2Ls Isabel Mattina and Eliza Gabai organized a fundraiser to donate goats to a cooperative of widows of the 1994 Rwandan genocide in the southern province of Rwanda while doing research there this summer.
They claim you can do anything with a law degree. A survey of summer jobs held by rising 2Ls and 3Ls demonstrates that this saying holds true. This past summer, Cardozo students worked in a wide spectrum of legal jobs, ranging from the more traditional to the less conventional, in a multitude of cities across the United States, as well as in many different countries worldwide.
A number of Cardozo students worked abroad this past summer, according to statistics provided by the Office of Career Services. Among those students working abroad, 11 of them (seven rising 2Ls and four rising 3Ls) received funding through the International Human Rights and Public Service Fellowship offered by the school. Locally, more than 140 students received the Public Service Fellows stipend offered through the school, and countless others received funding through other sources, such as Federal Work Study, the Charles Revson LSPIN Fellowship, and the Squadron Fellowship.
Eliza Gabai, 2L, worked in Kigali-Remera, Rwanda this summer at AVEGA-AVAHOZO, an organization started by 50 widows of the Rwandan genocide in order to support widows and orphans by providing medical services, counseling, and legal resources. Carina Patritti, 3L, spent her summer in Tel Aviv, Israel at the African Refugee Development Center (ARDC), a non-profit organization that, among other things, does advocacy work for refugee rights. Patritti spent a majority of her time at ARDC interviewing asylum seekers and drafting asylum applications.
Closer to home, students worked in a variety of jobs throughout NYC and the rest of the United States. Steven Baer, 2L, worked at a regional insurance defense firm, Marks, O’Neill, O’Brien & Courtney P.C., in Elmsford, N.Y. At the firm, Baer mainly dealt with labor law cases, representing the employers or contractors who were being sued for the employee’s injuries. Kevann Gardner, 3L, spent his summer at the NAACP legal defense fund in Manhattan (LDF), which works to achieve racial justice in America. At the LDF, Gardner was able to work on, among other things, the case Farrakhan v. Gregoire, which dealt with providing ex-felons and incarcerated citizens with the right to vote.
Many students found that their law school classes, clinics, and extracurricular activities proved beneficial for their summer jobs. Gabai felt that the Cardozo winter session seminar she attending in Rwanda, entitled “Justice and Reconciliation in Post Conflict Rwanda,” was extremely helpful, while Lauren Zimmerman, 2L, found that her property class was the most useful for her work at the Bronx Housing Unit of the Legal Aid Society, where her department strived to prevent NYC tenants from being evicted from their homes.
Although the summer job search process can be an overwhelming one, the prior experiences of these fellow students can be informative. Advises Patritti, “Don’t just apply to places online. You need to ask around. Ask your fellow students, ask professors in that field… Also, start early!” Seconds Maria Chickedantz, 2L, who spent her summer in Beirut, Lebanon, working for the National Center for State Courts (NCSC): “I sent my CV to every single person I knew in the Middle East and told them I wanted to spend a summer there. Cardozo does offer some resources in this respect, but organizations located abroad work on a different schedule, and sometimes they don’t realize they even want a legal intern until you convince them that they do.”
While the experiences of this handful of Cardozo students do not represent the views of the entire student body, they do show that many students had an enjoyable and enriching summer experience. Zimmerman felt that her favorite part of the job was working with the clients, while Gardner felt that his was “working with the dedicated and accomplished attorneys at the organization.” Patritti exclaimed, “I really can’t name one aspect of my job that was my least favorite. I had an amazing experience overall.”