One aspect of my internship that I absolutely loved more than anything was that not only did I have the opportunity to do some very important work for a government internship but I was able to do that work and connect with lawyers across the United States.
Many of the clients that we dealt with in OFAC were represented by attorneys and most of my days required for me to call and and discuss areas of the cases with them. It was by far the most stressful but most eye opening experience I could have had the opportunity to be a part of. I had a new perspective to government work and with lawyers from across the country.
The most interesting thing for me would be that the attorneys or their paralegals had absolutely no idea I was just and intern, which made me feel that much more important. It was necessary for us to make sure that either the people that had sent in license requests were either represented or explicitly stated that they were representing themselves. On top of having to call attorneys we also had to come in contact with the actual clients.
The portion in which contacting the clients was always the most difficult. The clients we dealt with were in most cases immigrants and could not speak English too well. This instilled in me a great deal more patience and much more understanding for a different culture. Language barriers were by far the hardest portion of the internship.
Overall my experience and day to day duties made for an interesting outlook. I have always known that I was either going to work in government or become a lawyer, so to be able to interact and be a part of both at the age of 20 was exciting. It definitely did not make my decision as to what I really wanted to pursue any easier though.
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