Student Experiences

Our students participate in a variety of local, national, and international externships every semester and summer.

Carly Koza

Carly Koza, 2021. Carly spent her last semester of law school as an extern for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Her work earned her the Clinical Legal Education Association’s (CLEA) Outstanding Student Award for excellence in a Capstone externship!

Her experience included reviewing CDC guidelines, OSHA, and PA Department of Health Orders, and she drafted presentations, trainings, instructions, and internal memoranda to educate staff on COVID-19 compliance to ensure both workplace and fan safety. She also worked on copyright issues, drafted cease and desist letters, reviewed contest rules and contracts and designed an Ethics and Compliance training program.

Josh Payne

Joshua Payne, 2021. Josh externed at the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office in the Homicide Cold Case Unit. He worked with very challenging subject matter, reviewing cold cases for evidence that might be tested/retested using modern DNA technology.

Josh explained, “working alongside homicide detectives and investigators I was able to not only improve my factual investigation skills but also learned to remain detached and clinical in my examination of cases which were often very dark. The experience also taught me to partition my professional life from personal, a useful skill I am sure will help me going forward in my legal career.”

Sally Enoh

Sally Enoh. Sally spent a summer at the National Institute of Health, Precision Medicine Initiative working at the intersection of law and medicine to see how the different parts of the healthcare system (lawyers, doctors, scientists) work together.

At NIH, she completed targeted research assignments and drafted memos on federal and state statutes governing research with populations such as children, people of color, and those who are decisionally impaired. She also met and discussed the purpose and goals of Precision Medicine with the senior staff members of the research program, which allowed her to gain insights into how it furthers the Human Genome Project.

Alireza Nourani-Dargiri

Alireza Nourani-Dargiri. Ali spent a summer externing with the Greater Boston Legal Services – CORI & Re-entry Project. He completed a research project over racial disparities in traffic stops in the state of Massachusetts. The project included general information as well as recommendations that police departments could implement that would help to curb racial biases in policing.

When asked why he accepted this summer offer, Alireza explains, “GBLS has a renowned re-entry project that does a lot of good for communities of color and brings to light some of the racial disparity issues in the criminal justice system. I wanted to be part of a program that was focused on a social justice initiative and GBLS had just that. Additionally, the CORI & Re-entry project had a legislative initiative going on at the same time, so I would get both the traditional legal experience as well as experience in legislation lobbying.”

He says, "this experience has definitely made me a better writer and has enhanced my legal research skills thanks to the various research projects I had. Finally, this experience gave me practical experiences with working with many clients, and showed me how to be the best advocate I can be in every step from intake to drafting documents for their respective hearings."

Zhiwei Hua

Zhiwei Hua. Zhiwei completed a summer externship at the Cuyahoga County Law Department. He completed legal research on issues including competency of minors to testify under rule of evidence and wrote a stipulated motion for entry of judgment.

Zhiwei wanted to gain legal experience in a government setting to round out his other legal experiences at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court and a law firm. He said that the law school’s LLEAP curriculum prepared him for his externship, and that his externship strengthened his legal research and critical thinking skills.

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