LINK (Leading Internships for New Knowledge)
As part of our Junior year, Animas High School students are required to complete a 3 week internship in place of attending school. For my internship, I will be working with Christian Champaign at the La Plata District Attorneys office right here in Durango, Colorado.
Below you will see updates of my daily experiences at my internship site, my resume and my project proposal! To find out more about the LINK program, feel free to click on the following link regarding the internship! http://ahslink.weebly.com/link-program-coordinator-libby-cowles.html
Below you will see updates of my daily experiences at my internship site, my resume and my project proposal! To find out more about the LINK program, feel free to click on the following link regarding the internship! http://ahslink.weebly.com/link-program-coordinator-libby-cowles.html
Daily Updates
Day One- Today was the first day of LINK and I am already sure that the next three weeks of my time here is going to be amazing. The majority of the day served as an orientation for the projects I will be working on throughout the month of March as well as many basic concepts that I need to know about what District Attorneys do. There are three projects that I will be working on: one is my final project for school in which the initial questions is, "what lines have to be crossed in order for somebody to be put on trial", the second is that I will be helping him write memorandums for his docket, and finally I will be helping him prepare for the Ashburn murder trial.
I was also able to meet a ton of new people both at the office and at the courthouse. It was definitely challenging learning so much new information in such a short period of time but I feel as though I was able to grasp it fairly well and that I will be successful in remembering it all. Toward the end of the day, my mentor took me to the courthouse so that I could see the goings on of cases of people who had been arrested the night before and what their bonds were going to be. My mentor and I also sat down and worked out all of the various court cases that I will be attending and right now the number is at 8 court appearances but there are bound to be more that come up! I am so excited to see what the rest of the time brings!
I was also able to meet a ton of new people both at the office and at the courthouse. It was definitely challenging learning so much new information in such a short period of time but I feel as though I was able to grasp it fairly well and that I will be successful in remembering it all. Toward the end of the day, my mentor took me to the courthouse so that I could see the goings on of cases of people who had been arrested the night before and what their bonds were going to be. My mentor and I also sat down and worked out all of the various court cases that I will be attending and right now the number is at 8 court appearances but there are bound to be more that come up! I am so excited to see what the rest of the time brings!
Day Two- Today was a very full yet awesome day. It began by my mentor giving me a very valuable lesson on the phases of a case. There are four phases which begin my charging the case, then negotiations/ the Preliminary Hearing occur, after that is the Trial or Plea Bargain and finally is the trial itself. He explained all of the logistics of each section and how the systems work. The next thing that occurred was that I assisted in writing memorandums. A memorandum is something that gives a brief statement about what the docket it is regarding contains. A lawyer can look at a memorandum and know what the docket is about without having to go through it. Below is a picture of the template that I was working on while writing these memos. After the lesson and the phases of a case, we went up to the courtroom again and watched some various hearings. The first bit was next we watched were Domestic Violence cases, next were Plea Bargains and finally we saw a motion hearing. A motion hearing is when the D.A's fail to provide the discoveries (the evidence) to the Defense. Under constitutional law, only the D.A's are mandated to provide information to the Defense in order to give them a chance when it comes to a case. Today was a really big learning experience for me and I cannot wait for more to come!
Day Three- Today was mainly a reiteration of what I have been doing during the past couple of days. It started off by going to a weekly "Cattle Call". A Cattle Call is a time where everybody who got a ticket in a recent time period comes in to meet with a prosecution attorney and they discuss the options for sentencing. The defendant can either plead guilty or they can plead not guilty and then take the ticket to a trial. It was interesting to be able to see the logistics that go into a court appearance such as this.
The rest of the day was fairly slow until around 4:00. At that time my mentor and I went up to the courtroom to watch a Motion Hearing. This is when a case is set to go to trial but the Defense attempts to find faults in the reasoning for prosecution so that the case will get dismissed. The rest of the week will give me the opportunity to begin getting into the deeper and more "high stakes" part of work.
Day Four- I had yet another new experience today. When I got to the office I found out that my mentor had a surprise court visit so when I got to the courtroom, it was filled with prisoners and about 10 lawyers (both defense and prosecution). Court this morning had much more of a serious feeling than that of some of the other court rooms. I found it interesting how easily it can change based on the charges.
The second thing that I did yesterday was begin to help my mentor organize the trial notebooks for the Ashburn case. When organizing a trial notebook, every piece of evidence absolutely has to be perfect otherwise the D.A. will have a very hard time finding it quickly. Every piece of evidence is organized by names of witnesses. Also, not a single piece of the evidence in the trial notebook is the original copy, so you have to make sure to photocopy everything important.
