High School Students Serve as Summer Law Firm Interns
~Law Links returns~
By Janet Stidman Eveleth
This summer, 35 high school students are serving as Law Links interns in
law firms and law-related agencies in Baltimore City and on the lower Eastern
Shore of Maryland. Law Links, an educational experience that prepares young
people for college and the professional business world, began in late June
and runs through mid-August. Every year, MSBA presents this innovative summer
student/law firm internship as a public service program.
MSBA's student/law firm internship offers young people summer employment
and a comprehensive learning experience, linking them with attorneys in an
educational and professional setting. Law Links is an excellent working, educational
and career-developing experience for young people. It is one of the few youth
summer job programs in the area that provides a professional setting for youth
employment, providing interns with a well-rounded professional and educational
experience.
Through Law Links, high school juniors and seniors work as law firm interns
and are paid for seven weeks of summer employment by the law firms and law-related
agencies. The student interns are given time off with pay every week to participate
in the educational component of the internship, the Law and Leadership Institute.
This year, the University of Maryland School of Law is co-sponsoring Law Links.
The Citizenship Law-Related Education Program (CLREP), MSBA's educational
arm in the schools, offers the Law and Leadership Institute. Every year, CLREP
serves as Law Links' administrator to offer the interns professional educational
and training skills. The Institute focuses on everything from workplace issues,
career goals and cultural diversity to communication skills and business etiquette.
CLREP's staff guides and mentors the interns, sponsors field trips and invites
prominent judges, attorneys and other officials to address the interns.
Since its inception in 1994, over 535 high school students have participated
in this summer law firm internship. Many have gone on to college, and a few
have selected law as a career.
Over 500 law firms and law-related agencies have supported and participated
in Law Links as well, in addition to many bar leaders and members of the Law
Links Committee that plans the internship each year. All of these legal volunteers
have found the experience to be most worthwhile. Many serve as mentors to the
young people and keep in touch after the internship concludes each August.
"Law Links began as a vision of the MSBA leadership, to create a program
where law firms and law-related agencies would reach out to the community and
offer an opportunity to our young people to learn and work in a professional
setting," states Ellery
"Rick" Miller, Jr., CLREP's Executive Director. "We emphasized to the first
group of interns and each subsequent group that they would need to seize the
opportunity and provide ‘value added' to the firms and agencies they
worked in."
"Law Links has far exceeded its original vision and become a partnership
of the Bar Associations, Maryland and University of Baltimore Law Schools,
the Association of Legal Administrators and law firms and agencies," Miller
adds. "The past interns have paved the way for this year's group, who will
hopefully pave the way into future years."
