NCLA Internship Spotlight

Max Alter

Summer Clerk

Law School: Cornell Law School

Expected Graduation: 2024

Hometown: Carmel, IN

Campus Activities: Corporate Connect, Intellectual Property and Technology Students Association, Sports and Entertainment Law Society

Hobbies: Singing, playing the guitar, listening to music, studying foreign languages

What were your duties as an NCLA intern? I researched legal issues in anticipation of litigation and wrote corresponding memoranda for senior attorneys.

What did you most enjoy about your internship? I enjoyed the opportunity to learn every day by researching numerous topics, spanning from free speech and privacy to due process and deference. The law is unfathomably deep, but learning how it affects real people and acting upon that knowledge are gratifying.

What interesting thing(s) did you learn about Administrative Law? Administrative agencies, not Congress, do most federal lawmaking today.

How might you use what you’ve learned later in your professional career? My newfound familiarity with administrative law—its origin and structure and the Code of Federal Regulations, for example—will help me navigate and solve issues spanning the many fields of law that involve regulation. I also became a more efficient researcher and writer through practice.

Any advice for other students who want to intern at NCLA in the future? Learn to craft strong keyword searches in Westlaw and Lexis. In the same vein, learn to navigate both sites well.

Publications: 
+ The Other Cause of Congressional Inaction