Day Five- Today was the last day of my first full week as an intern. As I reflect on it, I know that I made the best decision for myself and my interests by choosing to intern in the field of law. I am very thankful that I have ended up with such a great mentor, and that he has helped me get a good understanding of law, as well as had me doing the exact same work that he has been. It has been a wonderful experience so far, and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the month has in store!
Today was similar to the past couple of days. We mainly spent the length of the day in court, listening to sentencing's and various other hearings. It was a short work day so we did not have the chance to do much more than that.
Day Six- Today the main focus was drug court. Drug court is essentially a team of lawyers, probation officers, police officers, and various other professionals who deal with addicts and figure out the best way for them to become sober. DC occurs once every two weeks and during that time, the professionals have a meeting and go over each individual and their program progression. I like Drug Court because not only does it humanize the "criminals", it is tailored for each individual rather than placing them under general rules. The team does everything they can to keep the addicts on the road to recovery.
Day Seven- Today was the first day that I began getting in depth into my project. I began by photocopying the two cases that I am going to use as an example and then ensuring confidentiality (marking off names, birth dates, etc.) so that the audience can still see what parts of a case file look like.
Something that I have been curious about throughout the progression of the internship is why Latin is such a prominent factor in the writing. My mentor explained that it had to do with something called the Common Law. Essentially, the Common Law is what every law has been based off today. During the Renaissance, every law every created was saved by monks so that they wouldn't be destroyed, and a designated group of men would go around to every monastery in Europe and collect the books containing the laws. In common day, whenever somebody is trying to make a law that they don't know what to do with, they resort back to the Common Law. That is also why so many statutes and various other law writings contain Latin.
Day Eight- Today was a fairly self-directed day for me. My mentor had a lot of meetings so I got the chance to begin the visuals for my final project. I am doing two power points regarding two separate cases that I have dealt with. The way that I am setting them up is in a manner that will require the audience to tell me their perspective before the find out the final results. It was a simple day but I was able to get a lot of work done!
Day Nine- Today was a continuance on working on my project. I am almost completely done with the final product save for a couple of finishing touches. I also completed my mentor interview today and not only did I find out interesting information about my mentor, he gave me some advice that I will carry with me for the rest of my education. When we had completed those two things, my mentor and I went over things that had been confusing me and key concepts that I should know. Today was an extremely productive and informational day!
Day Ten- Today my mentor and I attended another cattle call. This consisted of advising people about their rights and guiding them towards a decision about whether or not they were going to plead guilty or take their case to a trial. I found that experiencing this form of advisement's was much more valuable a second time because I had base knowledge about what was occurring. Also, my mentor recommended that I should meet with both a judge and a public defense lawyer in order to gather a wider perspective on the overall subject of law. The meetings were set up today and will occur at various times in the following week.
Day Eleven- Today was a fascinating day at the DA's office because we were beginning to work on prepping or the Ashburn murder trial. This entailed creating two binders, one for the civilians involved and one for the professionals involved, and pairing all of the discovery for each witness. In order to create these binders, we needed to copy every piece of evidence without mixing up the original order. It can be a painstaking process, but it was valuable to learn how witnesses are set up and the meticulous order that everything needs to occur.
Another thing that I learned about today was a test known as LSAT. The LSAT is the test that you take if you want to go to law school. It is very different from the average test in the sense of questions. All of the questions on the LSAT involve logic and being able to pick out key information from a complex passage. My mentor printed out a couple of example questions for me to try and even though they were difficult (I only scored 2 out of 4) I really enjoyed that format of questions. It challenges me in a way that I can still understand what is being asked but have to think carefully about it. I really enjoyed the new skills that I learned today and am looking forward to traveling to Pagosa tomorrow to watch the sentencing on a murder case.
Day Twelve- A murder trial sentencing is a strange thing. It makes the crime much more real because the sentencing is the time that the victim's family members can speak. I personally found it very tough to listen to the pain that the family members were expressing because of how genuine it was. Almost everybody in the court room was in tears throughout the trial. Not only do the victim's loved ones get a chance to speak, but so do the defendants family members. Hearing the family of the defendant speak absolutely humanized the criminal. It was a surreal yet extremely valuable experience.
The rest of the day was fairly slow until around 4:00. At that time my mentor and I went up to the courtroom to watch a Motion Hearing. This is when a case is set to go to trial but the Defense attempts to find faults in the reasoning for prosecution so that the case will get dismissed. The rest of the week will give me the opportunity to begin getting into the deeper and more "high stakes" part of work.
Day Four- I had yet another new experience today. When I got to the office I found out that my mentor had a surprise court visit so when I got to the courtroom, it was filled with prisoners and about 10 lawyers (both defense and prosecution). Court this morning had much more of a serious feeling than that of some of the other court rooms. I found it interesting how easily it can change based on the charges.
