Graduate Earns White House Internship

In addition to assisting the Counsel's Office with legal research, writing, analysis, and advising the Vice President on legal matters, Baker also participates in activities sponsored by the White House Internship Program, including a weekly speaker series featuring White House senior staff members and a long-term service project working with students in D.C. public high schools.

Baker applied for the internship when she learned that her start date at O'Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C., where she had secured a job offer after completing a summer associate position in 2008, would be deferred for several months due to the economic downturn. Baker was in the Dorraine Zief Library studying for the bar exam when she learned that she had earned the opportunity to participate in the highly selective internship program. "The week I found out was maybe the least productive week of studying I've had in three years of law school," Baker said. "I was checking my phone and email religiously."

She hopes her experience at the White House will give her greater insight into government lawyering, and she plans to join O'Melveny and Myers in 2010.

"Whatever I end up doing at the White House, I know that the experience will be an incredible one, and I am so grateful for such an extraordinary opportunity," Baker said. "I know that the skills I learn in the Internship Program and the contacts I make in D.C. will be invaluable no matter where my legal career leads in the future."

Read about Baker's path to the law and the White House in "Fortuitous Furlough," published in The New Lawyer supplement to the Daily Journal.

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