Yajuan Lu
North Penn Legal Services
Williamsport, Pennsylvania

The first year of law school is tough in the United States, especially for an international student without prior legal training. While my classmates were celebrating summer internship offers, I was having difficulty deciding what might suit me best. I have degrees in Medicine and International Relations and I wanted a meaningful internship that would give me a broad range of experience.

Then one afternoon during the spring break, Cynthia called to offer me an internship at North Penn Legal Services in Williamsport. As soon as I hung up I looked up Williamsport on Google. I learned Williamsport is a city located in north central Pennsylvania with a population of 30, 000 that was known for the lumber business at the turn of the century. Next I looked at North Penn’s website and saw it was focused on poverty law.

I wasn’t exactly sure what poverty law was, and I did not see how it might fit in with my interest in medicine or international relations. It sounded like a stretch from what I thought I wanted. And frankly, the thought of working in a city that was only as big as the neighborhood where I grew up was not very exciting.

However, when I talked to my advisor I was counseled that this could be a good opportunity for me because “many of the jobs in the global health field involve working with people below the poverty line.” Three days later I made what turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life when I called Cynthia to accept the internship.

My internship with North Penn gave me the opportunity to put my legal training to work while using the medical training acquired during five years of medical school. On my first day at North Penn I was given a stack of medical records and asked to prepare medical exhibits for an upcoming SSI hearing. I couldn’t have been more excited – I know medical records well, and knew I could do a good job preparing the exhibits.

At the conclusion of the administrative hearing held three weeks later, Danna, the Manager of the Williamsport office of North Penn Legal Services, turned to me with a smile and said, “Yajuan, I have never felt so confident presenting medical information to a judge.” I remember thanking her and thinking that I would not have believed reviewing lab results could be so satisfying.

I’ve learned and grown a lot during my ten weeks at North Penn. I think I learned as much about life as I did about the practice of law. I remember arriving at the Williamsport courthouse, feeling a little like an out-of-place tourist. I vividly remember packing my purse with a camera (I had never been to Williamsport before), pepper spray (hey, I am a girl), and two cell phones (one for use in the U.S. and one for texting my parents in Beijing).

Since then I’ve become a regular at several courthouses and have started feeling at home there. I’ve witnessed the drama of divorce conferences, encountered shady landlords in landlord-tenant cases, felt the tears of heartbroken mothers during emergency custody hearings, and celebrated in the smiles of wrongfully terminated employees who had just won their deserved benefits. I’ve enjoyed using my skill with numbers while helping clients in credit card and bankruptcy cases. I am also grateful to have gained experience with interviewing clients, writing briefs, and filing timely petitions.

During my ten weeks at Legal Services, I learned more than I ever expected, but the satisfaction that I got from serving our clients was even greater. These have been weeks of great joy and excitement. From the outset the organization made me feel welcome. At our training session we had great food, excellent speakers, comfortable hotel rooms, and Cynthia was a great host. My colleagues in Williamsport were extremely patient and supportive, giving me assistance whenever needed. My supervisor was accessible and easy to talk to. I looked forward to each Litigation Lunch on Tuesday when the attorneys brought in their own troubling cases for discussion. I was surprised by the quantity and variety of cases and each day I found myself excited to have learned something new.

By the time you read this, I will be back in Beijing interviewing construction workers as part of my legal research on the influences of health insurance policies on the healthcare-seeking behavior of migrant workers. This is where my where my real passion lies – global health and human rights. But as my advisor predicted, while I find myself on a different continent, I am using the interviewing and analytical skills that I honed at NPLS, along with the compassion that I absorbed from my ten week experience, to help people who are living in poverty. Thank you Legal Services for an experience that will aid me throughout my life!