This summer, with the support of the Harvard Club of New York, I completed a summer legal internship in the New York office of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). I was assigned to NRDC’s Safe Water Initiative and spent most of my time conducting legal research on the implementation of lead service line replacement programs, particularly salient due to the influx of funding for LSL replacement from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. I worked on a team of NRDC attorneys across the country working to reduce lead in drinking water, and focused on potential statutory and regulatory fixes to help reduce lead exposure for young children in New York City and New York State. I also was able to devote some time to pursuing a personal interest of mine, food system policy; I supported NRDC’s New York Regional team as they began to develop their advocacy strategy around procurement policies in New York State and New York City.

I am working at the Bronx Defenders’ Criminal Defense Practice this summer. Alongside a holistic team of attorneys, social workers, and non-legal advocates, I help represent Bronx residents in criminal proceedings. Nearly 30% of all Bronx residents live under the poverty line, making BxD’s holistic approach crucial to the success of any formal legal representation. My contributions range from representing clients at arraignments to writing mitigation reports on the inefficacy of incarcerating clients with cognitive difficulties. 

I am a 3L at Harvard Law School, and I hope to pursue a career in civil rights litigation. This summer, I received the HCNY NAACP Legal Defense Fund Fellowship for a 10-week internship at LDF in New York City. I worked on litigation concerning economic justice, voting rights, and school desegregation, in service of LDF’s mission of advancing racial justice.

As a Legal Intern at the New York Civil Liberties Union, Catherine conducted legal research and drafted memoranda to support litigation and legislative priorities on a wide range of civil rights and civil liberties issues, including voting rights as well as immigrants’ rights and LGBTQ+ rights. Her voting rights work involved researching arguments in support of non-citizen voting in New York City municipal elections; to do so, she investigated constitutional, historical, and comparative arguments about noncitizen voting in the United States and reviewed state constitutions and ongoing state litigation. She also assisted in investigating a claim of voter suppression in New York’s most recent primary elections.

“This summer, I am a litigation intern with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. My work has been focused on racial and economic justice issues, and I plan to also contribute to voting rights work later in the summer. It has been a wonderful experience to work on civil rights litigation and to learn from some of the most talented civil rights lawyers in the country at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.”

“This summer I am working as an intern for the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) team at Brooklyn Defender Services. The first program of its kind nationwide, NYIFUP provides universal representation to people facing immigration removal proceedings in New York, drastically increasing their chances of obtaining relief. Because removal proceedings often relate to criminal records, my work centers around advocating for people experiencing the intersectional harms of the racist and classist U.S. criminal and immigration legal systems.”

“I will be interning with the Juvenile Rights Practice Group at the Legal Aid Society office in Brooklyn. I will be representing children in abuse and neglect cases and in delinquency proceedings in family court.”