Proud of Our Own

Congratulations to Michael R. Boland, Jr., a 2007 summa cum laude graduate of Penn State's Dickinson School of Law and Editor-in-Chief of the Penn State Law Review. In the fall of 2008, Michael will begin a one year clerkship with the Honorable D. Brooks Smith in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Michael interned in Judge Smith's chambers as a law student and is currently an associate at Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia.

Michael was preceded by Rachael Goldfarb, a 2006 Penn State Dickinson alum who interned for Judge Smith as a student, clerked for the Federal District Court in Philadelphia, and most recently clerked for Judge Smith in the Third Circuit. Rachael currently works at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as Special Assistant to the President in the Global Health Division.

The most prestigious alum featured in this post is Judge Smith himself, a 1976 Penn State Dickinson alum and recent appointee to the law school's Board of Counselors. President George W. Bush nominated Judge Smith to the Third Circuit in 2001, who received a "well qualified" rating by the ABA and was confirmed by the Senate in 2002. This came on the heels of the Judge serving twelve years in the District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania after President Reagan nominated him in 1988.

Judge Smith's career clerk, Dawn Svirkso, is another Penn State Dickinson alum, again from the pre-PSU days. Both the Judge and Dawn are tremendously caring, intelligent, and sincere people who are a credit to this institution and priceless to Third Circuit jurisprudence.