Internship programs continue successful run in Shoshone County

WALLACE –– Four law school students are getting a hands-on look at what daily life in a small courthouse is like. 

The students are participating in the county’s internship and clerkship programs under the watchful eyes of the Shoshone County Prosecuting Attorney Ben Allen and Magistrate Judge Keisha Oxendine.  

Taylor Cooper, Zachary Stephens, Matthew Suarez, and Abygail Berger are all at different points in their budding legal careers, but the programs developed in Shoshone County were designed to allow different levels of experience while still giving the students a chance to earn high school or college credit and receive valuable experience.  

In Shoshone County, historic highs in housing costs and historic lows in bar exam passage have made recruiting young professionals a challenge for offices like those at the courthouse, because of this, the county created these programs to help aid them.  

“The short-term goal of the internship program is two-fold,” Allen stated. “First, invest in our youth by teaching, training, and mentoring in a way that supports a positive contribution back to the county, and by the end of the program, interns will hopefully have developed sufficient skills to assist in reducing the workload in the office. If we make the experience positive enough for them, it is our hope they may return in subsequent years to build on the investment we have made and perhaps even return to our community someday to make it their home.”  

Over the years, the caseload in Shoshone County has grown significantly, so bringing in law school students who can help in various capacities has been invaluable to the county.  

“This was a valuable opportunity to expose students to small-town courtroom practice and allow students an opportunity to develop their legal research skills while also experiencing all case types,” Oxendine said. “By creating internship opportunities here, we give students experience and skills while making connections to the area, hopefully making them feel at home.” 

These internship and clerkship programs, while similar, are kept away from each other to maintain a healthy boundary between the prosecutor’s office and the judge's chambers. However, it was the early and ongoing success of the prosecutor’s program that prompted Judge Oxendine to establish the clerkship program.  

When the prosecutor’s office initially began, three curriculum tracks were established to help guide how each intern’s workflow would progress based on the level of education of the intern, or what stage of law school they had completed.  

High school-aged interns focus primarily on observation and introductions to paralegal work, while law school students are challenged with much more responsibility. First-year law students focus on the research and writing skills necessary to their field, but for second and third-year law students, they have the opportunity to obtain a limited-license to practice under the guidance of a supervising attorney. This includes developing public speaking and courtroom litigation skills, while also exploring a vast array of legal practice areas. 

It’s this curriculum that has allowed Cooper and Stephens to have each been assigned a summer caseload for the county, due to their law school experience. To be a supervising attorney, one must have a least five years experience as a licensed attorney and can only have two interns at a time. According to Allen, this is because the hands-on training is so intensive and the stakes for attorney work-product are high, supervising attorneys are limited to a maximum of two interns at any time. 

Ms. Berger, a Wallace High School graduate, is currently serving in Judge Oxendine’s clerkship program as a second-year law student from the University of Idaho. Each day she undertakes projects like legal research, document assembly, editing and proofreading opinions, briefings, as well as several other tasks. She is only the second student to pass through the county’s clerkship program.  

“Our community is a place full of career opportunities for individuals in the justice system whether through the courts, prosecution, defense, or law enforcement,” Judge Oxendine said.   

While the County has dealt with a great deal of budget uncertainty in recent years, the Prosecutor’s Office and Magistrate Court have taken the opportunity to invest in their future while combatting budget and short-staffing concerns. Allen and Oxendine hope these programs can have a positive return on investment for the Shoshone County community.  

“For a county such as Shoshone, the goal was and always will be a desire to merge education with sustainability planning as we develop a system which may spark a desire for young professionals to return to their training ground someday with a degree in hand,” Allen said.