Getting plugged in.

I am finally starting to get plugged into things--finally getting the swing of things. This last week has been about shifting out of tourist mode and starting to think about how I want to develop professionally this summer. It all started when I sat down to fine tune my Learning Objectives Statement (LOS) for The Washington Center. Essentially, this statement sets goals for how I want to develop personally, professionally, civically and academically this summer. I have found it a very useful tool in examining what I want out of this summer and how I plan to accomplish it.

I had a great opportunity to sit down with my supervising attorney and go through my LOS. He offered some incredibly good suggestions on how to accomplish my goals. He recommended two things which I found particularly good. First, he recommended that I interview each of the attorneys in the Office about their profession so that I can draw from their experience as lawyers. Yes, this is one of the assignments for my portfolio this summer as well (to a certain extent). However, the implication of his suggestion is that I will be given the time and the support during my work hours to do this project. Also, everyone in the office seems very willing to participate. My idea is to shape these interviews into a little booklet that reflects on how they advise me. I want to take a picture of them working in their office and include that with a little bio, as well as the information and advice that they gave that was particularly good. It would be nice to give each of them a copy at the end of the summer as a little token of gratitude, as well.

The other thing that my supervising attorney recommended was keeping a little newspaper clippings book from the Washington Post on all of the articles that deal with things our office is working on. I just think that is an excellent way to stay actively informed about issues that the Office for Civil Rights is working on.

Another thing that was particularly fun was the Law and Criminal Justice (LCJ) program event this last Monday. We went to the courthouse and jail in Arlington, VA. First, we toured the jail. I found this fascinating, because it falls right in line with the project I am currently working on. A little background: The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA) authorized the Bureau of Justice Statistics (in the Department of Justice) to conduct the first comprehensive statistical survey of self-reported incidences of sexual assault in our nation’s correctional systems. PREA also established the Panel on Prison Rape Elimination to hold annual hearings based on what the BJS statistical survey indicates are the 2 correctional facilities with the lowest incidences of rape and the 3 with the highest. My office is working in conjunction with BJS and the PREA Panel to help inform Congress in its policy decision-making on this issue by offering quantitative and legal analysis. Is that a mouthful or what? I have only been here a few weeks and already I am abbreviating everything with acronyms and using power verbs and buzz words to make my audience think I actually know what I am talking about. Geez.

Anyway, I have had to do a lot of reading into prison policy, personnel training, inmate protection programs, prison administration, etc. So, it was fascinating to get to go through that jail, because it is a national model of a progressive jail that focuses on rehabilitation paired with correction. Literally, people come from all over the country to study it and its programs. I was very interested to hear how they treated high-risk and vulnerable incarcerated persons because the emphasis at the facility is on successive levels of privilege based on good merit. When they took us up to the protective custody and administrative segregation level, I had a million questions flying through my head, but did not have enough time to ask them. I really enjoyed the opportunity to tour the jail because it truly put into context what I have been working on over the last month.

If anyone is interested, the latest report by the BJS just came out. It is a comprehensive statistical break down of self-reported sexual assaults in local, county, and regional detention centers. This one is particularly interesting, because no such survey has ever been conducted on a national level. So the information is new and somewhat surprising. The hearings to be conducted by the PREA Panel concerning this report will likely be scheduled for September. Therefore, I probably will not get a chance to work with the data from this report, but an ample opportunity to help with preparations for the hearings. For instance, just yesterday I drafted a preliminary notice to the parties being summoned to the hearings. I also may get to participate a little bit in the discover process, which would be exciting.

As a mentioned above, we also got to go to the Arlington Courthouse. We sat in on the tail-end of the morning’s docket (just a few quick arraignments). Then we got to see “jury selection” for a DUI/OWI case. As a collegiate Mocker, that was very interesting for me because I got to observe the difference in the courtroom demeanor between the two attorneys. The person representing the Commonwealth of Virginia was a law clerk, very precise and intelligent. The defense attorney was a really showman. He asked his questions with the fact that a potential jury was his audience in mind. He was warm, friendly, and yet the way he asked the questions avoided prejudicing the potential jurors toward his client, even when he was trying to determine whether they might be prejudiced.

