Week One

by Sarah Conley

This is my second summer in DC, and I am so excited to be back! On my first day at NCSC, I was tasked with drafting survey questions to gather feedback and data on a recent Moot Court Program in Moldova. Drafting survey questions is quite a different task than drafting the memos I wrote during my 2023 summer internship, but the connection between this assignment and legal writing is unquestionable. Having to write questions about a program that I did not attend and for five different categories of stakeholders (judges, coaches, mentors, and law students) required me to use my legal background in a brand new way. This task was furthered complicated by the fact that these surveys needed to be translated into Romanian, and I spent a great deal of time troubleshooting the best way to accomplish this.

As the week continued, I enjoyed meeting other staff in the office (and around the globe) thanks to a mix of in-person and online meetings. One meeting I really enjoyed was with our Bosnian field office, I was able to meet a Bosnia-based legal intern remotely. Until Friday, I was the only intern in our office so it was nice having the chance to interact with another intern on Wednesday, even if that interaction was virtual.

At the end of my first week, I was rewarded with a long weekend and I spent the holiday traveling around two new states for me: Pennsylvania and Delaware. A highlight of my trip was camping on a farm in Smyrna, DE where I bottle-fed baby goats before driving down to Rehoboth Beach for the day. I ended my trip with a museum filled tour through the Philadelphia area before returning to DC.