2023 Summer Intern Final Reflections
Back in June , New Hampshire Legal Assistance welcomed three new interns to our offices to spend their summer with us. Eight weeks later, Andrew Allard, Arya Novinbakht, and Katie Taylor are ready to return to law school armed with a better understanding of legal aid and hands-on experience they can apply to their studies.
During their time with us, Andrew, Arya, and Katie immersed themselves in NHLA’s diverse areas of practice. Andrew worked primarily on housing cases with NHLA staff, particularly evictions.
“I would call clients and ask what sort of notices they received,” Andrew said. “I’d ask if they had plans to move or if they wanted to fight the eviction. If they wanted to fight it, I investigated possible defenses they could use.”
One highlight of Andrew’s internship was being able to assist attorney Mike Merra in drafting pleadings for a title dispute in Superior Court.
“A woman in Claremont had sold her house to someone, but later turned around and tried to sell it to someone else,” he explained. “Being able to work with Mike and get some hands-on experience writing the pleadings for the case is a pretty unique level of involvement I wasn’t expecting in this internship.”
Arya also spent time working on housing cases. Under NH Supreme Court Rule 36, Arya was able to represent clients in court with supervision from a licensed attorney.
“I took on an unemployment denial case with Steve Tower where I was able to be in the courtroom the day of the hearing and represent our client,” he said. “I interviewed the client in front of the judge and later asked cross examination questions of the defendant. At the end of the case, I delivered the closing remarks. We were able to get a 100% positive outcome for our client in that hearing!”
Based in the NHLA Claremont office, Katie participated in NHLA’s medical legal partnership with Dartmouth Health. Katie collaborated with hospital case workers at the family resource center, answered questions about benefits, housing, and family law issues their clients were facing, and brought referrals back to NHLA.
“I am more interested in family law than I was before this internship,” she said. “I plan on taking more classes in this area than I planned on doing otherwise.”
All of the interns credit their internships for giving them hands-on experience they had not gotten previously.
"In school, they teach you what the law is, but they don't teach you how to engage with it, how to go to court, or how to file things,” said Arya. “Not all clients are the same, either. You have to be able to assist clients who can’t drive or don’t have access to internet to transfer documents.”
“It was great practical experience,” said Andrew. “I was the point of contact for clients and had to juggle several different cases at once. It’s been rewarding to use my skills to help people.”
Each intern highly recommends students consider doing an internship with NHLA to broaden their knowledge of civil law and its applications.
“The staff here really make the experience valuable,” said Katie. “Everyone is open and willing to teach. Any intern will benefit from learning from these great attorneys.”
“NHLA can give a law student more experience than any other law firm because it has such a wide variety of practice fields,” said Arya. “And if they qualify for being Rule 36, they’ll get a better experience than they will get in any law school class. I’ve grown a lot and learned a lot here.”