Name: Harsha

Year: Senior

Major(s): Political Science

CFS Program: Legal Field Studies

I’m a returning student who grew up wanting to be a lawyer. A number of my longtime friends are lawyers, so I’m thankfully able to learn a lot about what being a lawyer entails…secondhand. So, I still had questions: what does a lawyer actually do? What is life like working at a law firm? These questions, in my mind, could only be answered through personal experience. Through the Chicago Field Studies program, I found an opportunity to learn about my dream job firsthand. I was thrilled to begin my internship at the Blake Horwitz Law Firm in June. The firm handled cases that dealt with issues that I believe strongly in, like police misconduct and civil rights. However, I knew that I was an intern and not a law student; I hoped to learn as much as I could by observing what the lawyers at the firm did in addition to my own work, which I assumed would be menial. Quickly, however, I learned that there was important work for me to complete, too. About a week after I began my internship, I was able to go to a series of depositions—six in one week!—that deal with one of the cases our firm is working on. After I attended these depositions, one of the attorneys asked me to pore through deposition testimony and write a memo helping to quantify the damages our client would ask for. I finished this task and guessed that I would move back to completing labor-intensive but simple work that I had done in my first week. Immediately after I had finished this memo, though, another attorney asked another intern and me to help draft a complaint! The complaint, to put it lightly, needed major input from actual attorneys before it was capable of submission, but the attorney was very patient as she explained what changes would need to be made and why. She then directed us to go back and edit what we had written to be in keeping with the standards for a filed complaint. The attorney’s attitude towards interacting with interns and checking our work amazed me—while I know that not everybody in the legal field is so forgiving, I found myself learning more through submission and feedback than I had ever thought I would. Learning about the office’s functions and the cognitive aspects of working in a law firm made my work days easier, but interacting with our clients convinced me that I had found what I was looking for when I began my internship. People who seek out legal help in the area of police misconduct frequently do so when no other recourse is available. Our clients are constantly dealing with emotional and physical trauma that pervades each of their waking moments. Seeing those who do not have legal training reach out to those who do to help resolve these problems and gain a measure of validation from winning a battle in court allowed me to embrace a human side of me that does not come to the fore during mere classroom learning or office time. I am eternally grateful to the Chicago Field Studies program for giving me the platform to experience just a slice of my dream—working at a law firm. I have a clear idea that this is, in fact, what I would like to do professionally. None of it would have been possible without Northwestern University’s Chicago Field Studies program or the donors who allow students like me to spend dozens of summertime hours experiencing professional life. I wholeheartedly recommend this program to other Northwestern students, and I will take what I have learned this summer for the rest of my life.