Before this summer, most of my experience with the law had been in the classroom. I had spent my first year of law school reading cases, writing memos, and learning how to analyze legal issues, but I had never really had the chance to apply those skills to “real life.”

That changed this summer when I worked as an intern for an administrative judge at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). At the EEOC, I helped my judge with different parts of her docket, including conducting legal research, communicating with parties, presenting cases, and observing hearings and settlement conferences. 

One of my main responsibilities was drafting seven summary judgement decisions. Each one required me to work through a large factual record, figure out which facts were actually important, understand the relevant law, and analyze the arguments made by both sides. Coming into this straight from 1L year was an interesting adjustment. In law school, cases are designed to teach you a particular issue, and you usually know the general idea of what to be looking for. At the EEOC, the records were real, the facts were messy, and there was not always an obvious answer. I had to learn how to sort through everything and decide what actually mattered.

One of the things I appreciated most about the internship was getting to use so many of the skills I had learned during my first year at BC Law, especially in my Law Practice class. Throughout the year, we practiced doing legal research, analyzing legal issues, and communicating our conclusions clearly, both orally and in writing. During my internship, those assignments suddenly felt much more real. It was rewarding to see that the skills I had spent the year practicing in class really did translate into day-to-day legal work. 

It was also the first time I really understood how much responsibility comes with legal writing. These were not hypothetical clients or made-up fact patterns; they were real people who had been waiting for decisions in cases that affected their jobs and their lives. That made me much more aware of how carefully I needed to approach the work.

Looking back, one of the biggest things I gained from the summer was confidence. At the beginning, opening a 1000+ page record and being asked to analyze an unfamiliar legal issue felt overwhelming. By the end of the summer, I felt much more comfortable working through complicated facts, researching the law, and trusting my own analysis. More than anything, this experience made me excited to keep building my legal skills throughout law school and eventually in practice.

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Rebecca Carcieri is a second-year student at BC Law. Contact her at carcierr@bc.edu. Photographer for featured image: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Image