This weekend I went up to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. That was really fun. I got to see the campus of the Catholic University of America. It is an absolutely gorgeous campus—with a darn good law school (might I add). The Shrine was absolutely stunning. I just spent the morning walking around and looking at the art. I happened to be in a little chapel down in the crypts when they closed it off and began a Spanish mass. So, I just took a seat in the pews and worshiped along. Luckily, the liturgy was printed out on a bulletin. My Spanish is really rusty, but I was able to follow along with the help of the bulletin. It was a little bit harder during the sermon, though. I actually think I am going to attend a few more times during the course of the summer because I really enjoyed it.

This weekend I went with some friends to National Mall late at night to see the monuments under the stars. I did my best to take pictures, but most of them did not come out.

The war monuments are impressive by day, but are a must see by night. The new WWII monument is incredible. I honestly think it will become a tourist tradition to have your picture taken by the pillar of your home state.

I have already seen two or three Facebook profiles pictures that support this hunch. If you come down next semester, you should make a point to visit the Mall late on a weekend. Just be careful around the Reflecting Pool because there are a lot of sleeping ducks and angry geese (and a minefield of you-know-what).

Also, this last weekend I attend a law school forum hosted by LSAC (those are the people who do the LSAT). There were about 180 law schools there. I picked up an entire backpack of information there. I also got a chance to talk to some of the law schools I am interested in about their programs. For a person like me whose interest lies in social justice, clinics and volunteer opportunity are huge. I also asked about research opportunities available at each school. It is important to differentiate between research requirements and opportunities, because the law school representative will want to discuss the requirements to differentiate their school in your mind.

I would highly recommend hitting one of these events up if you are in the area… they are very informative. There are sessions on financing law school, applying, etc. However, if you don’t plan to go for the whole day, obtain a list of the schools that will be there off of LSAC’s website and figure out ahead of time what schools you are really interested in talking to. Anyone can pick up a lot of information by just shoveling it into their bag. Use your time to talk to the school you are really interested in, otherwise you will get caught up a tables chatting with schools you have never even heard of. At the first law school fair that I went to at the University of Iowa, I was just starting my law school search. I had no idea which schools I was interested in. So I just started floating around talking to representatives. Before I knew it, my hour was up and I had learned nothing of any consequence. My advice if it is your first fair: go with what you know. If it is a school that you have heard of, go and talk to the rep. After doing that a couple of times, you will get an idea of what questions to ask. Then just pick up information at tables that look interesting, back off a few steps, just flip through the information and see if any thing catches your interest. If it does, chat. If not, scat. That is just my advice.

One last thing before I let you go. I have been able to get in contact with several University of Iowa/Washington Center alumni who are working in this area through an organization call the Capital Club (the UI Chapter, of course). I just had lunch the other day with an alumnus who actually works for the Department of Justice. We just walked over to Chinatown and went into a random Chinese restaurant and talked about life in Washington, working at the DOJ, our aspirations of law school, etc. I hope to do it again. A summer in DC just affords me an opportunity I would otherwise not get to talk to people that have already been where I want to go and have done what I want to do. It is an invaluable resource that I couldn’t figure out how to find back home. Now that I have some experience locating it here, hopefully I will be able to export that back to Iowa as I finish out my undergraduate experience.

Week numero thrizzo

Hey, how about another week gone by? Fun flies when you have time. I’ve been keeping pretty busy, my friends. Twice in the past week my boss has kicked me out of the office so that he could go home at a reasonable hour. There is no end to the things to do at work. Let me clarify: this is not a complaint. I love what I do and I am fully invested in it. I am not sure how much I can say about it, because everything I am currently working on has a big “confidential” or “classified” stamped on it. However, I am determined to try and discuss it this week.

I have a work space filled with stacks of subpoenaed documents and transcripts from prisons around the country. For a little background, Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA), and set up a PREA Commission and Panel to study/investigation the issue and then work in conjunction with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to inform and advise policy decision making in on this issue. For more information, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_Rape_Elimination_Act_of_2003

Here is the basic gist of where I work, below. The Office of the Assistant Attorney General is nested in the Department of Justice. The Office of Justice Programs is not actually shown, but for simplicity, let’s say it is everything on the right side. Then I am in the Office for Civil Rights.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/about/bureaus.htm

Also, if you want to know a little more about the Office of Justice Programs (where I work in the Office of Civil Rights), check out:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/

It is a well laid out website that will give you a decent and concise idea of what other issues I am working on and learning about.

