In our annual Summer Work Series, UC Berkeley Law students share reflections about their on-the-job experiences. These first-person accounts describe various career-advancing work and skill building in different areas of law, through opportunities often obtained in partnership with the school’s Career Development Office.
Rising 3L Christina Ochoa sees the law as one tool that can help people assert their voice when their rights are being violated. She is working to help vindicate the rights of workers who have been discriminated against, harassed, and denied their rights. Ochoa has learned important advocacy skills during her time at law school, through involvement in student-run groups, the Human Rights Clinic, field placements, and her summer work. While an undergraduate at Cornell University, she was awarded the Newman Civic Fellowship for her demonstrated commitment to social justice efforts.
Below, Ochoa describes her exciting summer work as a law clerk at Bryan Schwartz Law, P.C., in Oakland.
Coming to UC Berkeley Law, I knew that I wanted to explore how the law could be used to help marginalized communities assert their voices when their rights were being violated. As soon as I arrived, I found a community of like-minded students in the Plaintiffs’ Law Association (PLA).
Through networking opportunities, events at the law school, and talking to upperclass students, I learned about firms that focus on bringing cases on behalf of people who suffered injustice. Now, as one of the PLA co-presidents, I feel fortunate to be able to help organize much of the programming I found so inspiring as a 1L.
This summer, I had the opportunity to be a summer law clerk at Bryan Schwartz Law, P.C., a plaintiff-side employment firm in Oakland that handles both individual cases and class actions representing hundreds of workers whose rights have been violated.
One of the benefits of working at a smaller firm is you get thrown right into the action. I got to draft motions, research legal strategies, attend mediations and depositions, and evaluate potential clients to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their potential claims.
A highlight of the summer was getting to grapple with challenging arguments when assisting in drafting an opposition to a motion to dismiss one of the firm’s Fair Labor Standards Act cases in federal court. I had the opportunity to break apart the defense counsel’s arguments, think about ways we could respond, do the legal research to strengthen the arguments I was raising, and draft the initial opposition.
As a summer clerk, it can sometimes be challenging to see a project from beginning to end because you are only there for a short amount of time. So, seeing my writing and ideas get implemented and ultimately filed was an unbelievably rewarding experience, and made me feel like I was really part of the team that was fighting for workers’ rights.
I hope to take what I learned this summer and continue to work on my advocacy skills throughout my 3L year and beyond. Being at the forefront of legal strategy and witnessing current events impact our clients has demonstrated the importance of being a creative advocate. I am incredibly grateful to the team at Bryan Schwartz Law for giving me the opportunity to get as involved as I did on so many different projects.
I couldn’t have asked for a better summer experience, as I was able to not only learn new skills and do a deep dive into a fascinating area of law, but also interact with incredible attorneys who care deeply about the clients they represent.