"All students have strengths they can bring to service."

Recognizing that professional skills can have tremendous benefit for society, the Institute encourages graduate students to apply their expertise to help others. For law students Naomi and Akshay, this support meant an opportunity to do public service law clinics overseas. Naomi did her work in Ghana while Akshay served as a public defender in South Africa.

Both students say they met incredibly caring individuals, and that their time in Africa had a profound impact on their future paths. Akshay plans to go next to Madagascar to work on traditional knowledge intellectual property issues relating to sustainable development, and Naomi’s next public law service trip, to Argentina, was developed with help from the Institute.