By:  Bria Burgamy

When I began looking for summer internships, PIAC caught my eye as something that sounded interesting, flexible with my busy course load and other internship, and a good opportunity to meet and learn from attorneys in San Diego who are committed to making a positive difference in the community. I’m happy to say that the PIAC internship met my expectations, and I’m super grateful for the opportunity.

My favorite aspect of the internship (aside from Friday morning coffee) was the blog writing. It gave me a chance to be more creative than is typically allowed at school, while still focusing on and learning new things about the law. Receiving feedback from both attorneys and other interns was extremely beneficial. Giving feedback can be even more difficult than receiving it – but I think meeting for food/drinks for the feedback meetings was a great idea because it created a more relaxed atmosphere where everyone was more open to receiving and giving feedback.

While it was awesome to just pick any topic to write about, I do like the idea of future interns writing on local, state, national, and international issues. It would provide a bit more structure, while also teaching interns how to research differently depending on whether local versus state, etc.

This internship showed me how it will be possible to spend my time as an attorney outside of work. Before law school, I saw it as extremely black and white: go into public interest and struggle to make ends meet versus become a corporate sell-out and be able to pay the bills. Seeing that it’s not like that in the real world is a huge relief, and I’m grateful to PIAC for exposure to what opportunities are really out there for attorneys to engage in public interest work.