Please also check out the major issue my office has been working on: the Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Initiative. They have a great website you can poke around just to get a basic idea:

http://www.lep.gov/

Essentially, LEP provides funding to local programs, such as schools/law enforcement so that persons who have limited English proficiency will not be deterred from seeking public services. It is pretty much the only meaningful issue that the Bush administration has left our Office—everything else pretty much comes from Congress.

Let me tell you some fun work stories. Last Friday was a good one. That was one of the days I got kicked out. First, I must say that the Metro system has gone bonkers in the last two weeks; two or three fires, one or two persons run over; one or two derailments—crazy stuff. So anyway, last Friday, there was a fire at one of the major transfer stations, Metro Center that made the Red Line go all wacky. That just happens to be the line I ride to work, no? I finally managed to get to work at 9:15AM, and the power was going off and on. The fire effected like 40 city blocks with sporadic blackouts, or something like that. A couple of my roomies got sent home from work because of it. We were going to meet at a pub for some food after work that day, and it took them like 3 hours by bus because of the chaos to get there. After I was at work for like 45 minutes, my supervisor sent everyone home because all of the computers were acting up. That was not good for me, because I was sort of behind. Luckily, everything on my computer was working for some reason, so I just stayed and worked. I work in the back, so no one noticed.

Here’s the best part of the story. There were all of these glowering, important-looking people running back and forth with clipboards. They had been moving the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) on to our floor for that entire week, so it had been a chaotic week. However, these people were like inspecting who-knows-what, not moving in. Then this really nice lady I had been talking to from OCFO came by and introduced me to a group of glowering people with clipboards.

“Bradley. I would like you to meet Jeffrey L. Sedgwick, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Beth McGarry, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Operations and Management, Eugenia Tyner-Dawson, Senior Advisor for Tribal Affairs.”

They are pretty much the heads of my “department.” That was pretty sweet. Later I found out that lady that had introduced them to me was the CFO, herself. How dumb am I?
One more thing for any of you potential Law and Criminal Justice (LCJ) students out there: The Supreme Court is releasing its decisions now from its Fall/Winter session. The big one that I have been waiting for just came out: Boumediene v. Bush. It is all the buzz around here. I cannot believe they ruled it that way; it will be really interesting to see what happens. Just to give you the basics: Boumediene has been held at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), without trial or even formal indictment for 6 years. In this case, he argued that he should be able to get access to the federal courts because he was being “wrongly held” without trial. That is a very simplified version, and is actually wrong, but it gives you the idea. I recommend reading a quick analysis of it.

http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/legal-analysis:-boumediene-v.-bush/al-odah-v.-united-states

Also, you should watch the December 2007 oral arguments, they are exciting and sexy.

http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2007/2007_06_1195/argument/

Back to work, I have been having a good time. Today was an eventful day. An attorney just retired, so we had a reception for her that lasted the entire late afternoon. It was small, formal, and very fun. It sounds like one of those opportunities that every law intern wants: to hobnob with their superiors, but it wasn’t. It was just a natural extension of the day. I don’t know how to explain my work environment, but I doubt I will see the likes of it again in law. I get a chance to work in close proximity with these attorneys everyday. They are great; they value my contributions, and seem to mix as they work. They are a fun, professional, and dynamic team.

I just got plugged into a program for Department of Justice interns and met some new friends from the Office of the CFO. I have been out to lunch with them a few times. Today, we took a tour of Capitol Hill through this program.

Pictures:

Yeah, I am not the best photographer, but those are the ones that I got to come out in good lighting. We were able to gain access to the Capitol through the Virginian Congressperson Jim Moran. We got to sit in on a House session, while they were arguing about off-shore oil drilling. I guess what I did not know about was the immense labyrinth that lies under Capitol Hill. It is like a shopping mall for self-important people down there that connects all of the important buildings together. There is even a little mini-subway.

What else has been going on? Work consumes most of the week, but on the weekends we are able to get out and stretch our legs a little bit with some lacrosse.

