Aaron Gushin, class of 2019, is one of 14 new fellows to join Gideon's Promise Law School Partnership Project. Mr. Gushin said that after working in the Arlington Public Defender's Office he loved the experience and knew that this profession is where he belonged. Mr. Gushin, will be joining the Richland County Public Defender Office in Columbia, South Carolina and will be a part of the 2019 Core 101 class. "What attracted me to Columbia, South Carolina was a very enjoyable 1L summer I spent interning for a [judge] at the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina and the interview process itself," said Gushin. "I have found the people of the city to be very open and welcoming and look forward to working there." He has extensive intern experience working in the legal industry. He has been a Legal Intern for the Arlington County Office of the Public Defender and a Judicial Intern for the United States District for the District of South Carolina.
Gideon's Promise's sole mission is to build a movement of public defenders who will provide equal representation to clients in vulnerable communities. "That sense of community and the chance to fulfill that dream of making the impossible possible both for individual clients and for the criminal justice system at large is exactly what I hope to achieve with the help of Gideon's Promise," said Mr. Gushin.
Through the generous support of partner law schools, the Law School Partnership Project (LSPP) places graduating 3Ls into the Gideon's Promise 3-year Core 101 training program and the pipeline toward public defender office leadership. LSPP allows third-year law students the opportunity to receive experience on the front lines of criminal justice reform with one of the partner offices that may not otherwise be able to hire a talented, recent law school graduate. These fellows are placed in offices where the communities are under-resourced and underfunded and where they can begin to change the culture of a system to one that focuses on providing a more equitable justice system.