Camp Quinones summer internship program perseveres despite COVID-19

August 31, 2020 Rob Abruzzese

Judge Joanne Quinones was worried that this year's Camp Quinones annual reunion wasn't going to be as successful as usual, but the online format allowed former interns from out-of-state and those who might otherwise be too busy studying for the bar exam to attend. Screenshot via Zoom

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Judge Joanne Quinones typically starts hiring her summer interns around March, which means that this year she had to plan for their programs when she didn’t even know if the courts would be open at all.

It certainly led to some confusion, and she ultimately didn’t hire as many interns as she normally would have in a typical year, but it was something she was determined to continue even during such uncertainty.

“It’s extremely important, particularly in times like this because you have to keep their practical education going,” Judge Quinones said. “They’re going to school, but unless they see and meet lawyers and judges in person, unless you actually see people litigating firsthand it’s hard to turn that into practical knowledge.”

Hon. Joanne Quinones explained that despite the challenges created by the pandemic, her team found creative ways to help their interns connect their law school education to the real world. Photo: Rob Abruzzese/Brooklyn Eagle

Many of Judge Quinones’ law school students have never been inside a courtroom at all when she first meets them. Judge Quinones is still going to court every day, hearing cases virtually from her chambers, but the interns cannot accompany her because they are not considered essential employees. So the judge had to get creative with their programming.

“We prepared a lot more lectures this summer for the court interns that we had in previous years,” Judge Quinones said. “We gave them an opportunity to hear how arraignments work. The problem-solving courts, the judicial institute program and Justice Lawrence Knipel’s office coordinated a series of lectures as well.”

Judge Quinones typically takes at least 10 interns a summer, but this year she had just seven. Some of the creative ways she kept them busy included having them sit in on some of her virtual hearings. She also gave them transcripts of past trials, had them study the cases, and asked them to deliberate as if they were jurors to decide on the law. Afterward, they discussed the legal issues in the case and had the students prepare writing samples.

“I was upset that I couldn’t do what we normally do, but we were still able to expose them to a lot of different styles of lawyers,” Judge Quinones said. “The writing sample is important because they do that in school, but they all write about the same case in school. This way when they go to apply for their next internship, their writing sample will stand out more.”

At the end of July, Judge Quinones hosted her annual “Camp Quinones” event where she invited all of her past and current interns to the court for a party. This year the program was conducted over Zoom, but that allowed her to host more past interns than usual.

“Camp Quinones gives all of the interns an opportunity to learn from one another, see former interns who they worked with who have gotten jobs, and they can talk about common issues they’re facing,” Judge Quinones said. “They have all befriended each other so they want to see what each other are up to, how they’re handling certain things. With a few of them taking the bar exam remotely, there was a lot of discussion about that.

“It was important to bring them back together to show I’m still there for them, we’re still going to meet and a pandemic is not going to keep us down,” Quinones said.