One aspect of what we offer to students training as advocates is the prospect of further professional opportunities in the field through co-op placements in their second and third years of law school (if they are Northeastern students) or summer internships (if they are from other law schools or graduate programs).
Locally, our strong ties to the community and positive reputation make it natural for agency representatives to contact us when they have a co-op or internship position to fill. If the agency seeks the services of a student whom we have trained, it provides the additional security of knowing that the staff of the Domestic Violence Institute will continue to support the student, playing a back-up advisory role. Through these mechanisms we have placed students in legal services offices, District Attorneys' offices, and legal programs operated by battered women's shelters and sexual assault organizations. Our efforts help promote a coordinated community response to domestic violence in the Boston area as we are expanding the number of advocates in settings such as neighborhood health care centers, hospitals, social service agencies and public housing. One consequence of this development is the expansion of opportunities available to our students and graduates.
At the national level, our contacts with potential employers in the domestic violence field are growing all the time. Within the last few years, we have placed students in the Violence Against Women Office within the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, in Philadelphia. Students have worked at the policy level on domestic violence initiatives for the states of Rhode Island and New Hampshire. NUSL students looking to work on domestic violence issues at the national level have a level of training and experience unavailable in any other law school in the country.
Financially, this is a difficult time to be seeking new resources to provide law students with additional training opportunities for two reasons. One, the resources available at the national level to legal services and public interest law are shrinking. Second, students find themselves less able to finance their legal education, even through loans. In this context, it is difficult to ask students to accept volunteer or low-paying co-op or internship positions. We are, however, aggressively seeking funding for co-op or student intern positions in our recent education and services proposals.