Release date: Aug. 1, 2005
Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Law School Internship Program Stresses Rewards of Child-focused Law

Child advocacy is one of the most challenging areas of the law—as well as one of the lowest paying. However, the challenges of child-focused law often draw some of the most eager practitioners.

“The work can be difficult at times, but I am learning a great deal,” said Joshua McCabe, a 2004 political science graduate of Emory College. McCabe is one of this year's interns for the School of Law's Summer Child Advocacy Program. He is interning at the DeKalb County Child Advocacy Center, where his responsibilities include assisting in forensic interviews on children who have been abused and neglected by their parents. He has already appeared in court on behalf of a young client.

“The program is amazing,” said McCabe, a perfect example of the program's goal of recruiting the best and brightest students. He spent 2004–05 in St. Andrews as a Bobby Jones scholar and is one of only a handful of 2005 interns without a law background (yet). “I haven't even started law school yet and already I'm making a presentation in court.”

“The intent of the program is to bring the best and the brightest to this kind of work, to turn them on to how wonderful, fascinating and interesting it is, so that they will continue to work and improve the practice of children's law and advocacy,” said program Director Beth Reimels, '01L, an intern herself in 1999.

Part of the law school's Barton Child Law & Policy Clinic, the Summer Child Advocacy Program lines up interns (this year there are 20, the number changes depending on funding) with juvenile courts, state agencies and child advocacy organizations around the state. Most are in the metro Atlanta area, but this year's interns have been placed as far away as the Golden Isles Children's Advocacy Center in Brunswick, Ga.

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