2023 CLEA Student Awards for Clinics and Externships: Brooklyn’s Joseph Cairo

The Clinical Legal Education Association invited law schools to nominate students as their Outstanding Clinic Student or Team and Outstanding Externship Student. This series includes submissions from law schools celebrating their outstanding students.

Brooklyn’s Outstanding Externship Student: Joseph Cairo

This year’s recipient of the Brooklyn Law School Outstanding Externship Student Award is Joseph Cairo ‘23. While at BLS, Joe completed three semesters of externship work on behalf of three different field placements—ArtWorks Legal Incubator, Ametaek Aerospace & Defense, and the Honorable Cathy L. Waldor, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the District of New Jersey. The diversity of these placements exemplifies the value of externships in training law students across the many dimensions of practice, and Joe excelled in all: direct legal services, corporate compliance work, and judicial chambers support. Quickly recognizing Joe as “self-motivated and autonomous,” his supervisors assigned him challenging, sophisticated projects that extended to strategizing with clients, presenting comments to regulatory agencies, and drafting judicial opinions. In their formal evaluations of his work, Joe’s supervisors described him as “a joy to host” who “consistently gave more than was required with a high level of professionalism.” They uniformly remarked on Joe’s “stellar” research and writing skills. One supervisor summed it up: “Joe’s genuine curiosity in and interest about the law was refreshing. He brought an infectious enthusiasm to his assignments.” Joe also excelled in the externship program’s corequisite seminars, earning the respect of his classmates for good humor and thoughtfulness. As an emissary to the legal profession, he represented the best of Brooklyn Law School, and we are proud to honor him with this award.