School: Emory University School of Law

I first found out about the Emory Summer Child Advocacy Program from my career services advisor the day before the application deadline. As a 1L two weeks away from my first final exam, I was frazzled and had no idea what I wanted to do over the summer, which seemed an awfully long way off. My advisor thought that working in the child advocacy field was a logical step following my teaching background before law school, and I agreed with her. So, I worked all afternoon on the application, sent it in about an hour before the deadline, and ended up with five interviews in January.

When I interviewed with Michelle Barclay at the Supreme Court of Georgia's Committee on Justice for Children via telephone, I knew very little about what the committee actually did. However, over the course of the interview I was impressed with how organized and driven Michelle sounded, and I knew this was the placement I wanted. I was happy to learn in February that I had indeed been matched with the Supreme Court's Committee on Justice for Children. I remember discussing it with my faculty advisor before accepting the job, and he spoke so very highly of Michelle, saying it was an honor to have the chance to work with her. After ten weeks on the job, I can undoubtedly say he was right.

Unlike the other intern at my placement who had a guided research project in mind from the start, I came into this internship with few expectations. When we met with the staff our first day, I basically said that I wanted to experience as much as possible in this field and really get some hands on experience in my first law school summer. Michelle and the rest of the staff came through big time. I jumped in with both feet my first day, participating in a conference call with a judge about an hour after I started. Soon I was drafting a memo for that same judge on the meaning of compelling reasons within the Adoption and Safe Families Act and working on a Power Point presentation he would deliver at the Court Improvement Initiative (CII) in Fulton County just a couple of weeks into the summer. I felt fortunate to be able to attend both days of that meeting, and seeing Judge Spivey present the information I had worked on was a very fulfilling experience. It was then that I began to see the real world application of what we were doing - a refreshing change from the world of law school as far as I was concerned.

Less than a week after the CII, I found myself at the Higher Learning Institute in Atlanta presenting along with Judge Vincent Crawford and the other interns from our office to large groups of foster youth who were graduating high school. This was an incredible experience. The youth were so engaged and so excited about what we had to say. Many of them stayed after our presentations to talk with us, give us their contact information, and share their experiences with us. Christopher Church, one of the other interns, and I ended up keeping in touch with several of these youth throughout the summer, even traveling around the state to talk to them and incorporating their stories into several of our research papers. These interactions with the youth made me nostalgic for my teaching days and made everything that we were doing seem very real and very relevant to people's lives.

Throughout the summer I was able to attend numerous meetings and conferences, which gave me the broad exposure to this field of law that I was seeking. In June I attended the Western Judicial Circuit Summit in Athens, GA, and the Hall County Stakeholders' meeting. At these meetings, staff from our office presented stakeholders with data allowing them to compare their county to others and to the state as a whole. The meetings concluded with brainstorming sessions wherein the stakeholders identified their strengths and challenges and then planned possible solutions. These types of meetings were always fascinating for me. It is very interesting to see what different stakeholders in different parts of the state identify as their strengths and weaknesses, what pieces of data really strike them, and what they think will fix the problems. I also had the opportunity to attend the Cherokee County Adoptive and Foster Parents' meeting and hear an entirely different perspective on the child welfare system.

Another part of my summer work experience that I really enjoyed was participating in summer court assessments. On these assessments we traveled to juvenile courts in different counties, observed court hearings, and reviewed a random sampling of case files. As we sat in on court and picked through case files, we used assessment instruments developed from the American Bar Association standards to see what the strengths and weaknesses of the particular court were. At the end of the day we would meet with the judge, and sometimes clerk of court, to review our findings. I traveled to Whitfield County, Camden County, and Clarke County for these assessments. In addition to providing a great observation experience (the only time I saw a full blown two-hour deprivation hearing), the Camden County trip provided a great bonding experience with staff members over the course of 12 hours in the car, meals, and time in the hotel.

Towards the end of the summer I also attended all three days of the Office of the Child Advocate conference. I really enjoyed this experience as well. I had the chance to meet Tom Rawlings, the new director of the Office, and to see some great presentations on topics ranging from methamphetamine addiction and treatment to legislative updates, from psychiatric drugs used with children to case law updates. It was certainly time well spent.

In terms of work product, I worked on several major projects this summer. For several weeks I researched the Federal IV-E waiver demonstration for subsidized guardianships in Illinois and wrote a 27-page report on those results and what Georgia might learn from them going forward. Additionally, I worked on some possible draft legislation modifying adoptions in Georgia that hopefully will be carried forward by someone after I have left this placement. One of the projects I enjoyed most was working on an article co-authored by a juvenile judge and a law professor here in Georgia concerning representation by Special Assistant Attorneys General in our state. Following weeks of hard work, that article has finally been submitted to the state bar for possible publication later this year. I was able to actually submit the final draft myself, and that was a feeling of incredible accomplishment. Finally, another intern and I worked together to draft a 12-page article concerning the presence of children in court during their deprivation proceedings. During the final week of the internship, we presented that research to a group of people involved in child advocacy, and we hope to submit it for publication early in 2008. In working on that research we talked to foster youth across Georgia, which was very inspiring and fulfilling.

Going forward from this internship into my 2L year I am still not certain what my career plans hold in store for me. I do know that regardless of where I end up, I will always remember this experience, the people I worked with, the youth I met, and the work that needs to be done in this field. Should I end up in the private sector, I am committed to finding a firm that devotes pro bono hours to child welfare in some form. Before I wrote this final report, I looked back at what interns from previous summers had written, and I noticed that one intern from two years ago referenced Teach For America in their report. I would like to continue that trend in my report, as I think it is an extremely valid point that should be made to professionals in this field.

Many times over the summer I was struck by the fact that catch phrases that became second nature to me during my years with Teach For America frequently came up in this line of work as well. Talk of "setting the bar high" and "closing gaps" is all around those working in child welfare law. Teach For America believes wholeheartedly that when the bar is set high, children will rise to meet it. I saw children in two inner city settings where I taught do just that, and it remains the most powerful experience of my life. I do not know precisely what the connection is or what the plan should be, but I believe, as this previous intern wrote, there is a resource to be tapped there. The skyrocketing number of applicants to Teach For America proves that there are thousands upon thousands of young people graduating from the nation's top colleges with a desire to work with youth in high needs areas. Perhaps a similar program could be created to bring some of these people in as clerks in juvenile courts or as mentors for foster youth. Perhaps in the cities where Teach For America is already thriving - Atlanta among many others - those corps members who have already devoted a minimum of two years to AmeriCorps and Teach For America could be recruited as volunteers to mentor foster youth. We heard the youth speak time and time again this summer of the value of one on one interaction. It is those types of mentoring relationships that I believe will help youth past the anger or depression that often comes with entering the foster care system so that they can move towards permanency and stability in their lives. I speak so passionately about Teach For America only because I know first hand the passion of the people who enter that corps - they are already volunteers and public servants with hearts and minds devoted to children. Isn't that what we need to make a difference in the lives of our foster youth?

With that, I conclude what has been the best 1L summer work experience I could have imagined. I have worked hands on doing legal research and writing, court observations, and meeting with judges, youth, and other stakeholders throughout the state. I have spent zero hours sitting in a library and countless hours listening to heart wrenching stories and then researching, writing and doing everything I could think of to make a different for the young people who told them. I am indebted and incredible grateful to Michelle Barclay, Melissa Carter, Beth Locker, Lori Bramlett and Regina Roberts for this experience. They have been an incredible group of people to work for. I would recommend this internship to anyone and hope I have the opportunity to do just that through this report.