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… Continue reading LPS Fellows at Alternative Spring Break
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… Continue reading Child Advocacy in Action
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… Continue reading Do UVA Law’s Alternative Spring Break, Just Not for the Reason I Did
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… Continue reading A Week at Public Defender Service in DC
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… Continue reading From “Serial” to Law School: A 1L’s Exploration of Innocence Work at UVA
Over the weekend, UVA law alumni Aly Pont, Monica Haymond, Alison Friberg, Devon Yamauchi, Peter Kye, Rebecca Caruso, and Jennifer Talbert, all Class of 2016, went to the Dulles airport to offer their assistance to travelers detained by President Trump's Executive Order. Note: Federal law and internal agency ethics rules impose various limitations on the actions… Continue reading UVA Law Alumni Offer Help to Detained Travellers
Conversations with Practitioners is our ongoing series in which we ask current practitioners about their careers. 1. What do you currently do? I am an Assistant United States Attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia. Our office is a little different from other U.S. Attorney's offices. Since there is no D.A.… Continue reading Vivian Kim
Conversations with Practitioners is our ongoing series in which we ask current practitioners about their careers 1. What do you currently do? I am a staff attorney at EarthRights International (ERI), a nonprofit human rights and environmental organization with offices in SE Asia, the Amazon, and Washington, D.C. ERI uses transnational litigation and advocacy strategies to… Continue reading Michelle Harrison
One thing on a lot of law students’ minds is the best way to get good training early on. As we learned in the Law and Public Service class, the law school curriculum has largely been shaped by the interests of private firms that want law students to walk through the door as blank slates,… Continue reading Early Training
This past summer, I worked at a large law firm that does corporate transactional work. While I did devote some of my time during the summer to working on corporate or finance matters, at the end of the summer I realized that the majority of my time had actually been spent on pro bono matters.… Continue reading Inspired by Pro Bono at a Big Firm
Program in Law and Public Service Blog 