During the summer, law school students (J.D.) are usually seeking internship opportunities. The goal is to gain practical experience, in preparation for becoming future lawyers. Interestingly, two SJD (Doctor of Juridical Science) students, who have a background in academia, believe that they could also benefit from summer internships, as it would complement their classroom experience. 

Preparing for his first days, Attamongkol Tantratian (Atta) was excited when he showed me the view from his apartment window through Zoom. Late last year, he landed a summer internship at the Privacy Office of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) in Chicago, Illinois. Of course, most of the internship was remote.  Still, Atta was up for the adventure and living in the big city during his three-month internship.

Things have been fun and are going well for Maurer’s first-year SJD student. Atta’s research interests in intellectual property and data privacy have motivated him to do an internship at CIBC. “I want to make sure my research is relatable to the outside world and make connections to professionals in my field of interest.” 

Atta is challenged by the fact that he is working on managing sensitive information and that CIBC is a multinational company that complies with various jurisdictions. This challenged Atta in preparing his internship applications. As a result, Atta updated his resume, wrote cover letters, and did LinkedIn searching for privacy-related internship opportunities. “I applied for more than 20 positions from September-November. “CIBC reached back to me, and I went through several interviews before getting accepted for the position” This adds to the Scribe Award Excellence in Legal Writing 2022 winner by Maurer School of Law.

Four thousand four hundred fifty-two miles from Bloomington, Indiana, Paola Gabriela Zaragoza Cardenales is currently doing her internship at the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. 

In fact, Paola, just defended her dissertation on May 4 in Puerto Rico’s, attempting to use geographic indications for economic development. She was motivated to  gain professional experience in WIPO.

The WIPO internship is open to students and graduates from around the world. The internship required Paola to not only be eligible for academic requirements but also information technology and language skills in several other WIPO working languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish, in addition to the main working languages of English and French.

The perks of working on an internship are that students can apply their academic skills in line with their interests. For example, with her research interest in intellectual property and corporate law, Paola thinks her internship would be beneficial to advancing her academic knowledge and experience. “I want to put my academic skills to practice by working in a department closely related to my field of specialization,” said Paola.

As doctoral students, both Paola and Atta have the advanced skill required. Paola’s responsibility during the internship is assisting in a collaborative pilot project between WIPO and the Economic Community of the Western African States (ECOWAS) and implementing a Designs Formalities project with the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), among others. At the same time, Atta is involved in researching new privacy regulations and guidelines, benchmarking privacy best practices, and implementing compliance. In addition, he works in the Privacy  Office, which is responsible for data privacy and security.

Challenges, however, came up during the internship application process. Not every employer reached out back to Paola and Atta with their decisions. Most hiring processes use artificial intelligence (AI) to filter  out applicants’ documents. Considering that SJD is not a popular degree as JD or LLM, SJD students risk not being selected, despite their advanced degree and skills.

Fortunately, those challenges were overcame by the support and resources available at Maurer School of Law. Academically, full support was given by Prof. Michael Mattioli and Prof. Norm Hedges through reference letters as Atta’s and Paola’s dissertation advisors, respectively.

Developing a resume, as Atta said, is one of the factors he got the internship. He received assistance from the Career  Service Office, using the resume sample provided to submit  his resume for  review. 

Both of them shared that LinkedIn has also been beneficial for them looking for internships. It helps them connect with professional networks, buildand resumes online, and connect the professionals through emails for networking.

Atta and Paola agree that their internships would also bring interdisciplinary and multicultural experiences as international students. Both of them work in multinational organizations and companies. Atta is ready to discuss how privacy compliance can be appropriately implemented, and Paola is looking forward to refining her academic skill and broadening her knowledge and perspective on intellectual property.

Author: Eka Putra
S.J.D. ‘2022, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

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