Undergraduate Summer Legal Scholars
Summer, 2011
St. Olaf College’s Undergraduate Summer Legal Scholars Program offers an opportunity for a select group of undergraduate students to perform intensive legal research and serve in a legal support role to social justice oriented clinics at the University of Minnesota, University of St. Thomas, and William Mitchell College of Law. More information...
SHEA CORRIGAN ’12
Majors: Economics and Psychology
Program: Immigration Law Practice Group, Interprofessional Center for Counseling and Legal
Services, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Reflection Essay: 2011 St. Olaf Legal Scholars Program
During my time with the Immigration Law Practice Group I was able to assist the attorneys at the clinic with a substantial amount of legal research and analysis aimed at both winning current cases and providing useful data for long-term research projects.
ERICA LARSON ’12
Majors: Mathematics, Political Science, Statistics Concentration
Program: University of Minnesota
I worked closely with four student attorneys who each were overseeing between ten and fifteen cases. I drafted letters and legal documents, conducted legal research and attended court hearings. My favorite parts of my work were meeting our clients when they came in for meetings with the student attorneys or appeared in court and writing legal documents. At the end of my time working for the clinic I drafted an order resolving one of our cases, which the clinic then presented to the judge for her signature.
JAMIE MOSEL’12
Majors: Biology, History
Project/Clinic Site and Role: University of Minnesota Civil Practice Clinic
Reflection Essay: 2011 St. Olaf Legal Scholars Program
While at the clinic, I was able to retrieve court documents from the Hennepin County Records Center and even assist in drafting various documents for the student attorney’s cases, from orders to affidavits. In so doing, I was also able to observe the process of editing and formalizing these documents. One of the most enjoyable tasks for me was to do research for these cases, and also to do research for some of the supervising attorneys.
KRISTIN SANDNESS ’12
Majors: Biology, English
Program: William Mitchell College of Law, Legal Practice Center
Reflection Essay: 2011 St. Olaf Legal Scholars Program
This summer I worked within the clinics programs at William Mitchell. The legal clinics are experientially-based courses that offer law students the opportunity to represent clients that otherwise could not afford an attorney. I worked with the Women's Reentry Clinic, The Legal Assistance to Minnesota Prisoners (LAMP) Clinic, and the Civil Advocacy Clinic. My major projects included: creating a clinic newsletter, researching the evolution of sentencing guidelines and procedure, and compiling an attorney catalog for a community engagement initiative. In addition to these projects, I was afforded the opportunity to attend court on several occasions, to tour different correctional facilities, and to participate in Project Homeless Connect, an outreach project geared toward providing underprivileged populations with information on, and access to, community resources.
Faculty Advisor: Doug Casson, PhD
Academic Department: Associate Professor of Political Science, St. Olaf & Pre-Law Advisor
“This fellowship is a wonderfully practical supplement to our more theoretically oriented curriculum. A liberal arts education at St Olaf teaches students to think. The legal fellows program offers students a particularly rich context in which they can apply theses skills and challenge themselves while testing the waters of a legal career.”