My Externship Experience

One of the best services provided by QUSL is the externship program -- it's something we do better than most law schools. I have always been a fan of experiential learning: I did summer service projects during undergrad, and did my Master's in Education while I was teaching. My brain just absorbs information better when I can connect what I'm reading to what I'm doing outside of class. So I jumped at the chance to begin externing in my third semester here, and I loved the experience.

I chose to work at New Haven Legal Assistance in their Immigration section. Primarily I worked with undocumented women who were applying for residency status under a U-Visa or VAWA. U-Visas are special applications that can be submitted by victims of crimes who happen to be undocumented but are still willing to cooperate with law enforcement in the investigation of the crime. The benefit for law enforcement is that normally these people would hide because they are afraid of deportation, but the U-Visa gives them incentive to come forward. The benefit for the victims is that they can work towards gaining permanent resident status if their U-Visa application is approved. The other statute we worked with was the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA. Anyone applying for citizenship must have a sponsor who is a U.S. citizen, and sometimes this sponsor will use that position of power to abuse the person seeking citizenship. (Often it is a citizen husband who is threatening to have his wife deported unless she does what he says.) VAWA allows the woman to apply directly for citizenship, so that she doesn't need the sponsor anymore. So when I wasn't in class, I spent my time helping women in abusive relationships to get out of the abuse and get their lives back together by getting their green cards. That's not something I imagined I could do when I was applying to law school!

Besides learning about contracts and torts and taxes, I think it is vital for a law student to learn how to interview a client, how to counsel a client, and how to represent them under the Rules of Professional Conduct. My externship gave me experience in all of those things, as did the required prerequisite that I took here at QUSL called "Introduction to Representing Clients." So when I go into practice, I will already be one step ahead.

Just to round out the picture, I am also a member of the Society for Dispute Resolution, where we focus on methods of alternative dispute resolution (i.e. not litigation) such as client counseling, negotiation, and mediation. I also worked for a federal magistrate judge in the summer and got to sit in on many settlement conferences, as well as writing rulings for her, so I have now seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of clients in action. Taking these extracurricular experiences back to the classroom has allowed me to get much more out of my readings and class discussions.

Jeff Nichols '10