My Last Law School Summer

My summer was an interesting, productive one, with some fun thrown in there right near the end. I started the summer working as a summer associate for a big employment law firm in Downtown L.A. The office was on the 63rd floor of the tallest building currently silhouetting Downtown’s skyline – complete with marble countertops, mildly abstract art pieces, a fridge full of Le Croix flavored sparkling waters, and all the other accoutrements of corporate law firms. My work at the firm largely comprised of research projects for various lawsuits that the firm was defending. The research in and of itself allowed me to familiarize myself with the basics of employment law while assisting the associates and partners with tough and exceedingly narrow questions of law. The work was exciting at times and very educational.

Early in the summer, I represented one of my Juvenile Innocence and Fair Sentencing Clinic clients at the California Court of Appeal. The experience was invigorating as well as nerve-wracking. Luckily, with being employed full-time, I didn’t have the opportunity to get too nervous about the oral argument that I was to deliver. The time crunch allowed me to hyper-focused on the work and ignore any developing fears about the prospect of arguing alone in front of a panel of judges. Ultimately, the process went smoothly, I argued the case competently, and a couple months later we found out that we prevailed on the matter. Our client’s sentence was vacated with a remand to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing.

Like my past clinical work, the experience was extremely gratifying in a number of ways. I highly encourage anyone reading this to look into clinical work at Loyola; the programs are amazing and present extraordinarily unique opportunities to students.

I rounded out the summer with a brief but satisfying trip to Prague and Amsterdam with my wife. What a joy that was. We also found out the day before the trip that she is pregnant with our second child. This new one will be due right around spring semester finals in 2018. Yikes!