Summer Internship | Student Spotlight: Mariette Peltier – Office of the Attorney General

marietteCompany: Texas Office of the Attorney General
Position: Human Trafficking and Transnational Organized Crime (HTTOC) Section

Why did you decide to work at the Attorney General’s office?

By the fall of my junior year, I had decided that I was going to attend law school after graduation, with the intent of becoming a prosecutor. Since high school, I’ve been passionate about ending human trafficking, and in college, I’ve held leadership roles and participated in community organizations to this end. All that to say that I was looking for an internship at a government agency that was willing to take on an undergraduate student who was interested in practicing criminal law. If that internship was related to human trafficking, even better!

Ultimately, my decision to accept the OAG’s offer was a result of its specificity and its Austin location. At the OAG, I would be working within the Human Trafficking and Transnational Organized Crime Section, an area that was directly related to my passion; at the district attorney’s office, I would be placed in a particular section and then rotated through several other areas throughout the summer. At the end of the day, I believe that God led me to the place that he wanted me this summer, and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome!

Was there any one experience that stood out to you?

During the last week of my internship, one of the Assistant Attorney Generals in my section assisted in the prosecution of the first sex trafficking case in Corpus Christi. During the week-long trial, she was responsible for jury selection, the direct examination of the victim, the cross examination of the defendant, and the prosecution’s closing argument among a multitude of other tasks. Because I hope to become a sex crimes prosecutor after earning a law degree, observing an attorney that I admire and respect in the courtroom was an inspiring experience that I will never forget. My favorite part of the trial was the morning of voir dire (jury selection) – the process is a lot more exciting when you’re not the one being called for jury duty! On the last day of my internship, the jury convicted the defendant of Continuous Trafficking of Persons and sentenced him to 40 years in prison; this conviction was a tangible manifestation of the often-thankless time and effort that the attorneys expend to seek justice and was an encouraging way to end my time at the OAG.

What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in a similar industry?

Apply for positions that interest you even if you might not meet the qualifications for them. I applied to several internships that preferred graduate or law students, but I was interested in the agencies and felt that I met enough of the technical qualifications to apply. At a minimum, you put yourself on an agency’s radar screen for future opportunities, and you gain experience in interviewing. In the best case scenario, someone reading your application may decide to take a chance on you, and you could end up in an office working for people who have the career you aspire to. It happened to me!

Did the internship meet or supersede your expectations? How?

This internship definitely superseded my expectations, and I credit a large part of that to the attorneys that I was privileged to work for. As an undergraduate, I expected there to be a lot of tasks that I wasn’t qualified to complete, but my supervisors always found something meaningful for me to do and made me feel as though my work was valued. As the summer progressed, they trusted me with more responsibility, and as a result, I worked on tasks that I wouldn’t have expected to be trusted to perform until I entered law school.

I also didn’t expect to experience as much as I did during my time at the office. During my first week, one of the attorneys told me that she wanted me to have a weekly out-of-office learning experience. Because she was invested in my personal development as well as in the work that I could perform for her, I was able to hear oral arguments at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, attend a pre-trial hearing for a murder case, watch a Congressional hearing, observe parts of an aggravated burglary trial, and my boss’s entire sex trafficking trial. Having an internship where your supervisors care about your personal development beyond the value that you bring to the office can make or break an experience. This internship did more than simply supersede my expectations – it confirmed my dream of attending law school to seek justice in cases like these.

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