Phi Alpha Delta

Issue #3, 2018 — The Reporter 5 We are pleased to announce t h a t M e n ' s W a r e h o u s e , Moores, Jos A. Bank, and K&G Fashion Superstore are offering special discounts to P.A.D. members for men's and women's professional attire. M e m b e r s c a n n o w receive 40% off the regular price of retail items at Men's W a r e h o u s e , M o o r e s , a n d Jos A. Bank. K& G Fashion Superstore is offering 20% off your entire purchase. V i s i t w w w . P A D . o r g / MembershipBenefits to access the discount. Cornell Internship By Evan Bostrom (Cornell University Pre-Law Chapter, Public Relations Chair) If you had asked me a year ago what I thought I would be doing for my sophomore summer, I would have responded something along the lines of, "making spreadsheets and getting my boss coffee." Nowadays, most internships that are targeted at undergrads anticipate their extraordinarily talented applicants to alternate between "delivery service" and "file cabinet organizer." While they build work ethic and offer experience, these types of experiences can be so disenchanting to young people that they deter us from pursuing careers that we're passionate about. I was incredibly lucky to endure none of that this past summer, interning for a judge in the Civil Division of the Hudson County Superior Court in New Jersey. My days at the William J. B r e n n a n C o u r t h o u s e w e r e equal parts exhilarating and intimidating. While attorneys delivered their motions, I would sit in the empty jury box, taking notes and avoiding eye contact with the litigants. The judge, a formidable historian with deep roots in the North Jersey populace, conducted his courtroom with zero tolerance for rule-breaking. He relished in interrupting the seasoned, "too cool for school" attorneys who would deliver their opening arguments while remaining seated, and once gave me a very public admonition for attempting to follow him through the door marked "Judge" where I should have gone through the one marked "Chambers" (please note: they both led to the exact same room). When I wasn't in the courtroom or reading in the judge's library, I shadowed the law clerk, a recent Seton Hall Law graduate who walked me through life as a law school student and taught me the ins and outs of the courthouse. He had a particular knack for figuring out when I didn't know what I was doing, shielding me from the wrath of the judge when I misplaced a document or "answered the phone wrong." I should preface the rest of my tale with a warning: if you are unfamiliar with the inner workings of a judge's chambers (or are set to appear before one in a case), you may find yourself uneasy after reading this. The work of chambers staff is incredibly demanding; during our "slow" summer season, we were constantly receiving poorly written motions, caucusing with stubborn litigants, and returning calls to snarky attorneys who couldn't bother to respect public employees. At times, it seemed as though plaintiffs used the courtroom as a means to pursue childish vendettas, seeking damages for claims that were legally valid but wasted the time of the judge and his staff. We heard heartbreaking stories of the exploitation of minorities in the workplace, but those trials would often be followed by ones in which the principal actors could not accept any culpability or responsibility for their actions ("Sir, you put your car in neutral while you were going up a hill, it IS your fault that the car behind you took out your rear headlights.") From those interactions, I learned the significance of the courtroom as an institution, a place in which two parties, no matter how influential or powerful, must sit before a higher authority and make a succinct case for the actions they take. I was so fortunate to have had the experiences I had, during what could have been a terribly tedious summer. And I only got them coffee once.

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