Law students participate in MLK Jr. Fellowship Program
Supriya Philips has a goal when she becomes a lawyer — to help those in her community.
Philips, a third-year law student, was one of four Widener Law Commonwealth students chosen to participate in the Martin Luther King Jr. Fellowship Program through the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network (PLAN).
The program was established in 1991 to promote cultural and ethnic diversity in legal services and to honor Dr. King. The MLK program offered by PA Legal Aid offers summer internships throughout the organization’s network for second-year and third-year law students. The students must be social justice oriented and desire an opportunity to make a difference.
“The best part of the internship program was meeting other like-minded students and attorneys interested in making a difference in their community,” Philips said. “The most important thing that I learned in my time over the summer is that anyone can make a difference in another person’s life.”
This is the second summer that Philips has participated in the program. Last year she worked at MidPenn Legal Services in Harrisburg and practiced family law. Her internship this summer was working at the Philadelphia Institutional Law Project and assisting with prisoners’ civil rights litigation, where she worked remotely and gained trial experience.
Second-year student Glory Brown worked at the Regional Housing Legal Services in Harrisburg, while Queenette Echefu, a fourth-year law student, worked at MidPenn Legal Services in Harrisburg. Cykhira Walton, a second-year student, was located at Philadelphia Legal Assistance.
The program offers law students the experience to have interactions with clients, participate in court and administrative hearings, and conduct legal research and writing on cases under the supervision of legal aid attorneys.