Aspiring lawyers and legal professionals will have the opportunity to gain experience while participating in a new Court Systems Internship program next year.
“I wish I had this when I was in high school. It really would have prepared me to be a better attorney,” said criminal justice teacher Robyn Katz, who leads the program. “I don’t know any other school in central Texas in fact there is no other school in central Texas that has this opportunity.”
The addition of the Court Systems Internship will give students in the Criminal Justice program a third career focus option. The program is designed to help students who want to go to law school or work as paralegals that work in law offices. Robyn Katz, who has worked as a lawyer, will lead the new internship program, which she calls the “Legal Eagles.”
“I think that it’s a great addition to the Criminal Justice program,” junior Beatris Aguirre said. “It gives us students another privilege to see what careers we want to take on when we graduate. Not only that but it allows us to experience and get a new perspective as to what it means to really be a part of the Criminal Justice program.”
Entry into the Legal Eagles program will be managed by an application process, she said. Only eight to 10 students will be accepted into this internship.
“Students will go through a lot of interviews with people and they’re really going have to push for it if they really want it,” Katz said.
The internship itself will be a double-blocked class to allow students to do job shadowing off campus. Katz said the class will explore how court systems work and how to act as a prosecutor and defense attorney. Katz is working to secure funding to build a mock courtroom for students to use as practice facility.
Sophomore Zachery Finney designed the layout of the mock trial room as part of a class project last year. Finney said he was surprised to find out that his design would actually be used as the model for the actual mock courtroom.
“It actually feels pretty cool knowing that I did something to make a part of this school like literally, so it actually feels kind of nice,” Finney said.
Katz said she has big plans for the future of the Court Systems Internship program.
“I liked to create a mock trial team through the internship for the students to be actually prepared to go and compete in competitions in Texas and hopefully nationally with other high schools,” Katz said. “We’re going to start that this spring and then actually form a team next school year.”