Prameela Kottapalli ’23 and Louise Wang ’23 spent the summer in New York City courtrooms and legal offices, reviewing evidence, reading cases and learning about the complex processes of the legal system, thanks in part to grants from the Humanities Scholars Program (HSP) in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Wang interned with the New York County District Attorney’s office while Kottapalli interned with the Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit that defends low-income people in a wide variety of cases.
Louise Wang outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where she worked this summer, in New York City.
“I had no idea what a prosecutor’s office did until this summer,” Wang said. “You’re constantly learning from attorneys and paralegals and you get to really experience everything that goes on.”
Much of Wang’s time was spent on investigatory work, gathering and reviewing evidence including photos and surveillance video from homicides, robberies and assaults. She was also able to sit in on numerous trials, including the case of Richard Rojas, who was cleared of responsibility this summer for running his car into a crowd of people in Times Square in 2017.
Read the entire story about their summer experiences on the