The second thing that I did yesterday was begin to help my mentor organize the trial notebooks for the Ashburn case. When organizing a trial notebook, every piece of evidence absolutely has to be perfect otherwise the D.A. will have a very hard time finding it quickly. Every piece of evidence is organized by names of witnesses. Also, not a single piece of the evidence in the trial notebook is the original copy, so you have to make sure to photocopy everything important.
Day Five- Today was the last day of my first full week as an intern. As I reflect on it, I know that I made the best decision for myself and my interests by choosing to intern in the field of law. I am very thankful that I have ended up with such a great mentor, and that he has helped me get a good understanding of law, as well as had me doing the exact same work that he has been. It has been a wonderful experience so far, and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the month has in store!
Today was similar to the past couple of days. We mainly spent the length of the day in court, listening to sentencing's and various other hearings. It was a short work day so we did not have the chance to do much more than that.
Day Six- Today the main focus was drug court. Drug court is essentially a team of lawyers, probation officers, police officers, and various other professionals who deal with addicts and figure out the best way for them to become sober. DC occurs once every two weeks and during that time, the professionals have a meeting and go over each individual and their program progression. I like Drug Court because not only does it humanize the "criminals", it is tailored for each individual rather than placing them under general rules. The team does everything they can to keep the addicts on the road to recovery.
Day Seven- Today was the first day that I began getting in depth into my project. I began by photocopying the two cases that I am going to use as an example and then ensuring confidentiality (marking off names, birth dates, etc.) so that the audience can still see what parts of a case file look like.
Something that I have been curious about throughout the progression of the internship is why Latin is such a prominent factor in the writing. My mentor explained that it had to do with something called the Common Law. Essentially, the Common Law is what every law has been based off today. During the Renaissance, every law every created was saved by monks so that they wouldn't be destroyed, and a designated group of men would go around to every monastery in Europe and collect the books containing the laws. In common day, whenever somebody is trying to make a law that they don't know what to do with, they resort back to the Common Law. That is also why so many statutes and various other law writings contain Latin.
Day Eight- Today was a fairly self-directed day for me. My mentor had a lot of meetings so I got the chance to begin the visuals for my final project. I am doing two power points regarding two separate cases that I have dealt with. The way that I am setting them up is in a manner that will require the audience to tell me their perspective before the find out the final results. It was a simple day but I was able to get a lot of work done!
Day Nine- Today was a continuance on working on my project. I am almost completely done with the final product save for a couple of finishing touches. I also completed my mentor interview today and not only did I find out interesting information about my mentor, he gave me some advice that I will carry with me for the rest of my education. When we had completed those two things, my mentor and I went over things that had been confusing me and key concepts that I should know. Today was an extremely productive and informational day!
Day Ten- Today my mentor and I attended another cattle call. This consisted of advising people about their rights and guiding them towards a decision about whether or not they were going to plead guilty or take their case to a trial. I found that experiencing this form of advisement's was much more valuable a second time because I had base knowledge about what was occurring. Also, my mentor recommended that I should meet with both a judge and a public defense lawyer in order to gather a wider perspective on the overall subject of law. The meetings were set up today and will occur at various times in the following week.
Day Eleven- Today was a fascinating day at the DA's office because we were beginning to work on prepping or the Ashburn murder trial. This entailed creating two binders, one for the civilians involved and one for the professionals involved, and pairing all of the discovery for each witness. In order to create these binders, we needed to copy every piece of evidence without mixing up the original order. It can be a painstaking process, but it was valuable to learn how witnesses are set up and the meticulous order that everything needs to occur.
Another thing that I learned about today was a test known as LSAT. The LSAT is the test that you take if you want to go to law school. It is very different from the average test in the sense of questions. All of the questions on the LSAT involve logic and being able to pick out key information from a complex passage. My mentor printed out a couple of example questions for me to try and even though they were difficult (I only scored 2 out of 4) I really enjoyed that format of questions. It challenges me in a way that I can still understand what is being asked but have to think carefully about it. I really enjoyed the new skills that I learned today and am looking forward to traveling to Pagosa tomorrow to watch the sentencing on a murder case.
Day Twelve- A murder trial sentencing is a strange thing. It makes the crime much more real because the sentencing is the time that the victim's family members can speak. I personally found it very tough to listen to the pain that the family members were expressing because of how genuine it was. Almost everybody in the court room was in tears throughout the trial. Not only do the victim's loved ones get a chance to speak, but so do the defendants family members. Hearing the family of the defendant speak absolutely humanized the criminal. It was a surreal yet extremely valuable experience.
