosted by the University of Texas School of Law.   GRITS stands for Getting Radical in the South, which is both a brilliant acronym and an important mantra that, I feel, is equally relevant and necessary here in Virginia.  The conference featured practitioners across…

A Common Quest for Justice: The Value of the LPS Community for a Student with Niche Public-Interest Goals

Admittedly, my public interest career aspirations are niche. So niche, that when I tell people I aim to eventually work in the Jewish communal advocacy sector they often have no idea what I am referring to. Thus, before I share the genesis of my career goals, I must elaborate on the sector itself. While the…

Exploring Career Paths in the “and more” Category

For better or worse, an inherent part of the aspiring public interest lawyer’s path is to go against the grain of the typical law school experience and be at least a bit off-kilter from the vast majority of your peers. But as “public interest” is certainly not a one-size-fits-all career path, I have found myself…

Child Advocacy in Action

I love law school, but at times it’s easy to feel isolated from the real world amid all of the studying. By the time March of my first year rolled around, more hands-on experience was exactly what I needed so I participated in Alternative Spring Break this year at the Council for Children’s Rights in…

Do UVA Law’s Alternative Spring Break, Just Not for the Reason I Did

I will admit it. I was not excited for UVA Law’s Alternative Spring Break (ASB). I had signed up for less than altruistic reasons. Namely, I had registered because it seemed like an efficient way to knock out the forty hours of pro bono needed to receive a Public Interest Law Association grant for the…

A Week at Public Defender Service in DC

I came into law school completely certain that I was going to be a public service lawyer. I had absolutely zero exposure or experience to public service lawyering, however. Though I had a large collection of community service hours, mostly centered around working with kids in impoverished, inner city communities (my motivation for attending law…

From “Serial” to Law School: A 1L’s Exploration of Innocence Work at UVA

One of my first introductions to UVA Law was in Fall 2014. I had gotten hooked on the popular podcast "Serial" during my commute to work. On episode seven, the Virginia Innocence Project Clinic at UVA Law partnered with the host, Sarah Koenig, to work on Adnan Syed's case. By the seventh episode I was…

Winter Break Pro Bono: Charlottesville-Albemarle Public Defender’s Office

As fellows in the Program in Law and Public Service, we—Corey Parker and Ray Gans—know that we want to devote our careers to public service. We have also been eager, as 1Ls, to dive in and gain experience in public service. Volunteering pro bono hours with the Charlottesville-Albemarle Public Defender’s Office over this past winter…