For my STEP Signature project, I interned at the Southeastern Ohio Legal Aid. Legal Aid provides assistance to low-income Ohioans that need legal representation. Specifically, my internship was with the Public Benefits team. This team specializes in appellate cases involving Medicaid, social security, food stamps, and other government benefits. My responsibilities included conducting legal research, writing legal memos, and speaking to clients.
This experience greatly influenced my life trajectory. While I always knew that I wanted to go to law school, I did not know what kind of law I wanted to practice. Since there are so many kinds of law, I wanted to start with something that benefitted the public. Legal Aid was exactly what I was looking for since they help people in need while working in several different fields of law. During my internship, I was assigned specific cases to review and research the issues within them. Afterwards, I would write a recommendation on whether Legal Aid should take the case or not. Something I did not anticipate was how difficult it would be deciding whether or not to recommend help for a case. I wanted to help everyone that came into our office, but since we only have a certain number of attorneys, that was not possible. However, I made sure to rigorously research every single case so as many people as possible could receive aid. Additionally, I provided resources for pro bono attorneys and other forms of relief to people that we could not help.
My time at Legal Aid showed me that while public aid organizations like Legal Aid are doing their best, they need a lot more resources than they receive. As I mentioned above, with only a limited amount of funding, we were forced to deny several people assistance. With more funding, Legal Aid would be able to hire more attorneys, have smaller caseloads per attorney, and obtain resources to help more people. This is especially important because people will have someone to turn to when their public benefits are denied.
Additionally, my internship instilled my belief in the necessity of social services. I have believed that everyone is entitled to a basic standard of living. However, things like Medicare and Food Stamps are often looked down upon in society and seen as unnecessary “handouts.” My internship exemplified just how wrong this belief is. I met countless people who were working harder than anyone I had ever met and still not making enough to keep food on the table or their medical bills out of collections. The services that they were denied were essential for them to get back on their feet.
One of my favorite experiences was going to eviction court at the Franklin County Municipal Court. While I was there, I met with clients, judges, and got to watch the entire process. It was exciting to watch court cases in action and made me realize that I want to advocate in court for my clients in the future. I got to see exactly how the lawyers processed new clients, came up with a legal strategy, and implementing that strategy at court. While Legal Aid is typically unable to prevent a client from being evicted, we often are able to delay the eviction date. This gives the client much needed time to figure out a new place to stay and remove their belongings. The managing attorney of evictions for Legal Aid told me something that stuck with me, his goal was not to avoid eviction for most cases, but rather to keep people off of the street. Most of our clients have not paid rent and are being lawfully evicted. We are simply helping people to land on their feet.
After fighting for people to get the benefits that they desperately needed, I knew that working in the public sector is something that I want to do for the rest of my life. Although it is not the job that would give me the most money or recognition in the legal field, this experience made me realize that working to help those less fortunate would be the most fulfilling career path for me.