Project Proposal
I am going to be interning at the La Plata County District Attorney’s office. This law office specializes in criminal defense and prosecution. The goals of this office are attempting to bring justice by convicting criminals or to work on behalf of the accused. In our small community, district attorneys represent the government in the prosecution of alleged criminals. When a defendant is charged with a crime, it is up to the office of the district attorney to determine whether a case can be made against that person.
My mentor is Christian Champagne who is the assistant district attorney. He specializes in prosecution with the law firm. From Christian, I hope to expand my knowledge of law and practice the research involved with it, while hopefully becoming more proficient in my grammar and writing. This should also help me decide whether the career of being an attorney is something that I want to have later in life.
I have always been interested in being an attorney and I feel as though this experience will help inform me if I should pursue the dream of being a lawyer. Not only do I hope that I will be more informed about a potential career, but I hope to be able to learn more about our countries law system throughout the span of the internship.
For my project I am planning on researching how judges and lawyers make decisions about the degree of the complicity or responsibility of the individual and what it takes to put them on trial. By doing this I am not only going to get a better understanding of our law system, but I am going to learn how each individual case has its different scenarios and results. Over the course of this project I will be able to help my mentor in a real trial, and whatever needs to be done for the preparation of a separate trial.
To prepare for this internship I have been researching the two cases that I will be interacting with. I also recently did a project which involved a close understanding of our legal system and how to behave in a court room, as well as how to treat clients and the other side’s witnesses.
At the beginning of my three week internship I am going to be a part of an actual trial. I will be able to take notes on courtroom expectation, cross and direct examinations and other major aspects and then review them with my mentor. For the rest of the internship, I will be prepping for another case that will occur later on in the summer. By the end of the internship period I should have a finished and professional law opinion of the work and the final result of all that goes into a trial doing to seeing everything from the beginning to end.
My family has an acquaintance with my mentor so I did not have any problem contacting my mentor and arranging the internship. The only obstacle that I ran into throughout the process of securing a placement was ending up in an internship placement that would not have aided my interests. Initially, I was going to work with Los Companeros, a wonderful non-profit organization with the purpose of protecting and expanding Latino and immigrant rights and dignity in Southwest Colorado. Event though I absolutely support the work that Los Companeros was doing, I knew that it would benefit me better to pursue a law internship so I made a switch about two months out from the beginning date of the internship.
When I think of the internship beginning in March, I get unbelievably excited. I believe that it will be such a valuable experience for the junior class to step out into the real world while exploring our interests. Personally, I imagine my placement being a very educational yet fun and rewarding experience.
My mentor is Christian Champagne who is the assistant district attorney. He specializes in prosecution with the law firm. From Christian, I hope to expand my knowledge of law and practice the research involved with it, while hopefully becoming more proficient in my grammar and writing. This should also help me decide whether the career of being an attorney is something that I want to have later in life.
I have always been interested in being an attorney and I feel as though this experience will help inform me if I should pursue the dream of being a lawyer. Not only do I hope that I will be more informed about a potential career, but I hope to be able to learn more about our countries law system throughout the span of the internship.
For my project I am planning on researching how judges and lawyers make decisions about the degree of the complicity or responsibility of the individual and what it takes to put them on trial. By doing this I am not only going to get a better understanding of our law system, but I am going to learn how each individual case has its different scenarios and results. Over the course of this project I will be able to help my mentor in a real trial, and whatever needs to be done for the preparation of a separate trial.
To prepare for this internship I have been researching the two cases that I will be interacting with. I also recently did a project which involved a close understanding of our legal system and how to behave in a court room, as well as how to treat clients and the other side’s witnesses.
At the beginning of my three week internship I am going to be a part of an actual trial. I will be able to take notes on courtroom expectation, cross and direct examinations and other major aspects and then review them with my mentor. For the rest of the internship, I will be prepping for another case that will occur later on in the summer. By the end of the internship period I should have a finished and professional law opinion of the work and the final result of all that goes into a trial doing to seeing everything from the beginning to end.
My family has an acquaintance with my mentor so I did not have any problem contacting my mentor and arranging the internship. The only obstacle that I ran into throughout the process of securing a placement was ending up in an internship placement that would not have aided my interests. Initially, I was going to work with Los Companeros, a wonderful non-profit organization with the purpose of protecting and expanding Latino and immigrant rights and dignity in Southwest Colorado. Event though I absolutely support the work that Los Companeros was doing, I knew that it would benefit me better to pursue a law internship so I made a switch about two months out from the beginning date of the internship.
When I think of the internship beginning in March, I get unbelievably excited. I believe that it will be such a valuable experience for the junior class to step out into the real world while exploring our interests. Personally, I imagine my placement being a very educational yet fun and rewarding experience.