2025 Summer Public Interest Fellow

How would you describe your experience?

My experience this summer has been extremely fulfilling. I feel like I am finally getting to do the things that inspired me to enter the legal field years ago. This summer I was able to directly help numerous individuals deal with problems and create solutions that they may not have been able to do otherwise. From the beginning, all I have wanted to do was help make a substantial impact on people's lives, for the better. Working for Journey's End has allowed me to do that. Since I started my legal education, as well as my legal career, I have been working towards the privilege of being able to help clients one on one. At Journey's End I got to hear their stories personally, and feel more connected to the cases I was working on daily. Having worked in the legal field before in more administrative roles, I sometimes felt detached from the work I was doing. But being able to offer direct help, and be the person to provide a solution is extremely motivating. It is a daily reminder of why I wanted to become a lawyer to begin with, and it reaffirmed that this is what I want to do in life.

What impacted you the most?

Immigration is a unique field, especially now, since day-to-day work can change quickly in response to new government policies. Whether it was executive orders, legislation being passed, Supreme Court decisions, or judicial injunctions, every day I would wake up and the rule I followed yesterday could be changed. This happened often. Further, there was a looming sense of uncertainty surrounding the whole field. This impacted me the most, because one of the things I admire most about what attorneys do, is that they tend to have answers to things most people don't have the answers to. I want to be a lawyer so that I can help people in times of uncertainty. Until recently, I have always had the understanding that some things about the legal field were always certain, and that there were some foundational rules or procedural rules that would never change. This job showed me in real time exactly how uncertain things can be. This is something I didn't fully understand until I was at Journey's End, sitting in front of clients, and genuinely having no answer. Or, in the alternative, my only answer being that their fate depended on the changing rules coming from the administration that day.

What surprised me even more was the culmination of all of my education being put to use. Having a background in international relations from my undergraduate degree was extremely relevant at Journey's End, and getting to connect those skills with the skills I acquired through my first year of law school made me feel capable to work in this position even in the midst of all the uncertainty.

What would you like to share with our donors?

I would like to express my gratitude to the donors of the John P. Comerford ‘95 and Hope P. Comerford Fellowship for facilitating my experience at Journey's End. Not only did this fellowship enable me to dedicate my summer to a non-profit organization, it allowed me to explore an area of the law that is new to me and to further my passion for advocacy of underrepresented individuals. This experience has helped me discover what I truly want to pursue in my legal career, and taught me lessons which cannot be replicated in any classroom.