7/30/2019 Setting Goals and Writing a Goals Memorandum
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University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of
Law
Summer 2013 Public Interest Fellowships
Setting Goals and Writing a Goals Memorandum:
A Professional Development Requirement
Dear Students:
We are delighted that you are participating in the UDC School of
Law's summer public interest
fellowship program. We are committed to financing your full-time
public service legal
work, which is for many of you, the first time you will be
working in a legal setting. We want you
to use this experience to integrate your classroom knowledge and
your on-the-job skills, to help
you develop your own sense of professional identity. At its most
basic, the question is: Who do
I want to be as a member of the profession?
To help you get the most out of the experience, we require all
students receiving law school
funding to meet certain professional development activities,
whether you are working outside the
law school or for one of our clinics. Every student needs to (1)
prepare a goals memorandumand (2) make an appointment to discuss
that memorandum at the beginning of the summer with
Dena Bauman or Vanita Saleema Snow in an entrance interview.
Then, at the end of the
summer, you schedule an exit interview with one of us to discuss
your experience. If you are
working for one of the law school clinics, please contact Dean
Forman regarding her
expectations.
We administer the program through Symplicity, the career
management system that we use to
post job announcements, advertise career programs, etc. Through
this system, you can schedule
meetings, find and read required materials, and find evaluation
forms.
Setting Goals and Writing a Goals Memorandum
Why did you choose your placement? If you are like most
students, you want to: apply your
classroom learning to the real world; explore career interests
and build a professional network;
learn about and serve the community, and begin to create the
"portfolio" of skills that you will
need in your future careers. Additionally, learning how to
identify and set goals for the internship,
working effectively with supervisors and other colleagues,
improving skills such as time
management, and identifying and handling professional ethics
issues are all essential professional
skills.
Identifying those goals and what strategies you will use to
achieve them, will help you control
your experience this summer and use your time more effectively.
Every day at the internship will
offer you choices about different opportunities, whether it is
to observe a trial, make a jail visit, or
take on a new assignment. Having a "game plan" in place will
help you decide which choices to
make. How do you create a game plan?
In the internship class, Professor Robinson and I, ask each
student to prepare a goals
memorandum at the beginning of the semester. That memo outlines
their goals for their
internship, their longer-term professional goals, and how the
internship will help them achievethose goals. Preparing a goals
memorandum early in your internship is a very effective way to
help you articulate what you intend to accomplish this summer.
It provides a baseline to help you
evaluate your experience, and to stay on track as the summer
progresses. If you find, as many
