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Brooke Mickelson
March 2008
Brooke Mickelson is a
second year law student
at the U of A. She
volunteered in the VLP
Bankruptcy Reaffirmation
Clinic last semester and
she will be helping
clients
in the Intake Clinic this
semester. Brooke was
selected as the VLP
Student of the Month because of the big impression she
made on staff, clients
and volunteer attorneys. Brooke’s thorough grasp of the
subject matter,
professionalism and dedication to the project made her an
exceptional volunteer in
the Bankruptcy Reaffirmation Clinic.
Brooke is
originally from West Bloomfield, Michigan. Her family moved to
Lufkin,
TX following her
college graduation and she spent a year living there before
moving to Arizona
to attend law school. While in Lufkin, Brooke earned her
Private Pilots
License. She trained on Piper Archers and Warriors and she is
certified to fly
Cessna 150’s. Brooke says “nothing beats being up in the air,
hearing only the
sound of the engine roar, and seeing the beautiful Catalina
Mountains.”
Unfortunately, as a busy law student, Brooke doesn’t get the
chance to fly very
often so instead she uses her free time to run or mountain
bike one of
Tucson’s many trails or to hit the gym. She’s also catching up
on past episodes
of Project Runway when she isn’t studying.
Brooke says that the experiences she has had during law school and
through
the
VLP have changed her view of our legal system. “Now that I’m in law
school
it’s
hard to remember how I used to view the legal system. I suppose
that I used
to
think of it as a somewhat unfair process where there is a winner and
a loser
and
no in-between. Now I see that’s not always the case, judges,
arbitrators
and
mediators want to make the best decision and be fair to the parties
involved,
and a
lot of times that means meeting somewhere in the middle.”
Brooke has been
fortunate to have two favorite professors at the U of A law
school: Professors
Kenney Hegland and Brent White. “I really enjoyed
Professor
Hegland’s contract class because he fostered a great learning
environment, which
made learning fun. I really enjoyed Professor White’s
civil procedure
class because he asked really interesting, probing questions
that made you
think deeply about civil procedure and the law in general.”
Brooke also states
that her dream job would be “any job that makes me
excited to wake up
in the morning, where I get to work with nice people
and feel like a
productive member of society. So far, I think that becoming
a litigator is the
ticket.”
When asked about her
experience with the VLP, Brooke comments:
“One of the most important things that I’ve learned from
volunteering at
the VLP is
how much of a difference I really can make in a person’s life.
I just did
not realize the impact that I could have by explaining complicated
legal
matters to others, or by simply being there to reassure them that
they were
going about things in the right way. Many of the people that I
worked with
were very thankful for my support, which is a great feeling.”
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Past Outstanding Volunteer
Student Awards |