My roomies and I also went to an all-Grosvenor Tower cook out. I got to play my first decent scrimmage of soccer in almost a year—test drove my knee a little bit. Still holding up.

One thing that has been really fun is dinner. My roomies and I get along really well (at least as I see it). We have almost made a ritual of sitting down to a nice dinner every night. It helps that they can cook really well—‘cuz I can’t. I can’t even claim to know my way around the kitchen. However, I have every intent of learning as much as I can without getting in the way too much…

Yo.

Alrighty, I’ve got another week under my belt and it feels like I have been living this metropolitan existence for the entirety of my adult life. I am not going to say I was meant for the big city (I still love chewing trees down with beavers in the woods), but I am getting used to it. I don’t feel small, or just a number, although government is so big around here you have to give someone your SSN before you can even shake their hand.

Dry humor aside, it hasn’t been very dry around here. Crazy storms; rumors of tornados; death by solar heat-ray. Yeah, it’s been hot (especially ten hours of the day in a full suit) but that is to be expected when you raise a city out of a swamp. Two centuries later, the climate is still in place that put the swamp there, and its only getting worse with global warming.

One quick thing on global warming, did you know that it is EVEN MORE of a problem here in DC? That’s what the guy with the sign told me as I came out of the Gallery Place-Chinatown subway exit. In fact, I’ve noticed that crises tend to increase in magnitude in perfect exponential proportion to how close one is to DC. They say that all roads lead to Rome, no? Well, I think all issues lead to DC—just going to put that out there…someone had to do it…

That is what makes DC such a unique opportunity for a college intern. Think about something that interests you. It’s here. Picture something you know you could get passionate about. It’s waiting. In this specific season of life, DC is a place of plenty (a cornucopia) of possibility. I am not even talking just in the political realm. Let me give you, my captive audience, some bullet points:

Politics

I could go on for-absolutely-ever on this one. If you are planning to come next semester, call your congressperson’s office—the DC location. Just ask them what they can do for you. If you are pretty sure you can come, call and they can hook you up with tickets to the White House and Capitol Hill. Also, they know the in’s and out’s of the town. They can help you get past the touristy aspect. If you want to get plugged into a cause, or you want to participate in the public forum, ask them how to get involved. They are a great resource, and they will be partial to you, their constituent. I can’t stress this one enough, especially if you are coming in the fall. You are going to have a great opportunity to see some serious Decision ’08.

If you are interested in law, the Supreme Court is going to come back into session in November. You must go. I will even tell you how to make it work into your schedule. Visit their website: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/visiting/visiting.html Get the hours and location. Okay now, you have Washington Center programming every Monday in the afternoons. Just ask your Supervisor one week if you can make a day out of it. Go watch the oral arguments Monday morning. Being a Mocker (collegiate mock trial), I will tell you it will not be boring. Each oral argument is only 90 minutes. It is like a sporting event. Each lawyer gets 30 minutes power round to argue, with nine judges grilling him/her from the bench. It is intense; it is sassy; it is sexy. Go to http://www.oyez.org/ and listen in interactively to get the feel.

Education

Interested in law school? Well, welcome to the place with the most lawyers per capital in the world! My plan for the summer? Now that I have all of the tourist things out of the way, I am just going to hit one law school a weekend. There are half a dozen top-notch law schools in the area:

Georgetown U
George Mason U
George Washington U
American U
Catholic U
University of Maryland (you can hit it by riding the Green line to its termination than catching the bus to Baltimore Washington Airport).

Check this website out for a better summarization: http://members.aol.com/alicebeard/thoughts/stats.html

Also, I recommend checking the website of the law school you are interested in. They are a great tool. If you are going to go visit, try to get an appointment with an admissions officer and a financial aid officer. Also, you can usually request more information on each website.

Careers

I will keep this one brief. Many people do the Washington Center their senior year of school. Part of the program is that you have to put together a professional portfolio of your entire experience. It is not unheard of for students to get a job offer at the end of the summer if their placement site is hiring. So if you come out, take your portfolio seriously, it will come in handy at interviews after college. In fact, if you want to go to law school in the area, George Mason is a public university and the tuition is almost cut in half if you work in the area for a year or so and establish residency.

