Two FIU Law students earned judicial externship scholarships

Each year, FIU Law distributes more than $1.1 million scholarship dollars to students who meet certain standards and criteria.  One of the school’s most prestigious awards is the Judge Aaron B. Cohen Judicial Externship Scholarship Program.

The Judge Aaron B. Cohen Judicial Externship Scholarship Program provides students with the opportunity to be paid while ‘externing’ for a judge. Externships provide on-the-job real life experience outside the classroom.

Daniela Abratt and Franco Bacigalupo were FIU Law’s 2014 Judge Aaron B. Cohen Judicial Externship recipients.

With his scholarship stipend, Bacigalupo headed to Washington, D.C. where he worked for Judge Rudolph Contreras of the United States District Court in D.C. “D.C. is a lawyer’s paradise,” Bacigalupo shared. “The city is the center of everything – the Supreme Court, mega law firms, Congress, it’s all there.”

Abratt travelled to Tallahassee to work alongside Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles T. Canady where she “had the chance to see precedent in the making,” she said.

Working away from home meant that Bacigalupo and Abratt needed to pay for housing, transportationand other expenses. Earning the scholarship was the only option for them to have this time experience.

“D.C. is very expensive, so winning this scholarship allowed me to focus on the job at hand and not worry about how I would make ends meet,” Bacigalupo shared. For Abratt, the scholarship enabled her to pursue a once-in-a-lifetime experience and helped her practice the type of work she most enjoys.

For three months, Bacigalupo and Abratt worked alongside other interns and law clerks and, of course, with their respective judges. Bacigalupo worked on drafting memorandum opinions and took his responsibilities seriously. “I was oftentimes the last person to leave the office at the end of the day,” he shared. Abratt performed in-depth research, edited opinions, and drafted recommendation memoranda regarding whether the Supreme Court had jurisdiction to hear a case.

The externship experience further solidified Abratt’s interest in attaining a clerkship upon graduation. In the meantime, she is focused on her studies and in her extra-curricular activities that include serving as the Comments/Articles editor of the FIU Law Review and in her role as Secretary of the Board of Advocates Appellate Advocacy Moot Court team where she helped to develop the legal problem and bench brief for the 12^th Annual Intramural Moot Court Competition.

Bacigalupo envisions a future in government and this experience gave him more motivation to get started on his career. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the FIU Law Review and participated in an international arbitration competition this summer that was held in Lima, Peru.

Judge Cohen passed away earlier this year. FIU Law is grateful for the legacy he left behind.