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Jennifer Crutchfield
October 2008
The VLP is pleased
to announce
that Jennifer
Crutchfield has been
chosen as our
Outstanding Law
Student Volunteer
for October.
Jen is a second
year law student
at the U of A and
our newest
Student
Coordinator – taking over
for former Student
Coordinator, Erin
Fox, in the Child
Support Clinic.
Jen was also a top
notch volunteer
in our Domestic
Relations Clinic
during her first
year of law school.
Jen is just one of
those people who
exude enthusiasm,
passion and
energy and we are
thrilled that she will be a part of the VLP team for the next two
years.
Jen is originally
from Scottsdale, Arizona but she considers herself to be a true
California girl at
heart. She attended Loyola Marymount University as an
undergrad where
she was captain of her local Catholic Guilt Improv team.
In 2006, she
received her B.A. in Psychology with minors in Political Science
and Women
Studies. According to Jen, this degree left her with “no
choice but
to go
to grad school if I ever wanted a job.” Since arriving at the U of
A’s law
school, Jen has become a big fan of Professor
Jane Korn. “She
made me
excited to learn
Civil Procedure and I think that really says something.”
Jen believes that
her experiences in law school and the VLP have given her a
deeper
understanding of the law. “I
have always thought that the legal system
had
its heart in the right place but sometimes gets lost in its goals,
and I still
essentially feel
that way, but now I am just more knowledgeable about it.”
When she isn’t
volunteering with VLP, Jen is a very busy woman managing to
find the time to act as
an Ares Fellow (a mentor to underclassmen selected
by professors) and to
participate in the law school’s Community Service board,
Law Women’s Association,
and Phi Alpha Delta.
Jen joined the VLP
because she wanted to continue to be active in community
service – a tradition
that she began as an undergrad. The skills she acquired
as a VLP volunteer have
been put to good use during her first summer of legal
work. She just finished
working as a student advocate in the prestigious Wilmer
Hale Legal Services
Disability Clinic at Harvard Law School. Jen says that she
realized while working in
this Clinic that “the client interaction skills I learned
doing VLP were
invaluable.”
Jen is a high
energy kind of gal. In her free time, she enjoys rock climbing,
eating, and
traveling as often as possible. Her only preference in her travels
is
that she must go
somewhere that “isn’t in Arizona.” Jen’s favorite restaurant is
Brooklyn’s Pizza,
which is fortunate when you consider how often college
students eat
pizza. When asked what her dream job is, Jen replies, “my dream
job changes pretty
much every month depending on what book I am reading at
the time, but
currently I want to be a prosecutor on international war crimes.”
And in those rare
moments when Jen just wants to sit back and relax, she finds
herself watching
The West Wing, Law & Order, The Office and
South Park.
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Past Outstanding Volunteer
Student Awards |
