ILRie Interns With U.S. District Court Judge

Alex Herazy ’25 spent the fall semester interning with U.S. District Court Judge The Honorable Richard Berman ’64 of the Southern District Court of New York as part of ILR’s Credit Internship Program. Herazy describes his internship as a life-changing experience that solidified his passion for the law and criminal justice reform. 

Herazy transferred into the ILR School after his freshman year from the College of Arts & Sciences. ILR’s opportunities and hands-on learning approach aligned strongly  with his goal of being a lawyer, he said. 

Herazy credits Professor Michael Gold’s Labor & Employment Law class for preparing him for his internship. He appreciated the foundational skills the class taught him that caused him to grow tremendously intellectually and as a writer, growth that followed him in his real-life application of these skills in his credit internship. Herazy notes how something as simple as not italicizing the comma after writing a court case name was something he learned in Gold’s class that he used during his internship. 

Herazy describes his time with Judge Berman as tremendously impactful. He explored his interest in criminal justice reform and observed what practicing law at such a high level was like. He speaks fondly of the opportunity to sit in on the highly publicized Sam Bankman-Fried trial. 

On campus, Herazy is a Meinig Scholar, the Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell Undergraduate Law and Society Review, and a Research Assistant for the ILR School’s Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative. Last summer, he was a 2023 High Road fellow and worked for New York State Assemblymember Alex Bores ’13. 

Herazy hopes to go to law school and be a judge one day. The most meaningful part of his credit internship, he said, was seeing the role judges could play in criminal justice reform. Herazy saw how judges could use their platform for good by promoting restorative, rehabilitative justice in measures such as supervised release. He expresses immense gratitude toward Judge Berman. “He does such impactful, important work and it has really helped me discover an interest in criminal justice and better understand how judges can be a driver of criminal justice reform,” Herazy says.