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When she interviewed at the ACLU, on the other hand, she felt accepted for who she is at the very start. Also, she sensed that the group was "going towards a purpose rather than a deadline" and so chose the unpaid job over the paying one for this summer.
At the ACLU, Jordan is doing research on constitutional issues raised by people in the state, mostly on issues of prisoners' rights.
Instead of that part-time job, Jordan has been volunteering. She spent the earlier part of the summer as co-chair of the organizing effort for Nashville's Gay Pride celebration parade. Now that Pride is over, she is using her background in accounting to help the Rape & Sexual Abuse Center in Nashville, organizing their budget and making spreadsheets.
Lauren Loew started off the summer in Venice, and is wrapping it up with the Immigrant Legal Clinic at the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, in Nashville. Loew, who will enter her second year at Vanderbilt Law in the fall, received a half stipend of $2,500 from the fund to enable her to work at the clinic.
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In Venice, Loew studied in a Vanderbilt program, taking courses in law & development in emerging nations, comparative legal systems, and international arbitration. Now, in Nashville, she is doing policy work, drafting a Request for an Opinion letter to the Attorney General. While she cannot discuss the specific issue, she says that making a case for this binding decision is "pretty exciting."
Loew, who is on the board of the Legal Aid Society at Vanderbilt Law, did not apply for the stipend at first, even though she was very involved in raising money for the fund, which is administered by the Society. After the new law school Dean, Edward Rubin, announced he would double the money raised at the charity auction for the stipend fund (bringing the total to over $30,000), more stipends were made available, and Loew threw her hat into the ring.
Philip Oliphant also applied for the stipend after the announcement that more were available. Although he was not selected to receive the stipend, he went ahead with his plans to do public interest work nonetheless.
Initially, Oliphant thought that his work for the summer with the Southern Environmental Law Center, Ashville, N.C., would not fall under the stipend guidelines of providing legal services to the underserved, he says. But then he did some research and saw "no reason why environmental work should not be included," he says. He speculates that his application was not approved because there may have been a large number of applicants the second time, and there was not enough funding for all.
Meanwhile, he went ahead with his summer plans, making ends meet with a separate fellowship from Vanderbilt, a small stipend from the nonprofit itself, and by subletting his Nashville home. "With all of that combined, I'm pretty much breaking even," says Oliphant, who left a career creating databases for financial services companies in New York to come to law school and pursue his "two dream jobs" - working either with Earth Justice, or the ACLU.
Through his summer work, Oliphant says, "I'm fulfilling a lot of my dreams." With the Southern Environmental Law Center, he is assisting attorneys who bring lawsuits on behalf of other environmental groups, primarily against the government for not enforcing existing environmental provisions. For example, his office is primarily focused on forestry issues, and brings cases against the U.S. Park Service. Oliphant researches forestry, land use, and water quality issues.
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Oliphant, who will be a third year in the fall, will continue with his dream jobs during the academic year as he works with the ACLU office in Nashville doing constitutional law research. Even if there are no openings at these two groups when he graduates, Oliphant is sure he wants to work in public interest law after graduation. Giving up the higher pay of law firm work is fine with him; to do this work, he says, "it's all worth it."
