Tara Casey is a graduate of UCD Law School. She is currently undertaking a LLM at Harvard Law School.
Spending Summer 2018 in Seattle, Washington as this year’s Thomas Addis Emmet fellow was a fantastic experience, both personally and professionally. I worked at Washington Appleseed, a public interest law organisation which works to connect the legal aid community with pro bono attorneys on large scale projects to implement social change. The organisation was extremely collaborative, allowing me to work with the Executive Director of Appleseed and other US law student interns, along with other players in the legal aid community.
While I was there, I was mainly working on Appleseed’s school discipline project, looking at updating their report on exclusionary school discipline and how it disproportionately affects students of colour – in particular students of colour with disabilities. I engaged in substantive legal research in this project, but also had the opportunity to develop an online webinar to help parents access data on school discipline rates and practices from their district. I found this to be particularly rewarding, given my interest in and FLAC’s emphasis on making justice and the law accessible to all.
I also contributed to other projects, such as their work to improve jury diversity in Washington State and was able to attend numerous events put on by the legal aid community in Seattle, such as their public interest law intern training and the board meetings of the Alliance for Equal Justice. It was hugely inspiring to see the numerous ways in which those involved in public interest law mutually support one another and are determined to pursue lasting and effective improvements for marginalised communities in Washington.
Aside from this exciting work, I got to experience all that Seattle has to offer, from neighbourhood festivals every weekend to a Mariner’s baseball game. Working in a city which has a bustling downtown area, relaxing lakes and stunning snow-capped mountains is truly unique and offers something for everyone.
The Thomas Addis Emmet fellowship is a fantastic experience for anyone hoping to improve their lawyering skills in a unique setting, and encourages a student to think more broadly about the improvement of the provision of legal aid and support. I could not recommend the Fellowship more highly.