Public Interest Week: Erin Walczewski

by admissions

Thursday, April 08, 2010 at 06:51 AM EDT

Last week I wrote about my summer working in the private sector, so this week it's time to give my public service summer a turn. I was beckoned to the Windy City by the Chicago Mayor's Fellowship during the summer between my 1L and 2L years, and it was among the most amazing things I've done in law school.

I loved the mayor's fellowship. First of all, Chicago is SUCH a beautiful place to hang out for the summer! Second, the mayor's fellowship really appealed to my nerdy interests. Does anyone remember that tour of the crayon factory they used to show on Sesame Street? Well, every Wednesday on the fellowship was Field Trip Day—we went behind the scenes at Soldier Field, the water filtration plant (more interesting than it sounds), did a homeless van ride-along, and spent a day at the Chicago Police Academy, among other adventures. It was just like the crayon tour, but better.

Our duties with the homeless van ride-along started at 3:00 a.m., when my co-fellow Molly and I met up with our two Department of Human Services hosts and climbed in the van. The four of us spent the day under bridges and in parks, looking for homeless people and offering them free services when we found them. I had a pretty enlightening forty-minute conversation with two gentlemen in a park who generously offered to clue Molly and me in on the way things really worked. They were at the top of the food chain, they explained, because they did not do heroin and sometimes found a job that would pay enough for them to stay in a hotel for a few days. They were kind enough to offer us some beer, but I declined, saying that at 7:00 in the morning what I really wanted was someone who wanted some city services, since we had been at it for four hours and no one had yet taken us up on our offers for anything (food, shelter, clothing, job training, detox, etc).

They thought about it for a minute, then directed us to a nearby bush where they said there was a new guy who might want something. They also reminded us to knock, which was a good note, since I didn't realize the purloined traffic barrier was serving as a door to a hollow in the bush where the new guy lived. After repeated offers, the new guy did want something! Shoes, size 8. Done and done. We asked if he wanted us to drive him to a shelter, but he said he liked his own place (the bush) just fine. This is where the info from the first two gentlemen shed some light on things—they said they don't like going to shelters, at least not in the summer when it's nice, because in shelters the workers try to boss you around and speak very condescendingly toward you. Huh. Definitely food for thought as we think about ways to increase the utilization of city services.

The day at the police academy taught me just as much, and was so much fun I felt giddy. After teaching us a technique called Verbal Judo, laying out which excuses are more likely than others to get you out of a ticket, and giving us a presentation on TASER guns (yes, it's all caps) and a lecture on the legal use of lethal force, we got to go out and do traffic stops in a squad car. We had plain clothes police behaving in different ways during the traffic stops so that we could put our new knowledge to the test and see if what they were doing warranted Verbal Judo, drawing our weapons (we had air guns), or lethal force. I was so nervous! I knew it was a simulation, but the radios on our shoulders were real (I didn't realize that until I said "Roger, roger, 10-4" into it as a joke, and then an operator on the other end responded with "Unit 67, what is that you're acknowledging?"), our 30-pound equipment belt was real, the squad car was real, the Crown Vic we were chasing through the rows of cars in the parking lot was real. . .it all felt real to me!

I could go on and on about my Chicago summer, but I will just encourage you to try the public sector, for your summer or for your career. The service you'll give to yourself with what you learn is just as valuable as the service you'll be doing for others. 10-4.

-- Erin

This article originally appeared on HLS in Focus.