Capitol Hill Externship Offers Arnold New Perspectives on Legislative Process

Jeff Arnold spent the summer working on Capitol Hill learning how legislation is proposed, assessed and drafted.  This dream job came through a new partnership the Center for Tax Law and Employee Benefits created with Thomas Reeder, a staff member with the United State Senate Finance Committee.

As one of three law clerks for the committee’s majority staff, Arnold worked with staff attorneys who are researching, meeting with lobbyists, reporting to legislators and helping draft legislation.

“It’s different from the law firm experience.  I really loved what I was doing, and the work was very interesting,” Arnold said. “I got to see how the very laws we argue about in class get drafted.”

A joint JD/LLM candidate in Employee Benefits, Arnold said he was part of meetings that deal with disability insurance policies and claims, small business retirement and health care packages, and tax policy that related to retirement funds.

Arnold found himself in the center of the debate about freezing interest rates on student loans when the Senate Finance Committee had to come up with a way to pay for the measure.

“Had I not agreed to work late, I would have missed the opportunity to help write a section of the joint conference report that gave comparative information on how the law will be changed,” he explained.  “The report was finished just in time to meet the midnight deadline.”

His efforts got him recognized in the Congressional Record by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and he got to hear President Obama in a ‘thank you’ phone call (via speaker-phone) to Baucus and his staff.

“This internship gave me a lot of confidence in myself as an attorney, and my legal education from John Marshall. I did the same job as law clerks from around the country and did it well,” Arnold said.

“And I have experience that I can use in the job market. I now understand how the bills are drafted and how important the language in the conference report is because it offers insights into what Congressional members intended,” he added.

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