Jaxon Kulp – Law Internship

I’m Jaxon and I currently attend Garden Spot as a Junior in my second semester. This semester, I took advantage of an opportunity offered to all upperclassmen to enroll in the internship program offered at school. I am currently working through a semester-long internship with Smoker Gard Associates LLP, which is a law firm here in New Holland. Many may think of a lawyer and immediately get the image of someone presenting evidence to a judge or jury to prove their client innocent, but there is much more. SGA (Smoker Gard Associates) handles mainly estate law – which can range from buying a house to having your will written to starting a business, and more.

Much of what I do day to day consists of sitting at a computer and managing a lot of papers and files. What Nicole (my mentor) had me start with was a file management task. I worked with Ashley (the file clerk at SGA) as she taught me how to complete the task of entering client matter sheets into an online database called LegalFiles. Client matter sheets are papers that give an initial opening of a new file for a client.  Whenever a client matter sheet is started, and a file has been opened between the client and the law firm, every single transaction, paper printed or sent or received, meeting, etc. must be recorded as per insurance and liability relief. Much of what I do, is take old and closed files and make sure they are accounted for online. I will enter in an existing file to LegalFiles, find the scanned documents on SGA’s personal drive, and make sure that all the data entered in, or is being entered in, is correct.

One of the secondary tasks that I do at SGA is to write letters that are sent out to clients. Some examples of letters that could get sent out are letters to families in Lancaster that have just had a baby – but are not pre-existing clients, letters to remind people to re-enroll in Clean and Green, letters with a reimbursement check for legal fees, etc. The majority of the letters that I have written and sent out are letters to Clean and Green clients that need to remember to re-enroll and send proof of income. Clean and Green is a program in Pennsylvania that allows one to be exempt from a large portion of land tax if that land is either proven to be producing more than $2,000 a year from agricultural business such as farming cattle or growing crops or is over ten acres of land devoted to agricultural purposes like farming or logging. Now, when I send out a letter, I am sending out a bunch of letters, so there is a process that needs to take place to stay organized. I rewrite a template letter with the correct name, address, file number, and tax parcel ID number. After that, I write up a proof of income paper that the client will fill out and return to SGA. Once everything is in order, I make copies of all the letters, scan them into LegalFiles, put the hard copies in the hard files, and send out the letters to the clients. For the clients that return a POI (proof of income), a separate letter is sent to the Clean and Green administrator from SGA to validate the Clean and Green eligibility. For those that have not returned it by a certain date, another letter is sent out, identical to the first but with a “second notice” emphasized.

Overall, I would consider my internship at SGA to be going well thus far. Sure, filing papers isn’t the ideal experience maybe one would be looking for, but there is so much that I have learned, and have yet to learn while working at SGA. With the tentative placement of a temporary file clerk, I began to pick up patterns, and understand why laws are in place. I began to understand what all goes into writing a will. I began to understand why it may take so long for someone to buy or sell a house, or why it goes so quickly. I began to understand what all goes into starting a business or selling all of the assets of that business. I know that I don’t want to be a lawyer or be involved with a legal career in the future, but everything that I have been learning over the past few months is all information I will take with me into my adulthood, and hopefully use to my benefit – whether I am starting my own business, buying or selling properties, or just getting ready to write a will or set up a power of attorney. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to work under Nicole and for the opportunities offered to students here at Garden Spot to enhance their “everyday” learning.