Rebecca Whetten

I learned a lot about the process a criminal case will go through, from how it starts at charging to sentencing at the end. I got to watch a couple of trials all the way through and gave feedback to the lead attorney on how witnesses were coming off and how the jury seemed to be reacting. 

I also was able to learn a lot about different styles of doing things, from court demeanor to interactions with defense counsel. By being able to work with many different attorneys, I was able to learn different things from each and begin to figure out what kind of attorney I want to be.

Emily Espinoza

This externship solidified my desire to pursue a career in the public interest sector. Serving in the federal government is fast- paced, challenging, and everything I was looking for when pursuing a legal career. This externship gave me an opportunity to experience the environment of a federal government career in Washington, D.C., which alone made me grow as a person, student, and lawyer. The benefit of having gotten out of my comfort zone has changed my career-trajectory.

Kyle-Matthew Taylor

Carla Bywaters

I worked on the Statutes at Large project to facilitate congress.gov in its desire to make every bill from the US Congress available on its website. My partner and I searched for the 20+ fields of metadata for each statute from the 75th Congress (1937), which is not all available in the same place. I learned to navigate to the Law Library of Congress (law.gov) and quickly access its collections. I also learned how to read a Statutes at Large volume to locate the diverse information we were providing. We then created a spreadsheet and entered this information so the development/technology team could add the statutes in the system and make them publicly available.

The externship was immensely beneficial as my primary goal was to become a law librarian, specifically at Boyd, which has come to fruition. I now aim to help equip our students to become proficient researchers in both free and commercial services alike.

Jacquelyn Zuniga-Calderon

I worked in a lot of clinics, including the expunging clinic, domestic violence/restraining order clinics (which included elderly abuse), unlawful evictions, and the conservatorship clinic. Throughout all, I really found the experiences to be invaluable, as I worked with individuals one-on-one, provided legal information, helped individuals file forms, and overall helped people get through tough situations. My writing skills also improved, and I was able to help individuals structure and tell stories in the expungement clinic. If someone were able to get their criminal records expunged, it would be life changing. For domestic violence temporary restraining orders, it was helping someone get out of a bad situation. I really enjoyed helping everyone; it was rewarding to see how the clinics definitely assisted people in need.

Josyln Melendez

Prior to this externship, I did not have experience in criminal law. This externship helped me gain new knowledge and curbed whatever fears I had. I am more confident in my decision to go into public service. I also made new connections with individuals in the field that I would not have made on my own. I really enjoyed every aspect of it!

Maria Thompson

It was very cool getting a glimpse behind the firewall and learning about an evolving area of law. Whenever I got off the phone with a NASA employee, they always ended the call with, ‘Thank you for contributing to the mission,’ and hearing that was pretty surreal.

Southern Nevada is a really special and unique community, and there are so many ways you can make an impact here through the legal profession. It’s amazing how Boyd School of Law has cultivated a strong network of professionals who understand the local legal landscape and want to use their skills to give back and empower the community.