Student Activities Blogs

Miguel Almodovar

What a SUMMER!!

Summer ’09!! Well it was definitely my busiest summer by far. I worked full time for the first time in my life so that in and of itself was a big deal for me. I split my time between working on Summer Programs at UConn and the Public Defender’s Office in Hartford. If there are two jobs that are more different I can’t think of what they are.

First Summer Programs - I did it last year so I had a pretty good handle on what I was expected to do and how to do it. The biggest change from last year was that I was in charge of Ice Cream this year which is a huge undertaking. Getting everything to fall into place at the right time is like a dance. And it took us a few weeks before we were grooving on beat. I had a really good time doing Summer Programs it was certainly within my comfort zone and though it challenged me I was always sure I could do it.

That level of comfort and certainty was not present at my internship in the Public Defender’s office, at least at first. I was out of my element there, everyone was very serious and there was sort of a cloud hanging over the office. As the summer progressed I began seeing the amazing power of everyone who worked there. The Public Defenders are appointed by the court to represent anyone who does not have the means to pay for their own lawyer.

My job was to take applications from individuals held in the cells under the courthouse. Since I worked there on Mondays some of them had been held since Friday night and so it was not the best smelling place. This was my favorite part of the job because I got to talk with the people who had been arrested and hear the elaborate and sometimes comical stories of why they didn’t do what the police said they did. One thing that was tough about it was that I had to take financial information from them and almost none of them were making a decent wage and many had drug or alcohol abuse problems. Also African Americans and Latinos were the majority of those being held. So it indicated to me that there is still a long way to go in our country in terms of racial equality.

In addition to taking applications I assisted the Public Defenders in the courtroom, I filed appearances for them. An appearance is a form saying that an attorney represents a client in a court case. Since this is a relatively simple thing to do it left me a lot of time to watch what went on in court. I found out that different judges make very different decisions based on similar evidence and that it is a terrible idea to make a judge angry, especially if they are deciding how high your bond is going to be! You’d be surprised how many people challenged the judges. I also found out that judges can be some of the funniest people while they’re working; some of the retorts and admonishments the judges gave while in the bench were priceless.

Other than my two jobs I’ve been studying for the LSAT. Almost everyone I say that to cringes but it’s really not that bad, I’ve been taking a class with Kaplan and they make it kind of fun to study. The important thing with the LSAT is not to get psyched out because the test is a lot about throwing you off mentally, the material itself is not too hard (it’s no cake walk but it’s not rocket science either). Once you know the basic patterns of what the questions are, then all it is, is practicing until you’re comfortable with them. And I’ve been doing that for 2-3 hours a night all summer and have seen a huge improvement in my scores.

The next thing I’m working on is determining where I’m going to law school, I’m going to apply to UConn law of course (because UConn is the best!) but other than UConn I’m looking in the D.C. area. It seems like a great place to go to school and is perfect if I go into public policy law because that’s where all the public policies get made! It will also be nice to get out of New England for a while. I’ve been here for 20 years and though I love it I think a change of scenery is in order.

So that was my wonderful summer ’09 I’m looking forward to SUBOG, Community Outreach and PLI next semester. And I’ll be back in a month or so to update on how those things are going...