Internship #7

Project Description

Internship Site: Simpson Delmore Green LLP
Department: Legal
Project title: Legal Research Project
General Description: In order to assess the damages in a current case, somebody must evaluate the different mechanisms courts have used in the past to calculate the value of life. Whether it be an equation, or evaluating how much one values their own life. I will be researching how juries have come to these decisions in order to help the firm determine how much their client could lose.
Learning Objectives: I hope to learn what it's really like to be a lawyer/ law clerk, and learn about the law.
Organization/Company Objectives & Benefit: They will recieve some insight as to how much their clients could lose in the case.
Schedule: I will be continuously researching throughout the next two weeks, and turning in legal memorandums as needed.
Academic Skills: Writing, researching, reading comprehension.
Technical Skills: Researching.
Collaboration- Skills and Oportunities: The lawyers will be helping me with researching, giving me advice, and telling me what topics I should be researching.
Exhibition Plans: Because some of the stuff I'm looking at is confidential, I won't have a whole lot to show. But, a lot of the cases that I have been researching are published, so I will be able to show a couple of the legal memorandums that I will be writing.


A summary of my week

I've been doing a lot of work this week. Most of it being research and writing. On Monday I printed out what I thought was important articles that I thought they might want, and gave it to them. I was then told that I was to summarize all the important research I've done into a legal memorandum. This memo took me a while. I was shown the proper format of a memo, and told to follow that. The one I finished is almost two pages long. It was tedious, and tiring, but this is what working at a law firm is all about, and this also gives me something to show at exhibition. I feel like I'm practically ready to take on a case by myself after all the research I've been doing! I turned in the memo this morning, and was given props on my writing skills, which made me feel really proud. I was then asked to continue my research, and go more in depth.

Intership work can be really frustrating, but you have to remind yourself that you're at the bottom of the totem pole, and the most you can do is try to make good impressions. The connections you get through your internship could help you later on in life (recommendations, job opportunities, etc.), so you want to prove to everyone that you're hard working, and capable.