A Day at the Supreme Court: TAP Alumni Build Community
This past February, 28 TAP alumni spent a day in Washington, D.C. that many of them will carry for the rest of their careers. Beginning over coffee and conversation at Ebenezers Coffeehouse, the day concluded inside the U.S. Supreme Court, where participants had the incredible honor to meet Justice Sonia Sotomayor and her law clerks.
Building Community Before the Court
The day started with alumni gathering for a structured speed networking session with TAP volunteers, rotating through tables and connecting with practitioners and advocates who have navigated the appellate pathway themselves.
"The self-advocacy piece has a huge role in getting yourself into appellate spaces," said Ana Builes, a staff attorney at Public Justice and TAP alumna. "I've been very fortunate in my career that I've had mentors who have really taken a shot on me, and when I've done well in those spaces, also took a role in not just mentoring me, but recommending me to their peers as well."
Ana noted that TAP's structure creates a space and culture where it's easier for young professionals, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, to self advocate and ask for that mentorship, where it might otherwise feel intrusive or inaccessible.
Inside the Court
After the morning session, the group made its way to the Supreme Court. Alumni had the opportunity to share a meal, take a private tour of the building, and meet Justice Sotomayor and her law clerks.
What’s At Stake
Samantha Maltais, a judicial law clerk and TAP alumna, reflected on the broader significance of events like this one.
"Events like today are the ways in which we are able to connect with people in TAP who want to see us succeed," she said. "Being able to have a community of people that believe that it's important to have diversity among appellate attorneys is really unique about TAP."
For Samantha, the stakes of appellate representation are never abstract. As a Native attorney, she has spent her career in cases where the consequences of a single ruling extend across entire tribal communities.
"Our past and our presents and our futures are being debated by individuals who are excellent litigators, but so often don't have the experiences of living the consequences of those actions," she said. "That's why I pursued appellate litigation, to be part of the people who are shaping those decisions."
Ana, whose path to law was shaped by her own experience as an immigrant and years of legal work with detained mothers and children, brought the same conviction.
"It's really important that there is diversity of lived thought and lived experience in appellate spaces," she said, "because the way that those decisions impact what seems like abstract issues impact real life people. That can't be understood unless you've lived it before."
The Work Continues
The benefits of days like this one don't begin and end at the event. They live on in the relationships formed, in the clarity that comes from seeing yourself inside a space you'd only imagined, and in the accomplishments alumni achieve throughout their careers. At the event, TAP alumnus and Baker McKenzie associate Kendrick Peterson, shared that he secured a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals clerkship. TAP alumna and Hausfeld LLP associate Annabelle Emuze, shared that after attending TAP's event with the National Foundation for Judicial Excellence in 2024, she was inspired to pursue a state appellate clerkship.
This is what opening doors looks like in practice — not a single moment, but a chain of them, each one made possible by the last.