Charity

One thing that is great is the incredible opportunities for volunteerism. If you are just a civic soul, or if you are looking for something to decorate your resume with, you can find some charitable cause to plug into. Why is it unique? It is custom-tailored volunteerism. It will afford you the chance to volunteer with something that is salient to your career goals, or directly touches the passions of your heart. For instance, when I get out of law school I would really like to do some sort of nonprofit work that connects kids from disadvantaged homes with resources that are available to them through charity, government programs, and the court system. How does that work? You got me. That is actually one of my goals for the summer. I want to figure out what kind of form that takes in the legal profession. I want to discover how to do that.

Check out: http://socialjustice.georgetown.edu/service/programs/dc.html If you are interested in social justice volunteerism or http://www.volunteermatch.org/ Right now, I have found some opportunities to work in client intake on a volunteer-basis, which should give me the observational experience I want and the opportunity to work with the people I want to help.

Nightlife

Lastly, you should enjoy yourself. DC is a town that has a definite college intern/young professional scene. I was told at orientation that in any given term, there are 45,000 interns in town. Fine establishments all over town offer crazy deals on food and beverage to attract a younger crowd just getting off work on a weekday—if you are into that sort of thing. If you are like me and don’t care about the “spirits,” but like night scenes with live music, there is plenty of that.

To find the specials, check out:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/cityguide/

I know I haven’t really been writing about my job at the Department of Justice, and it’s not because I hate it. Actually, it is awesome and there is so much work to do, I don’t know how it will get done by the end of the summer. The reasons I can’t talk about it right now are twofold: 1) it is classified until the cases are completed. 2) Right now I am working on civil rights violations related to the Prison Rape Elimination Act, so the content is not fit to publish, anyway.

Just one last pitch for the Washington Center before I (as Bill O’Reilly cannot say) “play you out.” The housing situation is sweet. Let me just lay a couple pictures on you from my extremely amateur aperture: the building where I live and the view. Oh my, the view.

!3$ over and out.

And it begins...

I suppose I ought to introduce myself... *ahem* Howdy rowdies! The name is Bradley Kelly. Come fall, I will be a junior at the University of Iowa (go Hawks!), where I am a finance major. I am with the Law and Criminal Justice Program of the Washington Center. Also, I am interning at the Office for Civil Rights, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice—it’s kind of a mouthful. I guess I will be your point of contact on the DCene this summer. I think we can have a grand ol’ time together, if you’re willing to wade through the sea of bad puns.

I have really enjoyed my time in DC so far. I am glad I have the opportunity to come out. I’ve really put the lash to my back over the last two and a half years to fund this little foray into my future. Now it is time to burn some cash—try to purchase the best experience possible.

A word of caution to prospective interns: make sure you guard your purses strings carefully, because money can slip way fast. If you are from a small town in the Midwest, like I am, you have to build into your budgeting expectations for the summer things that can only come with the big city. Need some examples? Higher prices for food, higher sales taxes, and a higher cost of transportation.

A word of commendation: the Metro (subway system) is one of the most clean and efficient systems I have ever been on. It will be hard to avoid the Metro. It is often times a necessity—unless you get lucky and you are housed in close proximity to your internship site. The Metro might take you off guard at first. It charges by the stop—and more during weekdays and peak hours of travel. It is easy to spend upwards of $4.00 just to get home from work.

Luckily, there are great websites with which you can efficiently plan your travel, search out your stops, etc. Interested? See http://www.wmata.com/. If you are techno-savvy enough, you can combine these websites with sites like yellowpages.com and googlemaps.com, and just load up your trip itinerary, metro schedules, and maps on your cell phone. Thus enabled, you have the whole run of the city and the whole summer ahead of you. You should be able to see everything.

My room mates and I actually put this into practice just this weekend. After we suffered through the “bonding experience” of the Washington Center orientation, we decided we should try the bonding thing one more time. We thought it was high time to catch an Orioles-Red Sox game in Baltimore. So we jumped online, ordered tickets, then found train and bus schedule to get there and back for cheap. Use our generation’s resources 2C the DCene in ways that can only BCene by our generation (that is all I am say’n).