Feature Story: Summer Stipend Program
If you find it, chances are good we can fund it.
That’s the pledge of the Law School’s Summer Stipend Program, which provides students with financial support to take otherwise unfunded public interest law positions during the summer months. Unique in size and scope, in 2007 the program allowed over 100 students to pursue legal work with a public service component. This summer, a similarly high number will participate.
With fewer money worries, students can look for a summer position in the legal area that most interests them, whether in the U.S. or an international setting. Last summer’s stipend recipients took a wide-ranging—and impressive—variety of assignments. Daniel Sathre ’09 served as a clerk at the Minnesota Disability Law Center, where he handled the case of a disabled war veteran. Boston Cote ’09 was an intern with the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, where she interviewed clients applying for U.S. residency and researched conditions and human rights violations in sending countries. Other students gained valuable skills and experience clerking for judges and district attorney’s offices; they staffed legal aid clinics, served as child advocates, and studied the impact of international environmental policy.
“This program fits perfectly with the mission of the Law School. It also fits very well with our students’ interest in service work and what they want to do with their careers,” says Carla DeVelder, director of the Law School’s Career Service Office. “Whether their goal is a full-time public interest position after graduation or to give back to their legal and geographic communities with pro bono work on the side, this typifies the type of students we attract to Notre Dame.”
Initially launched with donations from Law School alumni, the Summer Stipend Program is now underwritten by federal work-study monies, endowments, student-raised funds and contributions from employers who recruit on campus. Alumni continue to donate, and often help participants find and thrive in their summer positions.
Last summer Timara Arancibia ’08 took her summer stipend to the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. “My internship gave me the opportunity to step into the world of the legal aid lawyer with its open doors and never-ending stream of clients,” she says. “My experience was at once challenging, frustrating and rewarding—challenging in trying to keep up with the fast-paced flow of clients and research, frustrating where a client suffered injustice, and rewarding where, through my role as advocate, I was able to help restore justice to the situation.”
Her experience would not have been possible without funding from Notre Dame, she says: “Their commitment to enabling law students to choose careers in public assistance is helping ensure that the impoverished will continue to have access to an advocate with an open door.”
For more information, visit the Summer Stipend Program web site.
