Hometown: Alta Loma, CA
Education: Yale 2013
Affiliations: Executive Editor, California Law Review; Board of Advocates Trial Advocacy Team; Associate Editor, Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law
I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the unique opportunities spending this semester in DC has both expectedly—and unexpectedly—provided.
Expected: I have had a fantastic experience working at the Department of Justice’s Counterterrorism Section (National Security Division). I decided to take the internship because I had long been interested in national security work, but had not previously had the opportunity to try it out. The Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division provides expertise to United States Attorney’s Offices all around the country on their terrorism cases. This semester I’ve had the opportunity to work on high-profile, ongoing cases, and engage substantively with the relevant statutes and case law—just as I had hoped for.
Unexpected: last week, I was reading SCOTUSblog and saw that an attorney friend I had previously worked with at a prior job was going to be arguing in the Supreme Court that week! Causal. Obviously, I had to go watch. So, along with a couple other UCDC law friends, we got in line to see the argument at 7:45 am and were able to snag the very last three seats. Walking into the room and seeing the Justices in the flesh, I was as excited as a 12 year-old at a Taylor Swift concert. It was an experience I won’t soon forget.
Second unexpected surprise (and origin of the picture above): last month, another UCDC law friend who was spending the semester externing in Congress gave me a tour of the deserted, late-Friday-afternoon-before-a-long-weekend Capitol. As we were walking by Speaker Paul Ryan’s office, one of his staff members asked us if we wanted to go out on the Speaker’s balcony before he had to lock it up. Obviously, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see what many have hyped up as “the best view in DC.” It didn’t disappoint.
Originally published by University of California UCDC Law Program, Dec. 4, 2017.