Max Rosen CCJS

 

Homicide Intern, US Attorney’s Office - District of Columbia

Major:  Criminology and Criminal Justice (B.A.)

Class Year: 2023

 

 

 

What was a typical week like in your internship position?

 As an intern I assisted in processing homicide case evidence to help prepare Assistant US Attorneys for trial. On a typical day, I would be listening to a defendant’s jail calls and annotating them for incriminating evidence, then walking over to DC Superior Court to watch a homicide trial, and then get back to the office where I’d shadow a meeting with DEA, FBI and/or Metropolitan Police officials. I was able to choose my assignments based on a running spreadsheet where Assistant US Attorneys would add tasks that they themselves would otherwise do, but which they would like to delegate to an intern. This made for enjoyable and impactful work, with an emphasis on the latter - you are not shuffling papers, rather, you are digging into privileged information integral to prosecuting Washington DC’s most violent criminals.

 

 

What do you enjoy most about your current position?

Variety. You can take on any assignment you’d like, whether that be 50 jail calls or reviewing a defendant’s Instagram top to bottom. Also, like a prosecutor, you have discretion in your assignments. While you will be told what to make note of, ultimately how well and in what way the body camera video, jail call, or other piece of evidence is reviewed is up to you.

 

 

How did your coursework help you in your internship?

Criminal justice coursework helps establish a baseline of knowledge from which you can operate in a fast-paced, heavy caseload prosecutor’s office. More specifically, you’ll already know what discovery means, the differences between local vs federal court, and other basic criminal justice tenets. This way, upon arrival, you’ll be ready to conquer most if not all assignments because you’ll have known the ‘gist’ of what work in a prosecutor’s office entails.

 

 

How did you locate your internship position?

The CCJS Undergraduate Blog! I check this daily (even in the summer) and it paid off when I found a posting for the US Attorney’s Office in DC which I otherwise would have never found. Most already know about the FBI Internship, Police Department internships, etc. - but the CCJS blog has so many hidden treasures of experience waiting for you to find them. My experience was certainly one of those.

 

 

Advice for students:

As for the application process, be your true self in your resume and cover letter. And don’t think about ‘chances’ of acceptance - just put yourself out there and see what sticks (this isn’t the college application process with secret committees!). Once you are offered an internship, communicate early and often with HR and your supervisors so they can get to know you before you come in. And, in a post-COVID world, if at all possible do an in-person internship. While many interns at the US Attorney’s Office were remote, their experience wasn’t remotely (had to) close to the in-person experience of being able to talk, face to face, with the brightest legal minds in the country and have a myriad of resources at your fingertips (as opposed to your bedroom at home).

 

Anything else you want to share with students about your experience?

Put yourself out there. Yes, I know, cliché. But the best projects I’ve worked on at my internship were the ones I didn’t know I’d enjoy, and if it wasn’t for me saying ‘why the heck not,’ I wouldn’t have necessarily done them. Along the way, I was able to meet and establish connections with some of the nicest, most talented prosecutors in the District.