Good morning! First and foremost, on behalf of all the interns that have participated in the 2015 Atlanta Bar Association Summer Internship Program, it is my honor and privilege to deliver remarks this morning.
I am Archie Wilson, Jr. and I am a 2015 graduate of Dominion Christian High School in Marietta, Georgia. I will be attending Wesleyan University in Middletown, Wesleyan Connecticut in the fall as a Gates-Millennium Scholar as well as a Wide Receiver on the Wesleyan football team. I have been a two-time intern in this program. In my first summer, I interned at Gideon’s Promise with John Rapping and Illham Askia. This summer I interned at the law firm of Alston & Bird with Francine Shannon. I was thoroughly blessed to be able to intern at both Gideon's Promise and Alston & Bird under great supervisors and mentors.
Well, enough about me, these remarks are really a way for the 2015 Interns to acknowledge and thank all the people who invested in us this summer, the twenty-third straight summer for the Summer Law Internship Program. Every person in this room has been essential to our growth and development as interns, but also as people as we continue on our personal journeys.
First, I would like to thank the parents of the Interns. If you do not hear thank you enough from your own child, I am saying thank you for them on their behalf. Thank you for all the sacrifices you all have made for us this summer and just throughout our lives in general. Thank you for sacrificing sleep, time, and your gas money to make sure that we could succeed in this Internship Program. As teenagers, we do not thank you all enough for everything you do for us, but today we thank you for being our rocks and backbones throughout this whole summer.
Secondly, I would also like to thank all of the supervisors and mentors that we have worked with this summer. People always teach the phrase “pay it forward” and “give back” but many times people only do these things as periodic community service projects. There is nothing wrong with that if that is you! But the point I am making is that our supervisors and mentors live a lifestyle of “paying it forward.” These people, with all of their professional success, still have a special place in their hearts for students like us who want to chase our dreams but need someone to help guide us. Our supervisors and mentors are people who do not see this program as a six-week babysitting job but as a life-changing, mind-shaping opportunity to develop young talent and polish us into young professionals that can flourish in their fields of interest. Our supervisors and mentors have shown us how to be true professionals. We thank you for dedicating your precious and valuable time to the Interns. We are forever grateful.
I want to especially thank my own supervisor and mentor this summer, Francine Shannon, for teaching me so much and being so kind to me.
Thirdly, I would like to thank the law firms, corporations and sponsors who helped sponsor this program and made this Internship Program possible and allowing us to get paid. You have given the Interns such a terrific opportunity to learn and grow this summer. We thank you so much for allowing this program to be a paid internship because honestly the experience and the knowledge that we acquired alone is more than sufficient.
I would like to thank all the guest speakers for coming to our meetings to share your life stories with us and everything that they have experienced in their legal careers up to this point. We had speakers from many different areas of the law. We had former teachers, to current law students, former Interns in this program and even Harold Franklin, the President of the Atlanta Bar Association. We learned so much from all of you.
Finally, we would like to thank our coordinators Natasha Silas, Nekia Hackworth, Mariana Pannell and Wade Malone for all that you all have done for the Interns this summer. We thank you for taking eight weeks out of your spinning and always complex lives to coordinate this Internship Program. We cannot truly articulate our gratitude and we want you all to know that your time was much appreciated.
How many parents have asked your child how their day was at their Internship? How many got a one-word answer or a short response? Well, I am here to be your child’s work day translator. When your child said that their day was "good" it really means that I probably interviewed potential clients, visited court, made great strides on my legal projects I was given, met many interesting people around the office, had an engaging and educational dialogue with my mentor or I just really enjoyed being in a great legal and working environment or some or all of the above. Oh, did I mention I got a delicious free lunch?
If your child said that their day was "stressful", what they really mean is that they probably accepted one too many assignments, shredded an important document by accident, maybe they printed 300 copies of a document when only one was needed, maybe they locked themselves out of the office or spilled coffee on themselves or some or all of the above. That is what a "stressful" day entails in the eyes of an Intern.
If your child tells you that they are "tired," what they really mean is that everything that I mentioned previously in both the "good day" and the "stressful day" probably all happened today and now we see why our parents are frequently tired. With all of these life experiences, in between writing thank you letters to our speakers and weekly "Enrichment" which closely resembles what we call "Homework" during the school year, along with a 700 word Essay we had to write about a recent United States Supreme Court decision, needless to say we all learned a great deal and had a small taste of the real world as working individuals.
In conclusion, as I previously stated, I am a two-time intern and I am so proud of this Internship Program. In my first year, we had 40 interns and could barely fit in a room and we all thought that this was so many people. Now, look at this Internship Program just two years later, 49 interns strong and the Intern Program is just getting better and better each year. I will be proud to be an alumnus of this program and I cannot wait for my own chance to give back and be involved with this Internship Program in the future.
To my fellow Interns, I urge you to not forget this opportunity, this moment, and the people we have all met this summer. We are so fortunate and blessed to have been in the places we were in this summer and to experience what we did. I urge you to take this summer and use it as a springboard into your junior year or senior year in high school or freshman year in college. Let the lessons from this summer be used and applied in your everyday lives. Let this program give you confidence and reassurance that you will never be alone in your pursuits from now on.
I want to end with this quote. “If people are not laughing and scoffing at your dreams, they are not big enough.” My fellow interns dream big, reach high and know that wherever you go that you always be a part of this amazing Atlanta Bar Association family where the dreams that others may have scoffed at one day are not only encouraged but fostered towards success.
Thank you.
