District Attorney Richard A. Brown addresses participants during one of the weekly lecture series that are part of the Queens District Attorney's Summer Intern Program. Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown last week announced that 120 law school and college students are participating in his 2009 Volunteer Summer Internship Program, which runs for 10 weeks.

"This is a hands-on internship program that my staff and I administer each summer," Brown explained. "It exposes students from law schools and universities who are interested in a career in law to the inner workings of a major prosecutor's office. The interns, who are now about midway through the program, assist in investigations, draft legal motions and briefs and have even attended lineups and visited crime scenes. Interns are assigned to various bureaus in the office, ranging from Intake and Gang Violence and Hate Crimes to Economic and Environmental Crimes and our Detective Bureau. They help prosecutors prepare for trial and those with accounting experience have assisted our forensic accounting staff. These are real-life experiences that cannot be replicated in the classroom."

The program, which this year began June 8, attracted more than 700 applicants. Some of the students receive grants or stipends, but the majority are volunteers. While some work part-time, the majority keep full-time business hours. Among the interns selected for this year's program are students from as nearby as the State and City Universities of New York and from as far away as the University of Southern California. Law students from local schools and across the country make up the majority of the interns.

As part of the annual program, Brown personally meets with the interns and recently answered many of their questions over a pizza lunch during which he thanked them for their service to his office and to Queens County.