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Madeline Culberson, a Rising 3L, is working at the Disability Rights Center of New Hampshire this summer. 

(The following excerpts from a recorded interview have been edited for clarity and brevity.)

On the work of DRCNH: 

The Disability Rights Center of New Hampshire is the Protection & Advocacy (P&A) agency for the State of New Hampshire. We are an organization that was created by Congress to facilitate the ability of people with disabilities to gain access to legal services. We have investigative authority, which means that we can go in and investigate accusations of abuse and neglect for agencies that deal with people with disabilities. We also do individual litigation and legislative advocacy. So basically, anything that has to do with improving the lives of disabled people through the law – that's what we're tasked with. 

The saying goes – “If you’ve met one person with a disability, you've met one person with a disability.” It's far from simple work, but I like how, as an intern, you can really dig in deep and just crunch and learn an area of law that's specifically tailored to one population. It’s what makes my brain tick.

On her work there this summer: 

I think people too often forget that behind every legislative success, behind every headline, there's a group of people who then thereafter have to fight to make sure that those words mean something – that whatever laws are passed mean something.  What's really grabbed my interest so far is seeing the process of how these people fight for justice. And even when the battle is already won, it's still not – because then you have to individually go out for these causes and for these people, litigate their rights, and keep advocating for them in the legislature. It's been an amazing thing to be a part of.

The project that I'm most involved with right now is the “Voting Rights Project” under the Help Americans Vote Act. It's designated for Protection & Advocacy agencies to facilitate the ability of people with disabilities to be able to have accessible polling places and to be able to vote absentee.  This is particularly interesting to me because I went into my undergrad for political science, and I've been a ballot clerk for nearly a decade now, so being able to peel back the covers and look into this part of the law on accessibility and voting and really work with people, it’s been incredible. 

On her goals for the summer: 

So far, the work that I've done has been general: getting situated, doing a lot of legal memos, a lot of legal research, and some records review for some investigations we're doing into a few of the disability systems throughout New Hampshire. But I think what I'm really looking forward to as the internship goes on – and what my supervisors have said that they're excited to make me a part of – is, as we get closer to the midterm elections, we're going to go out to nursing homes and other facilities and communicate with disabled voters, because it's super important that everyone has the right to vote. I think it's going to be an incredible experience to go out, actually get my feet on the ground, and talk to people.