Working in the Law Library was pretty flexible, I was allowed to start at any time between 6.30am and 8.30am, I chose 8.30am! I would normally come in and drop my bags, turn on my computer etc, before going in to say hi to my supervisor, Clare. This wasn’t a requirement, but I liked to do it every morning just to say hi and fill her in on what I was at the night before and chat about my plans for the day. Sometimes Clare would be going for her break at this time (she starts work at 6.30am) so I might either go with her for my coffee and doughnut (so healthy I know!) or I’d just go to my office and start into whatever I was working on. I normally took my lunch from 1pm-2pm but you can take it any time between 11am and 2pm. You also get two 20minute breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, but these aren’t taken in any official way, you can go and get a coffee when you want. I finished work officially at 5pm but you can stay later if needed either for WIP or for your own research.
The atmosphere in the Library is very relaxed. I had my own office and my own projects to get on with so the pace of the day really depended on how hard I wanted to push myself, which was nice as there were some days when I was really exhausted after WIP events or there were WIP events during the day. Also I was encouraged to go to Congressional Hearings which are a brilliant opportunity to see Capitol Hill in all its glory.
Before I arrived in the Library, I’d been in contact with Clare my supervisor and we had discussed different research projects that I could work on while I was at the library. I did an independent piece of research on Anti-Terrorism Laws in Northern Ireland and in the UK in general, and I also did a presentation on my report on my last day in the Library. I was also involved in responding to Congressional requests and private readers’ requests. This is where a question is asked on a particular area of law. Normally these are for jurisdictions you are familiar with (for me, this was British law) but you can be given ones for other jurisdictions, which are pretty simple research tasks. Another duty is to keep up to date with legal developments in your home jurisdiction in order to write a paragraph on it for the World Law Bulletin which is sent to Congress, so I would have always had the BBC News website, the Times and the Guardian websites on my computer.
I would strongly recommend this internship to anyone who is self-motivated and can work very independently this is important as you can go through the day without a whole lot of interaction with other people and there are no other interns in the office. However, it was brilliant to see a law degree being put to use in ways other than practising and also the skills you learn there are invaluable.
